- Geekmaster
- 2021-11-23 16:34:47
- 21 minute(s)
Here’s Why Being Open Minded Can Dramatically Improve Your Life
One of the things about beliefs, opinions, and goals is that everyone has them. Sometimes our opinions are so strong that nothing can make us change them. Sometimes that can be a good thing, but sometimes that can hinder your personal growth. Open-mindedness plays a significant role in living a happy and satisfying life. Here’s why being open-minded can dramatically improve your life.
Being open minded means you’re willing to acknowledge that you don’t know everything and that gasp you might be wrong.
It means viewing differences in thoughts, cultures, genders, and lifestyles as opportunities rather than dismissing them as incorrect or “other.” It’s easy to surround yourself with like-minded people who might not be exactly like you, but are close enough to not push the boundaries or rock your boat. It used to be even easier to maintain these so-called bubbles, before the era of mobility and technology we live in.
Open-mindedness is a trait I believe everyone should strive to have. In this life, you will meet many people.
People who have a different religion as you speak a different language, culturally live different, or simply have different beliefs. I believe especially in today’s society that many people are closed off to the idea of hearing what others have to say, especially those with different beliefs or views. If someone has a different political view than you, you may be quick to call them wrong or ignore what they have to say. I believe this is ignorant.
Being open minded is important because it opens up opportunities for you to learn from others.
Learn about the way others live or why they believe what they do. Learning does not mean you will change your lifestyle or beliefs, but simply grow in knowledge. It allows you to become aware. It allows you live in a way that’s more approachable. People are humans and we all long for communication and kind interactions with others. Think about the last time you had a nice conversation with a stranger. No matter how small or detailed the talk was, didn’t it leave you in a better mood? Or leave you with a take away?
By being open minded, you become less susceptible to influence, persuasion, manipulation, and coercion.
Instead of having a biased view of any given situation, you critically assess everything and gain a balanced perspective. To capitalize on your potential and become a happier individual, you must always continue to learn, and find enjoyment through doing so. Open mindedness gives you a huge advantage, and opens you up to a whole new word of knowledge and experiences.
It’s not always an easy thing to do, but the effort to be open minded and embrace new ideas will be worth it when you’re able to take part in the benefits that come from opening your mind.
So, the best thing that you can do is to listen to others with an open-mind. Instead of discouraging others based on their expectations of the world or their beliefs, take the time to listen to them. Maybe you can learn something. So, here are five reasons why it is beneficial to have an open-mind so that you can dramatically improve your life.
Freedom From Control
An open mind frees you from having to be in complete control of everything you experience. By allowing for new points of view and new experiences, you open yourself up to new thoughts, and you challenge the beliefs you currently have. While this might sound a bit unnerving (particularly if you feel very strongly about your beliefs), it’s actually quite liberating to experience the world with an open mind.
Having an open mind gives you license to think more freely, and let your thoughts flow naturally.
This can lead to challenging old habits that no longer work for you, and can trigger exciting new ideas or inspirational thoughts. Mental and emotional rigidity are two things that are sure to get in your way as you try to become more open minded. If you constantly tell yourself you shouldn’t try new things, or convince yourself that the consequences will be dire, you will continue to be closed minded. Try to relax more often and just let life happen. Chances are, you will find that breaking or at least relaxing some of the rules and restrictions you place on your life actually leads to good things. You’ll be much happier if you adopt a live and let live attitude, not just with others, but also with yourself.
There is beauty and goodness contained in the world, and we must be willing to step out of our preconceived notions of what is right and wrong in order to experience it.
Become like a child by marveling at the world in awe — consider life through the lens of unlimited potential, conspiring to create a compelling version of life. Expanding our mind by being open-minded, offers us a gateway to new ideas and beliefs. Although it is easier to remain safe inside secure boxes, venturing outside provides us with wide eyes to see the beauty and creative wonders of the world through spirit. Do you wish to travel through life being rigid and close-minded or do you desire to experience the richness of life by allowing your mind to expand? See new things? Try new roads? By surrendering control and letting go of firmly held beliefs, you make room for new ideas which are integrated into your experience. As you surrender control, you experience a positive manner of losing control.
Someone has saidWe try to control things because of what we think will happen if we don’t.
