- If you can’t afford to travel, watch the Travel Network. Though it won’t be as exciting as the real thing, it will give you more perspective into how people live in other countries.
- Volunteer in a foreign country. This is a great way to give your time while exploring a new place.
Learn a foreign language. Learning a foreign language is a great way to broaden your horizons right from the comfort of your own home. Order Rosetta Stone, get another language learning guide, or even invest in a private tutor or take a class in the language. You’ll understand how anything linguistic system works and will end up having a better understanding of your own. You’ll also pick up some information about a foreign culture and will understand more about the world.
- If you get really committed to the language, you can find other native speakers to talk to. This will help you learn even more about the world.
- You can watch foreign films in this language to get a better sense of how people speak. You’ll also gain valuable insights into the culture you are learning about.
Get out of your comfort zone. Maybe you’re afraid of heights. Go stand on the roof of a building (if it’s allowed). Hate going to noisy restaurants? Make a dinner date and see if you survive. Afraid of meeting new people? Go to a singles’ mixer or a meet-and-greet in your town or let your friend drag you to a party. Make a habit of doing this as often as you can and you’ll slowly feel your mind opening up.
- Write down five things that make you really uncomfortable. Find a way to do as many as you can. This will take time and courage but you’ll feel better for it.
Educate yourself when you watch TV. Whether you watch just two hours of TV a week or if you watch two hours a day, you can make a habit of watching something that opens up your mind instead of closing it off further. Put away those reruns of crime shows you’ve seen a million times and change the channel from Maury Povich. It’s time to watch the History Channel, see if a classic film is playing, or watch a documentary about the environment.
- Don’t watch anything that you feel is only making you stupider. You’re better off staring at the wall.
- Check out Turner Classic Movies. You’ll gain a new appreciation of classic films and may change your opinion of anything made before 2010.
Eat food from a cuisine you’ve never heard of. You may like eating your three favorite foods, but if you want to be more open-minded, then you should check out the new Burmese or Ethiopian place everyone has been talking about. Never had food from El Salvador? It’s never too late to try.
- Sure, Mexican, Italian, and Chinese are old favorites, but if you want to be more open to new experiences, then you’ll have to try new things, even if you have no idea what they’ll taste like.
- If you’re trying a completely new cuisine, try to go with a friend who is an expert and knows exactly what to order. This will increase your chances of having a good time.
3- Open your mind when communicating with Others
Don’t judge a person until you know his story. Many people who struggle with being open-minded are also known to judge people before they really know them. If you tend to judge people when you first meet them, or even when you just first hear about them or see them across the room, then you need to work on approaching every new person on a case-by-case basis without judging him based on his background, appearance, or accent.
- This can be tricky if you’re used to quickly forming opinions on someone based on his appearance or the first five minutes of a conversation. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. Do you think people will be able to know everything about you after looking at you for five minutes? Probably not.
- The next time you meet a new person, try to really understand where he or she is coming from before you form any kind of an opinion.
- You may be the kind of person who is prone to jealousy and who instantly hates any friends that your friend brings around because you’re possessive. Instead, think of it like this: if your friend likes this person, then there must be something good about him. Try to seek it out.
Ask people lots of questions. If you’re close-minded, then you may tend to think that you don’t have anything to learn from or about other people. So, the next time you meet a new person or talk to an old friend, ask him or her more questions than you normally would without sounding like you’re in the interrogation room. Ask the person what he’s been up to that week or if he read anything good lately. You’ll be amazed by how much you’ll learn.
- If a person just came back from a trip to an exotic place, ask for all the details.
- If you know the person well, ask him about what his childhood was like. You may hear some really interesting details and will learn something new.
Be friends with people from different walks of life. If you want to be more open-minded, then you can’t just be friends with your five best friends from high school or college, all of whom basically share the same interests, and expect to have a broad perspective on life. Make friends from work, your ceramics class, your favorite neighborhood bar, or from different classes in school.
- Though you shouldn’t hand pick your friends based on their diversity, try to hang out with people that have a variety of jobs, interests, and backgrounds.
- Being friends with people from diverse backgrounds will give you insight into different perspectives on the world.
- If you have really eclectic friends, some of them may not even end up liking each other, and that’s okay.
Let a friend introduce you to his favorite hobby. If your friend is really passionate about printmaking or yoga, let her take you to a class or show you how it’s done. You’ll be able to gain expert knowledge from your friend and will have a new appreciation of something you never considered before. Try to challenge yourself and pick something that you previously scoffed at; you’ll be surprised by how much it can change your life.
