It’s ok to change your mind

The ability to change your mind about something can be very valuable and also really hard to do.

“You don’t have to believe everything you think” - Adam Grant, Think Again.

At times I think about my nan refusing to talk to my aunty (her daughter) for 40 years because she didn’t like the man she was marrying. In the end, that man was the person who ended up caring for her in the last months of her life.

Perhaps she thought that being someone who made a decision and stuck to it showed strength and integrity.

But her inability to challenge her beliefs and rethink who she was being stopped her from knowing my aunty, her husband, their four children, and their grandchildren.

It’s a shame to get stuck in thoughts that no longer serve us.

Our thinking changes as we change

Rethinking our identities can be hugely challenging. We get attached to the idea of being someone who is this or does that. Someone who works at this company and not that one.

We form identities and think we can’t change them as we grow.

Deciding that you want to behave differently or do something else can often mean losing something you once were or had - the job, the person, the status. But you have no idea what you will gain until you do it, and that can be a whole lot more, it’s just hard to see it — like driving in fog.

The path can change with us

We think that once we have picked a path, we must walk it. What if that wasn’t true? What if you could do something else that felt more meaningful to you today? What if you could reinvent yourself tomorrow? What if you could quit a career that no longer fulfils you? What if you could choose another path to explore?

In case you need to hear it

• It’s also ok to change your mind about something.

• It’s ok to change your behaviour towards someone or something.

• It’s ok to be someone new or do something else.

Our thinking changes as we change. The path can change with us.

The real question is who do you want to become?