I Know
One habit I want to get out of is acting like I know things.
When someone explains something in a way that makes sense to you, it’s almost like you figured something out on your own. You can trick your brain in that way.
The only time that you’ll really feel or admit that you didn’t know and be pleasantly surprised to finally have the answer is when you’ve previously been stumped. Or, when the facts say you got it wrong initially. Then there’s the whole thing of being hardheaded and not accepting you were wrong, but that’s not what I’m interested in talking about because usually when that happens to me, I laugh at how I was wrong and move on. Except for when people say the Celtics have a better bench than the Wizards. I’m not wrong there.
There are a lot of bad habits formed by this. You can jump to conclusions when the intention of the speaker is not how you perceived it. You can miss out on an even bigger learning opportunity by stopping progress in its tracks. Or maybe you could strain a relationship. Who knows.
I think a healthy solution to this is to stop and listen first. Afterwards, take a moment to digest, or maybe relate what the other person said to something you understand and add to the topic. If you don’t have any way to relate, that is an even better opportunity to say you don’t know and listen even more.
I want to practice doing this for a few reasons:
1) My first instinct is probably wrong.
2) Know-it-alls aren’t fun to talk to, unless if you actually know a lot about the topic.
3) I want to be a better listener.
4) I want to get out of my comfort zone and get more used to living out of it.