People have become so dogmatic these days that they convince themselves that they are right as this feeling of being right gives them a sense of self-worth.
We all know how it feels when we are right, when we have the right ideas and the right plans to execute it. However, with changing times, if we stick to our so called dogmatic right ideas, it can only paint us into a corner as the world around us is not only changing but also adapting. This is precisely why valuing ourselves for being right becomes a trap. As rightly quoted by James R. Lowell, “The Foolish and the Dead Alone Never Change Their Opinion!”
If you want to win and level-up your life, thinking of yourself as a smart one, is a trap. I know how great it feels when you are right, when you have the right ideas and it goes out and you win, but we should remember that the very thing that makes humans, the ultimate apex predator, is our tendency to adapt.
Charles Darwin once said,
“It is not the strongest of the species that survive nor the most intelligent but rather the most adaptive to change.”
If you are the one who wants to win anything and everything in life, you should be willing to change. You should be willing to seek out dis-conforming evidence for something that you have got a hunger for.
You have to literally invite people into your world that are going to point out flaws in your thinking, mainly because your thinking has already taken you as far as it’s going to and now it is time to go even further.
Now, if you want to go farther, if you want to get to the next level, you have got to stop valuing yourself so much. Instead, you need the right people or a mind of your own to point out all the wrongs in you – when you are right, when you are wrong. Moreover, you have got to value yourself entirely on your willingness to admit that you are wrong. You have got to value yourself on your willingness to learn, you have got to value yourself on your willingness to sit humbly at somebody’s feet and seek their wisdom.
Do not try to be a hero but instead try to be the one that collects the knowledge. When you can flip into that, when you can value yourself for a willingness to stare nakedly at your own inadequacies, you will start to make progress in life – no matter how far you have gotten, no matter how much you have won, no matter how certain you are, no matter how much the things you have done in your life have proven to be correct.
As Charlie Mungar says,
“You must force yourself to consider arguments on the other side.”
You can always reject them. You can always look at it and really think about it and say, at the end of the day, it is just not correct. But when you are trying to hold onto your ideas simply because they are your ideas or simply because they worked in the past or simply because you like them, you will fall into the trap of dogma and you will no longer be able to see fresh ideas and move in new directions. But if you are willing to acknowledge that this world is constantly changing, that this world is constantly moving and the only thing true about the future always in forever is that things change, you’ll be able to move with the pace. However, if your thinking doesn’t change, you will never be able to keep up.
So, if you want to do something extraordinary with your life, step number one, always seek out that dis-confirming evidence. Always look at arguments from the other side. If you are able to do that, then you will always be able to stay ahead of the curve and ageing won’t be a problem because you can stay fresh in your mind. You become invincible when you bend and you do not break. And that’s what this kind of mindset will allow you to have. So, if you want to win and level-up your life, stop thinking about how you are right, and start asking how you are wrong.
This article is inspired and written on the lines of Tom Bilyeu’s motivational video – Being Wrong is Awesome – Here’s Why.
