How often do you rethink your beliefs?

Since time immemorial we’ve been thought that we should have strong opinions and be confident in our beliefs. That worked in the past where World was more stable than now. Nowadays we need to adjust quickly to get the best out of our lives. The best way to do this is to start exploring if what we’ve always believed is still true. 

Adam Grant in this book “Think again” presents few personalities from which we usually take on when we think and talk:

• Preacher – we try to preach to protect our beliefs when they are in jeopardy
• Prosecutor – we try to prove someone is wrong when we see flaws in their reasoning
• Politician – we campaign for approval when we want to win over our audience.

Those personalities don’t allow us to doubt the status quo and question what we already know which leads to new discoveries.

When we certain we know something, we won’t look for gaps in our thinking and for sure won’t rethink our assumptions. We hold on to our core beliefs and the moment someone questions them we become defensive. Beliefs are part of our identities that’s why we protect them so much. And we will protect our self-image even if it means lying to ourselves. It is interesting because it is easy for us to spot weakness in someone else’s argument, but not so easy in our own. It’s mostly due to the fact that we look for the information that confirms our opinion and we surround ourselves with people who agree with us, hence validate our way of thinking. If you want to change that detach your opinions from your identity. Mastering the art of detachment and surrounding yourself with people who hold different opinions will allow you to manage your life easier if it is changing direction and/or you are changing as a person. As the author of the books says “Who you are should be a question of what you value, not what you believe.“ Values are your core principles in life and basing your identity on them enables you to remain open-minded about the best ways to advance them.

The next step to rethinking is looking at your confidence or perhaps I should say overconfidence in your knowledge. Some people believe that they are smarter and more capable than they really are, they overestimate their knowledge and behave as they are an expert in a particular field. This is a type of cognitive bias called the Dunning-Kruger effect. We think we know more than we actually know. We’re trying to paint a picture in front of the others so we look good, which by the way it’s our egos talking. The only time we won’t fall to this cognitive bias is when we are a novice in the field. At that time you have zero knowledge in the particular area, hence you won’t believe you know more than experts in that field. The situation changes when you start to be an amateur and gain a bit of knowledge.

The easiest way to show how little we know is to ask questions about how something works. Take one of the examples from the book: piano. Ask yourself or someone: How does a piano key make music? Truth to be told if you ask that question you realise how little you know about the mechanism. That can prompt you or the person you asked the question to realise we don’t have in-depth knowledge, and that consequently can trigger rethinking.

What we actually want is to achieve a mix of confidence and humility. To be confident enough to believe you have the ability to achieve your goal, but humble enough to question if you have the right tools at the moment to do so. That gives us the power to re-examine and challenge our assumptions.

If you want to ensure you are challenged to rethink your assumptions:

• whenever you form an opinion ask yourself what would have to happen to prove you false and keep track of your views to see when you were right, when wrong and how your thinking has evolved.
• find a group of people that will point out your blind spots – they will “force” you to rethink what you know by doubting your knowledge.
• participate in the constructive conflict - reframe dispute into a debate so the participants can become more receptive to considering different opinion and to changing mind and won’t take it personally.

But what if we want to open other people’s mind? We all know how difficult it is to change yourself, not to mention changing someone else. In all honesty, we rarely motivate someone else to change, most of the time the person has to find the motivation within. More often than not we want to fix someone’s problems and offer answers but we will achieve a better outcome if we become a guide for the other person. A great way to do it is by motivational interviewing. I’ve heard that name for the first time while reading the book, but the concept is very familiar to me. The process of motivational interviewing consists of:

• Asking open-ended questions, which allows others to see new possibilities, e.g.

o  What would change your mind?

o  How originally you formed that opinion?

• Engaging in reflective listening - when considering change people will have reasons for change and reasons against it, therefore ask them how and why they consider the change.
• Affirming the person’s desire and ability to change
• Summarising - recap on what you understood and ask the other person about their plan and initial steps, so that they will move in the direction they chose.

Our beliefs are the glasses we see the world through. If someone comes and want to change them we automatically put our guard up and are ready to defend it no matter what. Even if deep down we know our assumptions are false instead of trying to change them we twist the reality and look for even the slightest sign of confirmation so that our belief stays intact.

Challenging our beliefs might not be the most welcomed tasks, it forces us to step onto the unknown territory where we don’t feel confident. Try to approach such confusion with curiosity and interest. See it as new land to be explored and start with simple questions to challenge yourself:

• How do I know?
• What led me to that assumption?
• Why do I think it is correct?
• What might happen if it’s wrong?