{"id":1121,"date":"2009-10-23T09:06:34","date_gmt":"2009-10-23T17:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/?p=1121"},"modified":"2013-08-20T14:50:31","modified_gmt":"2013-08-20T22:50:31","slug":"an-article-for-the-never-wrong","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pickthebrain.com\/blog\/an-article-for-the-never-wrong\/","title":{"rendered":"An Article for the Never Wrong"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I never thought it would be such a relief to be wrong but I\u2019m starting to love it. Ahhhh!<\/p>\n

Does that statement surprise you when there are so many success texts on how to be, or do things, \u2018right\u2019?<\/p>\n

Good!<\/p>\n

Do you know the pressure of feeling you have<\/em> to be right? Do you know what it\u2019s like to not be able to stand<\/em> being wrong? It\u2019s not pleasant!<\/p>\n

Maybe YOU don\u2019t but I bet you know someone like that. Someone who has<\/em> to have the last word!<\/p>\n

It might be funny for a few minutes but ultimately it\u2019s annoying. And destructive.<\/p>\n

Being unable to admit you are wrong is what I call a \u2018psychological knot\u2019. Creating greater openness and being welcome to \u2018get it wrong\u2019 can untie you for greater success!<\/p>\n

A pastor I know said: \u201cI\u2019m scared of a man who can\u2019t admit he\u2019s wrong.\u201d \u00a0Hitler, for example, was that man at one point. Even when everything was going wrong at the end of the Second World War, the films portray his lieutenants saying: \u201cHe hasn\u2019t led us wrong before. We should trust him.\u201d Yeah, that worked out. Confidence does not equal correctness!<\/p>\n

King Solomon said in his Biblical Proverbs: \u201cEvery man is right in his own eyes\u201d and indeed, our brains are designed to reinforce<\/span> our existing perceptions. If you don\u2019t know that, you\u2019re at a disadvantage and possibly so are the people around you!<\/p>\n

Professor Michael Hall (creator of Neurosemantics) says that fundamentalism is: \u201cbelieving in our beliefs\u201d. He theorises that if every school in the world taught that our thoughts do not exactly<\/span> or accurately map \u2018reality\u2019, terrorism would be impossible.<\/p>\n

Because when you know your beliefs are about<\/em> reality, subject to error – and not reality itself – you open up a chink of awareness that allows for the possibility of then being wrong. Even if just a little\u2026!<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. I believe in God and I believe that my beliefs refer to a real Almighty Creator. And I also know that these thoughts exist as<\/em> beliefs. I believe they are true but unlike some of the fundamentalists I know<\/em> they are beliefs and may or may not refer accurately to \u2018reality\u2019. That is the difference.<\/p>\n

So back to admitting that you can get things wrong – why is<\/strong> this such a problem for so many people?<\/p>\n

First, there is the issue of linking performance with your worth. I believe our worth is unconditional but if you link \u2018worth\u2019 to your work (for instance) when someone criticizes your work they criticise – your \u2018worth\u2019.\u00a0 That makes \u2018failure\u2019 psychologically painful, perhaps intolerable and you can take any criticisms of your efforts personally.<\/p>\n

Or if, \u201cI think, therefore I am\u201d, then someone disagreeing with your thoughts is making YOU wrong. It\u2019s seems like its just semantics\u2026 but few people like having their core sense of self questioned!<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why the word \u2018failure\u2019 is such a problem for some people.\u00a0 It\u2019s more than just a word to them.<\/p>\n

For others, being \u2018right\u2019 has become a pre-condition to be achieved before happiness can be allowed. It\u2019s become like one of those bloodthirsty ancient gods people used to think they had to appease. Some of these \u2018gods\u2019 wanted a terrible price to stop them being \u2018angry\u2019.<\/p>\n

Psychologically, is the absolute need to be proved right any less dangerous? It demands the sacrifice of other peoples\u2019 opinions on the altar of you ego.<\/p>\n

In the end it can turn away friends, success and all the things that people want.<\/p>\n

Even good friendships are built partly on the ability to influence each other. That mean\u2019s admitting that your view could be different. Once that isn\u2019t present, it\u2019s hard to be around that person.<\/p>\n

This is why I have started to stubbornly defend my right to be wrong! I am fallible! Yes, you could be right\u2026. I actually don\u2019t know\u2026<\/p>\n

It makes life so much easier. No-one can hold me over a barrel about my beliefs because my self-worth is not dependent on them. And my opinions, whilst I will defend them are (usually) open to question.<\/p>\n

So how did I come to this conclusion?<\/p>\n

Just getting the big picture on how many mistakes our perceptions CAN make is enough to humble even the most arrogant of thinkers!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s horrendously<\/strong> humbling to realise just how fault-prone our thinking is. Since the 1960\u2019s cognitive-behavioural therapists have been identifying cognitive \u2018distortions\u2019 which are thinking styles\/patterns of behaviour that make us filter our perceptions in a certain way. Here is one such list below:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Over-generalizing<\/li>\n
  2. \u2018All-or-nothing\u2019 thinking<\/li>\n
  3. Labelling \u2013 Name Calling<\/li>\n
  4. Blaming<\/li>\n
  5. Mind-reading<\/li>\n
  6. Prophesying \u2013 that the future will be awful.<\/li>\n
  7. Emotionalising-wishful thinking<\/li>\n
  8. Personalising<\/li>\n
  9. Awfulizing \u2013 Making things pervasive<\/li>\n
  10. Should-ing \u2013 Demandingness<\/li>\n
  11. Filtering<\/li>\n
  12. Can\u2019t-ing \u2013 Taboo-ing: Prohibiting<\/li>\n
  13. Discounting \u2013 Perfectionism, Pessimistic Thinking<\/li>\n
  14. Identifying \u2013 Identifications of the self with other concepts<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Along with this there have been identified at least 60 filtering patterns (called Meta-Programs). Any of these when overused can cause people to get \u2018stuck\u2019 in their thinking and behaving.<\/p>\n

    Does this mean we should doubt every single perception we have? I would understand if you thought it did!<\/p>\n

    No, but it does mean we could be a little more open to checking out how we\u2019re making our conclusions! The more we learn about how our incredible brains process information, the more we might want to come to \u2018tentatively definite\u2019 conclusions. That is, conclusions we are as sure about as we can be \u2013 for now!<\/p>\n

    All of the above (he said \u2018over-generalising!) might be a lot to take in. So here\u2019s a thought. When you\u2019re making a decision and you think you\u2019ve made it just step back and ask yourself:<\/p>\n