Control is a result of being attached to a specific outcome — an outcome we’re sure is best for us, as if we always know what’s best. When we trust that we’re okay no matter what circumstances come our way, we don’t need to micromanage the universe. We let go. And we open ourselves to all sorts of wonderful possibilities that aren’t there when we’re attached to one “right” path. Conversely, surrender literally means to stop fighting. Stop fighting with yourself. Stop fighting the universe and the natural flow of things. Stop resisting and pushing against reality. It’s not about inaction. It’s about taking action from that place of surrender energy.
Once you realize you cannot control external events, your energies can be placed elsewhere.
You can focus on the only thing you do have control over your responses, your mindset, your attitude, your outlook. You need to learn to trust that the things that are out of your control will happen as they do and will generally work out for the best. True open-mindedness is to totally let go of all that you think you are. Let go of all you think other people are. Let go of all definitions. Let go of all opinions. And be open to the ambiguous road that life actually is. Life isn’t a clear road, life is rather wild and free.
Liberating Experiences
Keeping your mind open to new ideas almost always keeps your heart open to new experiences. This doesn’t mean you’re going to engage in acts that counter your current beliefs, but it does mean you’re likely to experience things you’ve never encountered before, and these new experiences will either help shift your current beliefs or remind you why those values are so essential to who you are.
Being open minded unlocks the door to what you don’t yet know and what you might learn about another person, a situation or yourself. It leads us down the path of possibility.
In many ways, being open-minded is a like traveling to a remote village. It takes a bit of courage and a willingness to be uncomfortable as you experience and learn something new. Trying new experiences fosters growth, satisfies your curiosity, improves your memory, and boosts your mood and motivation. It helps you overcome fears, discover new likes and talents, and even push your limits and fulfill your full potential. All in all, it helps improve your quality of life by taking on both physical, emotional, and mental challenges.
Open minded people always dream a lot.
You may think they are not attentive and they don’t listen to you, but they most probably fly in the endless dream world of their imagination. It helps them think differently so they can make the most unpredictable conclusions in usual situations. You can try to dream more and soon you’ll see positive changes in the way of your thinking. Furthermore, they create their best ideas in the least expected moments. Whatever they do and wherever they are, they can always get an inspiration from totally everything they see. While it seems to be an ordinary cup of tea, a creative woman can see the deep ocean in a round world and it may encourage her for some new creation.
Curiosity is key in being open minded. If you cultivate a curiosity to understand everyone and their beliefs, naturally you will become more open minded.
By being curious, you will also digest information much quicker, because you actually want to learn it. You will also actively look for answers and more knowledge. To become more open minded, it’s important to strive to learn. When you realize how valuable knowledge is, naturally you will want to hoard it. Make learning a lifestyle. Whether its related to work, your avocations, hobbies, or social relationships, there is always an opportunity to learn more about it. You can become more knowledgeable about any given subject, as long as you give it time and effort. Therefore extract as much knowledge as you can out of life. Talk to people, research, experiment, watch videos and tutorials. Actively seek out knowledge, and you will begin connecting dots.
Openness to experience is a person’s interest and ability to be available towards anything new that might happen around them.
It is one of the forms of personality traits that define an individual’s eagerness to try out new things and indulge in activities that they never witnessed before or had always avoided. Those open to new experiences do not mind or oppose the notion of unfamiliarity because their personality allows them to be comfortable with unknown situations and, more often than not, this helps them be successful. People with openness show high levels of curiosity and interest. They are always in for something new or surprising. In contrast, people who are not open to new experiences are comfortable in the bubble they create for themselves. They seldom show signs of adventure or anything exciting. They wish to continue living the life they always have without being accepting of changes and surprises.
Confidence & Authenticity
Open-mindedness helps you gain confidence in you. Since being an open-minded person leads one to get more ideas, facts, knowledge and wisdom, one can become confident, because these are the necessary elements that help one greatly to live life in a confident manner. In this way, your self-confidence is a good cause to bring you desired success.
Those who are open minded have the greatest confidence.
Why? Because they possess a strong sense of self. They are not confined by their own believes, but, instead, are open to their own values, as well as those of others. And the more open-minded they continue to be, the more they come to understand themselves and the world around them. If you want to be confident, stay open-minded. Although you’re more vulnerable when you’re open-minded, you are also more capable of self-reflection, and this leads to a strong sense of self. In turn, this strong sense of self builds feelings of confidence–you’re not held back by your old beliefs, and you’re no longer held back by the limiting beliefs of others.
