| I have a few off the top of my head: - Learned helplessness is one of the biggest enemies to learning, but it's insidious in that sufferers don't recognize it. Often, I'll try to teach someone something, and I'll know for sure that they can and will grasp a concept, but they'll just stop short on their own accord, chalking failure up to their own (imagined) inherent inability rather than a specific situational lack of something. Usually accompanied with a general statement like "I'm just not a technical person" or "I'm not that smart" (sometimes not voiced) or "I don't get math" or "I'm more of a right-brain person". It's interesting that of the tons of much likelier reasons for failure (bad teaching, not enough practice, not having the right foundation), the most commonly chosen is "it's me". The opposite side to this is to incorporate failure and retrial as part of the learning process, and to realize that the failure is a specific situation and mostly not a general statement of ability. Anyway, when they're encouraged a bit and they do succeed, their surprise and satisfaction is one of my favourite things in the world. - Psychology is not bullshit like I used to think before. - Introspection and self-examination is very important and ignoring your inner world does not make your problems go away. Regularly taking time to consider your thoughts, worries, knee-jerk reactions, big life events, priorities is a great idea, and keeps problems from bottling up. A multitude of lingering things on your mind that don't seem immediate on their own can add up fast. I didn't even know this could happen until it did to me. As a positive result though, I discovered a whole new meta-level of thought. Observing the process through which thoughts materialize in my mind is enlightening. Watching chains of thought develop step by step uncovers biases and thought-tendencies that are often unconscious but can be damaging. It also promotes self-honesty, which sometimes saves you a lot of time and money and is often a great antidote to ignorance. There isn't a switch you can flip to be more objective but a decent attempt helps. - When people say things, don't forget to think about why they're saying them. Often this provides valuable perspective. What's motivating them to say that? Is it conscious? Sometimes a pipe is a pipe, but sometimes it's not. For example, if someone tells you "never trust women", concluding that the person has probably been severely hurt by women before (conclusion from asking why the person said this) is much more valuable than concluding women are evil (the direct conclusion). |
I'm just finishing up on a Bayesian flamewar detector. If you would tell the high-school me this years ago I would have said you were crazy...