Your Past Experiences Are Blinding You

7/25/2019 Your Past Experiences Are Blinding You

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Your past experiences are blinding you

How to take a step back and view the world without bias or judgement

Theres a lot of articles out there telling you how to be the best person you can be: the mostproductive, the most creative, the best listener, the smartest self-marketer.

Its natural.

We all want to be the best we can and will do anything to be that or !" better than thecompetition.

We read and e#periment and try to learn from the past.

Theres so much time spent worrying about those few e#tra percent that it blinds us fromseeing the potential for bigger change.

$o heres a different idea.

Why not instead of trying to push that e#tra bit we tear it all down and start from scratch%

Why you should lose it all

Im a firm believer that most of lifes great lessons can be learned from &huck'alahniuksFight Club:Its only after weve lost everything that were free to do anything.

(ou may feel like youre pretty free in your current situation but I think its fair to say were alla little bit trapped. Trapped not only by the financial and social burdens we put on ourselves,but by the mental walls and biases we unconsciously build up.

In )en and the *rt of +otorcycle +aintenance, obert 'irsig describesthe old $outh Indian

+onkey Trap

a hollowed-out coconut chained to a stake with some rice inside that can onlybe reached through a very small hole. When the monkey grabs the rice his clenched fist wontfit back through the hole and hes trappednot by anything physical, but because he /ustwont let go.
http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/14/how-to-avoid-monkey-trap-oliver-burkeman?CMP=fb_guhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/14/how-to-avoid-monkey-trap-oliver-burkeman?CMP=fb_guhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/14/how-to-avoid-monkey-trap-oliver-burkeman?CMP=fb_guhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/14/how-to-avoid-monkey-trap-oliver-burkeman?CMP=fb_guhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/14/how-to-avoid-monkey-trap-oliver-burkeman?CMP=fb_guhttp://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2014/nov/14/how-to-avoid-monkey-trap-oliver-burkeman?CMP=fb_gu


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In our lives, were all guilty of holding onto the rice whether its ideas, emotions or beliefseven if we know it wont benefit us. We feel trapped by our e#periences when all we have to dois let go.

* more scientific name for this is the0instellung effectthe idea that preconceptions andpast e#periences can blind us, literally, to the point of not being able to see better options.

To prove the e#tent of the effect *ustrian psychologist +erim 1ilalic ran a series ofe#perimentswhere she presented chess masters with boards arranged to offer them two pathsto victory: a well-known five-move option, and a more obscure one, re2uiring only threemoves.

*lmost every single master went for the more well-known, but ultimately slower route tovictory. *s 1ilalic puts it:!ven these masters couldnt see the best way to win because the one they knew so wellcolonised their mind.

0#perience can blind /ust as much as illuminate.
http://dspace.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/2276/1/Einstellung-Cognition.pdfhttp://dspace.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/2276/1/Einstellung-Cognition.pdfhttp://dspace.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/2276/1/Einstellung-Cognition.pdfhttp://dspace.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/2276/1/Einstellung-Cognition.pdfhttp://dspace.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/2276/1/Einstellung-Cognition.pdfhttp://dspace.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/2276/1/Einstellung-Cognition.pdfhttp://dspace.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/2276/1/Einstellung-Cognition.pdfhttp://dspace.brunel.ac.uk/bitstream/2438/2276/1/Einstellung-Cognition.pdf


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The hardest thing about all of this is that its almost nearly impossible to see. We create ourworldview through our past e#periences and hardwire our brains to assume that future eventswill mirror the past.

In this way our e#periences can easily become blinders, blocking us from seeing the endless

3and often better4 options /ust out of sight.

$o how can we train ourselves to see again%

Forget about your ego

It may be an unlikely place, but 1uddhism offers some key insights into how to let goof theself or the ego youve built up through years of e#perience.

* core principle of 1uddhism is to let go of our desires and attachments to material things andunhealthy relationships 3both work and personal4. The problem is that we become addicted tothese relationships out of fear of the emptiness that will replace them if we push them fromour minds."eople have a hard time letting go of their suffering. #ut of a fear of the unknown$ theyprefer suffering that is familiar %hich &hat Hanh

1ut, like so many great authors have told us, that emptiness isnt something to be afraid of,but rather an opportunity to face the world with fresh eyes and without the limitations of yourpast e#periences.

%here was nowhere to go but everywhere. 'o just keep on rolling under the stars. (ack)erouac$ #n the *oad

5eo 1abutas)en 6abitsblog offers some great advice on facing the emptiness and how to useit to your advantage. &heck out this article on the 0mpty &ontainerand this one on 5etting7oto get you started.

