It takes five seconds: Source: University of Washington Please don’t be lazy like Kim when she first proofread this. Try this quick exercise to see your blind spot. And like a coddling mother, it protects your fragile identity from the pain of cognitive dissonance with self-justifying excuses and confirmation bias.īut if you let your brain rampantly lie to you those blind spots will become nasty stains and you’ll live in a Jackson Pollock-esque perception of reality.
Your brain creatively fills in the gaps to protect you from crippling doubt and indecision. Like a kid tampering with their report card to make a D look like a B before showing it to their parents, your brain has a mischievous tendency to hide the truth from you. “The brain is designed with blind spots, optical and psychological, and one of its cleverest tricks is to confer on us the comforting delusion that we, personally, do not have any.” Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) Asking other people can help you open your mind.
Keep it in your pants cartoon crack#
It’s not as easy as you’d think, but it prevents dogmatism and opens a crack in your strongly-held opinions that helps you be more open-minded. What would change my mind: Strong evidence that doing so causes some sort of urinary tract or bladder issues or that sitting on the toilet seat is so dirty that I’m better off avoiding it (which it isn’t). Example #2:īelief: Men should pee sitting down at home. What would change my mind: A study finding that news junkies in similar professions to mine are somehow better off-whether that be increased creativity, productivity, or improved social interactions-than people like me who don’t bother with the news. What fact would change one of your strongly-held beliefs?īelief: Following the news is counter-productive. So get started by saying, “You were right. Makes the smarty-pants you had to admit it to happy.Means you’ve learned something new, and,.I was wrong,” becomes less painful over time. Unlike walls, our ego softens so saying, “You were right. Punching a wall hurts less.īut punching a wall will always hurt. Most of us have punched a wall out of frustration more recently than we’ve said those six words in that order. Then try wrapping your head (or unwrapping it?) around these next two: When was the last time you told someone, “You were right. If you haven’t already put some thought into the question from the intro, “When was the last time you changed your mind?” please do. Then maybe try something a little bit heavier like this: Why 5 x 3 = 5 + 5 + 5 Was Marked Wrong. The spiciest part of chili peppers isn’t the seeds.įor more proof you aren’t as smart as you think, scroll through Wikipedia’s extensive list of common misconceptions.Get the blood flowing and work up a little bit of sweat with some easy mind-changers. Surprising facts and being wrong can warm up your mind for stretching it open.
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