Advanced Training Essentials Challenge your beliefs for greater personal growth: say no to groupthink Changing long-held beliefs to accommodate another’s point of view is not, for most of us, a natural response to the ideological challenges we may face. Biased as we all are to what we consider to be immutable truths, even going so far as to become willfully blind to what is blatantly right or wrong, we hold tight to our beliefs and deflect all challenges to the contrary. Even when presented with a wide range of data and arguments we tend to focus upon information that supports our opinions and which does not challenge our views. Such a mindset can create a lifetime of intellectual suffocation and foster a pack mentality that may lead to restricted personal growth. It is often said that birds of a feather flock together and it is the biased and potential harmful collective thinking of many that has led to the ubiquity of this statement and others like it. Whether observed in poorly educated gossip mongers with substance abuse issues and a hatred for those who have chosen a life of greater substance or fitness devotees whose support for one another pushes each to greater levels of training success, a groupthink mentality may serve as a vehicle for both bad and good. However, as will be explained soon, its consequences are mostly negative. When any group of individuals binds over common interests, ideas, expectations, and actions, a group polarization effect, where staunch beliefs are not challenged, but instead, further strengthened to where they become more extreme, may result. It is at this stage that people may become blind to reality and accept whatever they are told lest they compromise their position in the group, or endanger their own existence. Rather than displaying the hypertrophic thought patterns conducive to establishing the original thinking needed to challenge conventional wisdom, to, for example, pioneer new technologies and create new ideas, such people may become mentally stunted. Certain groups (and some governments) are well aware of this dynamic and will, with great urgency and the threat of severe consequences to all who transgress, seek to keep all ‘group members’ thinking the same way. Engaging in such mentally stifling groupthink may not only preclude original thinking but may also make us blind to the many possibilities for personal advancement that currently exist. When we all think the same we find it harder to celebrate difference because it conflicts with our pre conceived notions of what should and should not be; we cannot adopt divergent viewpoints because we remain blind to them. By accepting different views to our own and by acknowledging that difference can be a tool for positive change we open our minds to what is truly possible. Indeed, by exploring a diverse range of experiences and knowledge we may become more attuned to finding solutions and alternatives to the problems we face. For example, by accepting more than one fitness training theory we may become more enlightened to the many ways we may improve our health and wellbeing. By taking a more eclectic approach to exercising our muscles, and our mind, we may discover more efficient ways to achieve our fitness, and life, goals. So become an original, an agent for unique change. And stop playing follow the leader.
Posted on: Tue, 06 May 2014 20:05:52 +0000
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