Why it’s Better to Be Wrong

It's such a common experience when I get a new client that they tell me that they don't like being wrong. People often have difficulty receiving criticism, making changes from others' directions, and doing things differently even if what they're doing isn't getting the job done.  

I'd like to share a joke that I heard that gives an example of how often we do things without realizing there’s a better way: 

There is a woman who would bring her famous roast to the church potluck every year.  Everybody loved her roast and it never lasted. One day someone approached the woman and said “Can I have the recipe for the pot roast or is that a secret?”  The woman said, “It's no secret I'm more than happy to tell you how I make it.”  She said, “First you purchase a roast and when you get home make sure you cut three inches off the end of the roast.” After that, the woman described how she seasons it, cooks it, prepares it, and gives the full recipe to the person. The person was ecstatic but had a question, they said, “Why do you cut 3 inches off the end before you start to prepare it?”   the woman responded, “I don't know, that's just how I've always done it.”  Later that day the woman called her mom and asked her, “Why do you cut 3 inches off the end?”  The mom responded, “Oh back then I only had a pan 7 inches long and roast was always 10 inches long.”

While this example probably isn’t causing harm, it shows how often we do things that we learned a while ago and never question it.  Other beliefs, however aren’t always as innocuous as the example from the joke.  

I remember when I was probably 6 or 7 we went to the beach for a family vacation.  I saw a shiny blue bottle cap on the ground and picked it up.  I wanted to show it to my aunt so I went running down the beach to show her.  While I was running, my hand started stinging but I ignored it because I wanted to show this cool bottle cap to my aunt.  When I got her she slapped the bottle cap out of my hand, how rude!  She said, “Gary, this is a jellyfish, not a bottle cap and they sting if you touch them.”  The problem is that my belief that it was a bottle cap was incorrect

Often when our beliefs are irrational, restrictive, or inappropriate to our current condition, our emotional consequences can be excessively negative.  The catch is, like the woman and her roast, we are often unaware that these beliefs aren’t the most accurate.

So what can you do about possible blindspots and beliefs that you have that may not be completely accurate?

One very common and effective therapeutic modality is called Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy(REBT).  One of the tenets of this approach is to identify beliefs and perceptions of yours that aren’t completely accurate and replace them with a more accurate and healthy belief.  If you do a quick internet search, you’ll find a lot of resources and worksheets that are helpful with this process.

This process sounds pretty simple, right?  Identify a belief, challenge it, and change it into a healthier one.  I wish it was that easy.  There’s a phenomenon called Belief Permanence and another one called The Backfire Effect.  This basically says that we are pretty hard-wired to not change our minds and when provided solid and credible evidence to the contrary, we will fight hard to maintain our belief.  This can be exacerbated by several sources.  It could come from being punished as a child when we got an answer wrong on a test, made fun of when we gave the wrong response, or being told that we’re stupid for not doing the correct thing.  If an incorrect belief of ours is pointed out, we often subconsciously expect the punishment and go right into defense mode.

I ask my clients to do this: If a belief is challenged, assume the other person is at least partially correct, ask curious and nonjudgmental questions, and make a well-informed decision after all the evidence has been laid out.  We usually listen only to respond and miss out on potentially valuable information we can use for growth.  

Nobody likes to be wrong and while there’s validity in getting better results when the process or belief is accurate, it does no good to keep doing the wrong thing and refusing to acknowledge it.  If we genuinely want to have accurate, healthy, and appropriate beliefs, we have to accept that some of the beliefs we have aren’t accurate and be willing to challenge them.  Being wrong isn’t bad, being wrong but refusing to change can be.