Doubts are good, but Stereotypical Opinions are quite evil. I used to wait before making an opinion about a person. But with the passage of time, I began judging people myself.
We are human beings. And we are insecure.
Light
Dark
These insecurities make us desperate. So, we blame others or impose our opinions on them. And it’s inevitable, at least once in our lifespans.
You can consider three tips below, to slow down your Conclusions.
Observe Multiple Perspectives
Sometimes, you will get less information. But the nature of information might be too much engaging. This is applicable to an event, as well as to any person.
When we think from only one perspective, dictating the terms of ‘Right versus Wrong’ becomes easy.
By trying to think like other people, and by checking different sources for info, we can reduce the risk of Stereotypical Thinking. In turn, we have an opportunity to expand our understanding of the other side.
Extend The Duration of Thought Processing
Most problems in your life can originate from being too quick for your own good. Also, I have tried increasing my speed for unsuitable decisions. Do not try this in your life.
Pausing for a moment is NOT inefficiency or low productivity. If the pause is too long but the issue is quite small, only then you become inefficient or competitively weak.
If you spend time with senior citizens, or enjoy the old-school movies and literature, you learn two major ideas.
- Wisdom does not occur overnight. It takes many decades of life experience, a lot of study+practice and ability to accept the failures as another type of data.
- Patience is the key. Nobody should wait for too long. Because this action can reduce the chance of success for some. Still, retreating and changing strategies take time. You cannot let your excitement or the fear of time-loss, to compromise a Decision’s effectiveness.
By taking a bit of extra time, you can try to guess the not so obvious aspects of an event.
Who knows, by the time you make a decision, new information could come to light. And being more informed is better, than sleepwalking or shooting arrows in the dark.
Use Self-Doubts To Question Your Own ‘Strong Beliefs’
You may want to use this method after a certain age. Because you must be mature enough to know when not to use Self-Doubts.
The warning is simple: Don’t invite any Identity Crisis.
Having a sense of conviction and righteousness is pretty respectable. And if you possess some of your own Core Principles, congratulations.
We humans are different than other animals, because of our ability to imagine, visualise and commit our actions to make those visualised expectations a reality.
Yet, sometimes we might be stretching a situation just way too much.
The same values—which guided us in our darkest hours—might be the very reason of our stagnation. After all, there is conceptual difference between Satisfaction and Stagnation.
If you are content with your usual experiences, it is not a problem. But if you are torturing yourself or others because things take unusual turn… Then, it’s a symptom of deeper issues.
Personally, I do not wish to label anyone as a Closed Minded Person. Because all forms of Labels try to over-simplify the issues. I strongly dislike that.
So, keeping all above points in mind, you can periodically make some ‘Me Time’ and ask some questions to your Deep-rooted Beliefs.
For example, you can ask a basic question, “Why do I like this Idea?” Then, add Why-questions for every component of your answer. You can search for 5WHY method on the internet, if you are interested in this.
Final Thoughts
I hope you can benefit from the three tips above. At the end of day, we cannot filter everything on the web. And censorship is essentially a cruel monster. So, you can find the different ways of processing the Information.
Let’s pray to the humanity, that it avoids arriving at any conclusion at the speed of light.
Remember, use Multiple Perspectives, slow down your thought processing and apply Self-Doubts safely. All the best in this age of over-information and provoking content.