The act of changing your mind takes a big dose of humility and can be a difficult thing to do – especially when the blowback from friends and family about the fact that you changed your mind can be even worse than the process of changing it in the first place. So here’s how you can go about altering your opinions, while simultaneously not letting anyone know that you’ve done so.
Take time to educate yourself.
This is key – taking on the responsibility of educating yourself means you are being active in learning more about important topics. At the same time, you are also protecting yourself from someone pointing out all the reasons why you were wrong about something, and having to change your mind in front of them. You’ll be a proactive and open-minded member of society, and your friends will never be able to ridicule you for once believing that dogs make better pets than cats.
Give yourself some grace.
By forgiving yourself for not knowing something, and understanding that we’re all continually growing and learning, you’ll be much more open to changing your mind about something when you come across new information. Plus, since you’ve already made peace with yourself, no one has to know you thought that guy on Hinge was hot – that can stay between you and your god now.
Try to not be on the defensive.
Being defensive means being loud, and often, loudly wrong. So stop trying to defend your viewpoints to everyone, and feel secure enough in yourself to keep them close to the chest. Thus, when the time comes and you realize that you were wrong about Taylor Swift’s “Midnights” album being bad, there’s no one to whom you have to admit that after listening to it a couple more times, it’s actually, like, so good.
Follow these simple guidelines and you’ll be more willing to change your mind than ever – while simultaneously avoiding ever having to make it known to the people in your life that you did so. You’ll continue growing, evolving, and maturing as a person, becoming a better version of yourself with every passing year – but don’t worry, no one ever has to know that.
