Intention

CHAPTER 13How to Change Your Mind

“We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are.”

—Anaïs Nin

Small-b beliefs—the small, tactical beliefs that we form throughout the day—can be disheartening to change but aren't all that difficult to adjust. You thought the answer to 13 across in this week's New Yorker crossword (clue: “beaming”) was “SHINE,” but oops, it seems like it was “SMILE.” Small-b beliefs exist in the tactical realm where training cognitive flexibility with curiosity can help us be better at navigating daily life. However, as we move toward big-B Beliefs, a different story unfolds.

Big-B Beliefs are…well, bigger. They're the lenses we use to approach big issues, the attitudes that help us make sense of the world around us. What is the meaning of life? Are we alone in the universe? Should we eat animals? Big-B Beliefs are the tools we use to proclaim our moral, social, or political stance to the world. Since they serve all of these roles, they feel like a core part of our identity. But that doesn't mean they're always accurate or even self-serving.

The ability to re-evaluate big-B Beliefs is a difficult but critical part of intention. It allows us to integrate new evidence into our worldviews. Take the Belief that “boiling lobsters alive is okay” as an example. Oops, a new study shows that lobsters can feel pain (or we just read Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace). Boiling lobsters alive is now not okay. This seems easy enough if you don't have ...