Changing our minds

Why don’t we celebrate changing our minds? Is there any greater signal that we’re capable of learning and growing?

As adults, we seem to go on & on about the importance of being a life-long learner; it’s such a common refrain in the workplace.

But what does this really mean? Because other than learning new technical skills - those things that people can ‘see’ or which produce something - we don’t seem to really value learning. If we did, I think we’d be more appreciative of when people change their mind about something.

To me, this is a clear sign that someone is actually able to learn. Not just absorb information - but do something hard with new knowledge.

Because when we change our mind, we’re admitting that what we thought before might not be correct. Or - even better - we’ve learned something new that we think is better than what we knew before.

WOW!!! Mind blown. Admitting that we’re wrong?! Something might be better than what we think now?! Unheard of. (That’s the end of the sarcasm streak).

Because seriously, how often to we hear about people admitting they’ve learned something new that changed their mind - let alone admit they were wrong?

There’s a bunch of reasons behind this, but I believe the primary factor is ‘The Sunk Cost Fallacy’. If you’re not familiar with this concept, it’s essentially how we justify doing the same thing over and over again, because we’ve invested so much time, money, effort into something, it would be a waste to stop.

We wouldn’t have done something, subscribed to something, believed something if it wasn’t the right and best thing to do. And because we did it, we must continue to do it, thinking it, say it, believe it - forever…or otherwise we must have been wrong from the start.

When it comes to our career, this is something we fall victim to A LOT. When we realise we need something new, that we’re ready for a change, we find it hard to justify doing something different or make a change, because it seems we’re admitting that everything we did before was a waste.

But that’s just not true.

More often it’s that we’ve learned something new about the world and/or about ourselves, what we want, what we value or think is important in our lives… and to be true to this new knowledge, we need to change.

We need to be free to change our mind, so we can be free to change our situation.

All too often we forget that changing our mind isn’t an admission of fault, or ignorance, or stupidity …changing our mind is a clear sign that we’re learning, adapting and growing.

So, the next time you feel like you can’t change your mind - or that you’re not free to publicly acknowledge you’ve changed your mind - remember you’re doing what people are meant to do - learn, adapt and move forward with more knowledge and insight than before.