- Seeing your friend get really passionate about something you know nothing about can also help you have a more open-minded approach to how other people choose to spend their time.
Accept more invitations. This is an easy way to be more open-minded. Though you don’t have to say yes to every invitation, you can make a habit of saying yes 50% more and going to parties or places where you never thought you’d end up. It could be a potluck at your neighbor’s house, your aunt’s yearly barbeque that you always skip, or even a poetry reading your friend has been trying to get you to go to for months. Exposing yourself to a wide variety of events will make you more open-minded.
- Try to accept invitations to different types of events. Just saying yes to party invitations may not necessarily broaden your horizons if you say no to everything else.
Engage in friendly debates. If you’re close-minded, then you may love to argue about a topic because you’re convinced that you’re completely right. Well, the next time you find yourself in the middle of a little debate, take a friendlier, inquisitive approach. Don’t tell the person all of the reasons why he is wrong, but ask him to tell exactly why you should believe his perspective. You won’t change your own mind, but you will definitely like something new.
- You don’t want to develop the reputation of being the guy who argues with everyone until he clears out the room. Instead, be easygoing, not aggressive, even if you’re really passionate about a topic.
An open mind leaves a chance for someone to drop a worthwhile thought in it. Anonymous
Have An Open Mind
To have an open mind means to be willing to consider or receive new and different ideas. It means being flexible and adaptive to new experiences and ideas.
Cultivating an open mind is another valuable outcome of critical thinking and reasoning.
Now more than ever we live in a world that is constantly changing.
In order to keep up, we must be open to new experiences and new ways of looking at things. If we do not stay current we will miss out on the wonderful new technologies such as the Internet, cell phones, digital photography, ipods, etc. that are making our lives easier and more interesting every day.
People who are open-minded are willing to change their views when presented with new facts and evidence. Those who are not, and are resistant to change and will find life less rewarding and satisfying, not to mention dull.
If we limit ourselves to what we knew and were more comfortable with in the past, we will become more and more frustrated.
Society as a whole has become more liberal, and circumstances that were not acceptable years ago are accepted now.
If we choose to approach life in the same way day after day, as well as becoming bored and uninspired, we will reduce our intellectual aptitude.
If, on the other hand, we seek new ways of doing and looking at things, we will expand our intellectual capability, find life more exciting, and broaden our experiences.
Being open-minded also helps us with problem solving. First it helps us look at more than one way to approach a problem; then we find more expansive, ways of solving it. When we give ourselves more options, better solutions are undoubtedly more available to us.
Ultimately, having an open mind helps us expand our horizons and be more diverse and interesting persons.
People who are open Minded:
- Are more accepting of others and have fewer prejudices
- Are more optimistic and make the most of life
- Have less stress because they are more open to change
- Have better problem solving skills
- Want to learn more, therefore are more interesting
Preconception
An opinion or conception formed in advance of adequate knowledge or experience, especially a prejudice or bias.
Preconceived notions are the locks on the door to wisdom. Mary Browne
It’s not really about the competition. Your biggest challenge in a race is yourself. You’re often racing against time. You’re frequently running everything through your mind. You’re always competing against preconceived ideas. It’s not really the person next to you that you worry about. Summer Sanders
It’s not what you don’t know that holds you back. It’s what you do know that you think is true that is ultimately the most crippling.
Ah yes! Let me introduce you to the wonderful world of PRECONCEIVED NOTIONS. All those things that you think are true, but are really only figments of your LITTLE imagination. All those things that if you think are true, will seriously limit your development as a person and a performer. Athletes who go into a performance with preconceived notions about their opponents, the outcome or the situation will set themselves up to fail. Coaches who carry preconceived notions about their players or the breadth of their own knowledge base into their work severely limit their chances for success. Being open minded when you learn and empty minded when you perform are necessary prerequisites for becoming a champion on and off the field. People who think they have all the answers, are not only dangerous to themselves and others, but they are flat out wrong. No one has all the answers because the answers are ALWAYS changing. The world you live in is in a constant state of flux. While new technologies are continually being created in and out of sports, old ones are being updated or improved. Any athlete, coach or individual who closes his mind to the learning process because he thinks he knows it all is actively getting stupid and ultimately hurting himself BIG TIME! In this issue of the Mental Toughness Newsletter we will explore the critical importance of having a “beginner’s mind” in your role as athlete, coach or parent, regardless of how far advanced you may think you are. Remember, when you act like you are a legend in your own mind, you are nothing but an egotistical fool.
Read more at:
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