Those who are open-minded are more optimistic and make the most of life, since they carry less stress through their openness to change.
Open mindedness allows you to gain more confidence, since an open mind is like a vessel in which to pour the wisdom and knowledge of life into. As you maintain an open mind, you experience more confidence through your willingness to assimilate new ideas and principles. People who are open-minded are willing to change their views when presented with new facts and evidence. Those who are not are resistant to change, find life less rewarding and less satisfying due to their fixed mental ideals. Being open-minded is like choosing to live in a glass house as compared to one without windows.
When you approach life with an open-mind and realize that not everything will go your way all the time and that everything happens for a reason, you will become more accepting of negative outcomes.
If everything turned out your way all the time, what fun would that be? It’s human instinct to become bitter when things don’t go our way, but there is a reason for everything. For instance, when you get stood up for a date, an instinct may be to become bitter towards the opposite sex and play the victim role. However, it is more refreshing to take the view that there is a reason why he stood me up. Maybe he wasn’t right for me and Mr. Right is just around the corner. Chances are, if you assess the situation later, you will be thankful that the person stood you up or realize that he had a situation with family or work that was more important at the time.
When you become more open minded, you allow yourself to learn more about yourself.
This can happen by listening to other people talk about interests that you never heard of, and this could give yourself the opportunity to explore a new interest. There is an honesty that comes with an open mind because being open-minded means admitting that you aren’t all-knowing. It means believing that whatever truth you find might always have more to it than you realize. This understanding creates an underlying sense of honesty that permeates the character of anyone who lives with an open mind. With an open mind you can learn about new things and you can use the new ideas to build on the old ideas. Everything you experience can add up, strengthening who you are and what you believe in. It’s very hard to build on experiences without an open mind.
Embracing Vulnerability
Every once in a while we are prone to making mistakes. A great person is he who admits his mistakes and tries his level best not to repeat them again. But, some people do not seem to have construed well the importance of admitting their own faults. Rather, they mistake in taking the things. Whether it’s insignificant or a serious one, one should, without being hesitant, acknowledge one’s mistakes.
Admitting mistake is a sign of open-mindedness, while not admitting, narrow mindedness.
Firstly, an open-minded person tries not to make potential mistakes, if he does, he admits. Secondly, he learns from his mistakes, because learning from mistakes leads one to succeed in life. Open-mindedness not only allows a person to admit his own mistakes, but also allows him to forgive others’. Vulnerability sounds intimidating, but it’s actually one of the greatest things you can experience — and it’s often the result of having an open mind. By opening your mind to the world around you (and others’ points of view), you’re admitting that there are possibilities you may not have considered before. This admission — while terrifying at times — is liberating and exhilarating.
Sure, it’s scary to look at the word with an open mind, but this is also one of the greatest benefits.
When you accept that you don’t know everything, you may find life more exhilarating and enjoyable. You’re also likely to learn more, as you’re increasingly aware of your previous blind spots. Your ability to be okay with vulnerability will bring exponential results when it comes to experiencing joy. I bet if you asked every person you’re close to whether or not they experience fear, you would get 80% to say yes. The other 20% would be lying. There is a great power in embracing your vulnerability. It means letting go — letting go of failed relationships, failed projects, and anything in your past that felt like a failure. Until you let go and focus on the present, happiness is just a myth.
In order to become okay with vulnerability, the first thing you need to do is accept the fact that you’re worthy to get a positive response back.
If you’re opening up to someone else, believe that you’re enough to warrant love and respect back. If you’re reaching for a goal or dream, believe you have the skills and determination to make this work. You can’t go far if you yourself believe you don’t deserve positive results. Brené Brown, vulnerability researcher, explained in her TED Talk, “There was only one variable that separated the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging and the people who really struggle for it. And that was, the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they’re worthy of love and belonging. That’s it. They believe they’re worthy.” Love and appreciate yourself first, and the rest will follow.
Change is the only constant in life. Change is inevitable.