Get rid of your judgments

When we create our uni2ue worldview we fill it full of our likes, dislikes, opinions, morals andethics and while these are important, they also are a huge part of what blinds us.

The waywe unconsciously /udge people before meeting themis the easiest way for us toreaffirm who we are instead of opening us up to new ideas. We draw from our paste#periences and /udge rather than allowing for the randomness and chaos of life.

Its in this chaos where we become the most creative. *s +aria 'opova, the founderof 1rain'ickings.org, says, creativity is the ability to connect the unconnected.

7et rid of your /udgements and let yourself be open to random ideas and connections.
http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/Galleries/The-Art-of-Letting-Go.aspxhttp://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/Galleries/The-Art-of-Letting-Go.aspxhttp://zenhabits.net/http://zenhabits.net/http://zenhabits.net/http://zenhabits.net/mt/http://zenhabits.net/mt/http://zenhabits.net/leggo/http://zenhabits.net/leggo/http://blog.pickcrew.com/weird-science-first-impressions/http://blog.pickcrew.com/weird-science-first-impressions/http://brainpickings.org/http://www.beliefnet.com/Faiths/Buddhism/Galleries/The-Art-of-Letting-Go.aspxhttp://zenhabits.net/http://zenhabits.net/mt/http://zenhabits.net/leggo/http://zenhabits.net/leggo/http://blog.pickcrew.com/weird-science-first-impressions/http://brainpickings.org/


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Be a beginner againIn the beginners mind there are many possibilities$ but in the e+perts there arefew'hunryu 'u,uki

The 8en principle of 1eginners mind talks about the advantages of e#periencing life as a

beginner again.

Think about if youve ever seen a toddler learn to walk: They stand, wobble and then fall timeand time again but continue to get up with determination.

When youre first learning a new skill you become absorbed in the basics. (ou e#perience eachmoment fully and live in a state of concentration and determination.

9nce we become an e#pert in anything, we lose that ability to see so clearly what we are doingand go into a sort of mental autopilot.

*cting like a beginner means not throwing your e#periences away and being naive, but ratherlooking at them as tools you can use when its to your advantage.-eginners ind doesnt mean negating e+perience/ it means keeping an open mind on howto apply our e+perience to each new circumstance.ary (aksch

Wander

5et your mind wander. ot /ust for an afternoon or a weekend, but for a week, or a month.

+ind wanderinghas been shownto not only help us plan for our own future, but also to boostcreative problem solving by allowing ideas space to float freely and associate. Its why so manysolutions seem to appear out of thin air 3think Isaac ewton and the apple tree4.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/62707.Shunryu_Suzukihttps://www.goodreads.com/author/show/62707.Shunryu_Suzukihttp://zenhabits.net/how-to-live-life-to-the-max-with-beginners-mind/http://zenhabits.net/how-to-live-life-to-the-max-with-beginners-mind/http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201304/letting-your-mind-wanderhttp://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201304/letting-your-mind-wanderhttps://www.goodreads.com/author/show/62707.Shunryu_Suzukihttp://zenhabits.net/how-to-live-life-to-the-max-with-beginners-mind/http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/media-spotlight/201304/letting-your-mind-wander


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What you might miss out on in the meantime will be more than made up for when youe#periment and go down a different path.

Reect on the hard stu

eflection is one of the most important tools we have for learning from our past, but itbecomes even more powerful when we do it ob/ectively.

Think of yourself as an outsider watching the actions and choices you made in the past. Whydid you do that% What made you make the choices you did%

This can also have a powerful impact on our ability to learn new things. *6arvardstudyrecently showed that those who take part in a dual-process of learning and deliberatelyfocusing on thinking about what one has been doing improved their score in both lab andreal-world e#periments by nearly !;" over those who dont.
https://www.3minutejournal.com/blog/harvard-working-paper-asserts-that-reflection-is-crucial-to-self-improvement/https://www.3minutejournal.com/blog/harvard-working-paper-asserts-that-reflection-is-crucial-to-self-improvement/https://www.3minutejournal.com/blog/harvard-working-paper-asserts-that-reflection-is-crucial-to-self-improvement/https://www.3minutejournal.com/blog/harvard-working-paper-asserts-that-reflection-is-crucial-to-self-improvement/https://www.3minutejournal.com/blog/harvard-working-paper-asserts-that-reflection-is-crucial-to-self-improvement/


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eflect on your biases. eflect on the things that hurt you and ask why.

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Your Past Experiences Are Blinding You