Mind Trap #1 | Cognitive Dissonance
“The question is not, do you have conflicts? The real question is, are you aware of your conflicts?”
Our mind plays all kind of tricks with us. If you are lucky, most of the time you feel confident and like you know what's going on. But that confidence is swiftly extended over different fields and most of time we are unaware of it.
These are called Mind Traps or also known as "thinking errors". They consume your thinking, and impact:
- what you pay attention to,
- how you feel,
- your decision making
Some of the common Mind Traps around us are:
- Fortune Telling
- Mostly affects people who feel "I feel too confused about the future", "I don't know whether I should do it", "I can't progress".
- But at the root the core issue lies in the "lack of self confidence" or "fear of failure".
- Gita tells us that "no one can do anything alone."
- If I say that I am capable enough to go out and go for a run alone on my own, I wouldn't be 100% correct. My capability of going out for a morning run relies upon good roads and traffic rules by Govt. and safe society, shoes that someone innovated and produced, and so on.
- But Gita also tells us that "we can't control any of the outside factors. all we can do is take action."
- Mind Reading
- We often find ourselves assuming what others are thinking. This is a very common phenomenon, but the issue arises when we are highly confident that the other person is thinking exactly what we imagined them to be.
- Black and White Thinking
- Another common trend where we are quick to distribute the world into just two groups. Good or Bad, Girl and Boy, party1 and party2. Most of the time the world is gray on both sides.
“Self-regulation is not a sign of weakness, it's a sign of strength."
But we are here to talk about some advanced Mind Traps which will help you overcome difficult situations and equip you with more wisdom for daily living. These include:
- Cognitive Dissonance
- Spotlight Effect
- Anchoring Effect
- Halo Effect
- Gambler's Fallacy
- Contrast Effect
- Confirmation Bias
- Baader-Meinhoff Phenomenon
- Zeigarnik Effect
Cognitive Dissonance
To put simply, Cognitive Dissonance is Mental Conflict, when your beliefs doesn't line up with you actions.
Our brain feels extreme discomfort when we hold two opposing ideas or perspectives about something. Cricketer X is the best. But is he? Once we believe something, changing that belief or validating the assumption takes effort and a trained mind. We often take for granted that if I believe something, then I must have thought about it and decided the best option. What we don't recognize is that our brain takes short-cuts all the time.
The primary purpose of our brain is to "Think less".
The concept of cognitive dissonance refers to the discomfort and mental stress that arises when two held beliefs conflict with one another. Lets take for example the old fable of "The Fox and the Grapes" or more commonly referred to as "Angoor Khatte hain".
- Belief 1 - The fox wants the grapes 🍇
- Belief 2 - They are too high and can't be reached
- Since both are conflicting → the fox decides to tell itself that the grapes 🍇 are sour and that he wouldn't like them if he got to them.
- Instead of admitting we are not good enough, rejecting one contradictory belief is our brain's way to avoid hurting our ego
- Example
- When rejected in an interview, we don't accept we are not well prepared
- We like to assume
- Is this new belief because I need an excuse to explain away my first belief?
- Interviewer was unfair
- The other person cheated, etc.
How to overcome this?
- Whenever you think of a belief, ask yourself-
- Am I telling myself this new belief because I couldn't get what I wanted?
- What are the 2 beliefs that aren't compatible?
- Don't associate what you like with who you are.
- Question your thinking often:
- Is this option really the best?
- Do I really need this or is it just because my favorite actor was in this product's ad?
Stay Tuned!
Next MindTrap the Spotlight Effect.
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