Being certain feels strong, but it’s really just a door you locked from the inside.

Certainty is comfortable because it ends the work. Once you have decided, you stop taking in anything that would complicate it, and the relief of that gets mistaken for strength. From the inside there is no way to tell a well-founded conviction from a closed door. The only clue is whether anything could still change your mind.

Take something you are sure about and ask what evidence would actually shift it. If the honest answer is nothing, that is worth sitting with for a minute. You do not have to abandon the position, only to notice that you stopped examining it a while ago.