Learning requires occasionally discovering that your certainty was premature.

CREATIVITY

WHAT THIS MEANS

You cannot learn without occasionally finding out that something you were sure about was wrong. That discovery is the mechanism, not an accident of it, which means a period of learning should include a certain rate of being corrected. If it does not, you are probably only accumulating agreement.

When you are shown to be wrong, notice the first reaction and let it pass without acting on it. Then get interested in what you had been getting wrong and for how long. Treating the correction as information rather than as a loss is what makes the next one arrive sooner and cost less.

A QUESTION TO SIT WITH

What were you certain about last year and wrong about?

MORE IN LEARNING & CURIOSITY

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