Sometimes it may be harder to accept change, but there is nothing we can do about it. It is part of life! It’s important to be open because we are allowing ourselves to be free; free to experience changes, and this can feel liberating. By doing so we are allowing ourselves to make mistakes. Although this doesn’t seem much like an advantage, it really is. By allowing yourself to learn other individual’s ways, we are putting ourselves in their shoes. We start to see things from a different perspective. This is beneficial for us and others because we then create a greater sense of belonging. We are able to better understand others.
Personal Growth
Once you approach things with an open-mind and expand your horizons, you become more appreciative of what you have in life. Just take the chance and look around and realize that everyone has their problems. It is human nature to mope about it when things in your life aren’t going as you want it, but it is more productive to focus on the things in your life that are going right. Chances are once you do that, everything else will fall into place.
Open minded people never wait for inspiration. They create their best ideas in the least expected moments.
Whatever they do and wherever they are, they can always get an inspiration from totally everything they see. While it seems to be an ordinary cup of tea, a creative woman can see the deep ocean in a round world and it may encourage her for some new creation. An open minded person will probably never fully grow up. He or she always has that childish piece of his/her individual inside. He or she looks at everything with a bit naive yet extremely dreaming look and it lets his/her recognize and enjoy the beauty of this amazing world. The reason is that open minded people do everything to avoid boredom that removes our childish spirit out of our characters.
Part of open mindedness is knowing that you never really know.
Often the more you learn, the less you know. When you can listen to everything but take a step back, it’s easier to see the bigger picture without getting caught into it. Be open to everything you hear, but also be slightly skeptical about everything you hear. Understand that there is some truth and some nonsense in everything. This includes your own beliefs. To open your mind, be critical with yourself and acknowledge that you probably don’t have the full picture. Open minded people do not confess any borders. If you want to make an open minded person follow your rules and stick to your limits, I’m afraid you’ll never succeed in this task. They love freedom of action and thinking thus they don`t confess any borders or prohibitions. They always know what to do and no boundaries can prevent them from doing it.
Research reveals how being open-minded actually changes how you perceive and navigate the world on a much deeper level than you might think.
Not only are people with higher than average levels of open-mindedness more willing to listen to opposing ideas, but they’re also more accepting of other races, cultures and religions. In fact, the way you process what’s happening in your life is colored by your level of openness. If you’re open-minded your life experiences are entirely different. The opportunities you see also differ because you’re open to doing things and seeing things in an entirely different way. Because open-mindedness affects your life in such a fundamental way it is considered to be a core value and one which, as we shall see, is extremely important.
Being open-minded in today’s dynamic world is one of the most important attributes you can learn.
Just like no man ever steps in the same river twice. You will never experience the exact same event. The world is constantly changing both with us and without us. We are part of it and it is only up to us to accept this fact or to fight it for the rest of our lives. The difference between a stubborn and open-minded man is in our potential. The mental growth of those belonging to the first group will stop after a few years, while the growth of those belonging to the second group is unlimited. So then, next time we find ourselves in a situation that is unknown to us. The situation we normally run away from. Neither run away nor fight it. Try to accept it and with all your heart open to it.
Wrapping Up
For some, being open minded is easy; it comes as effortlessly as breathing. For others, having an open mind can be more of a challenge, something that they have to work on and make an effort to obtain. Whether or not you consider yourself to be open-minded, you can certainly see from the list above that there are great benefits to viewing life with an open mind.
Being open minded can take some time to accomplish as it takes practice and a deep look into one’s self to understand where those thoughts and beliefs come from in the first place.
Using compassion also takes some work, and most likely doesn’t come naturally, but once you get the hang of it, you step back and assess each disagreement as they come, and approach with kindness, caution, and respect, you will achieve so much more than those who fight out of anger that leads to resentment. The main goal here is to try to understand one another by being open minded and showing compassion. Both will take practice, but with assertive communication, disagreements, where people have an open mind and are showing compassion, will lead to both parties feeling understood, important and valuable.
Maintaining an open mind is a huge part of successfully manifesting the future you want.
After all, you need to learn how to be open to your own power of attraction, and open to potential opportunities that might not look quite as you expected. You are not only helping yourself by being more open to new knowledge, experiences, and perspectives. You also get to improve different areas in your life, including your health and relationship to others. Such a trait may not come naturally, but there are things you can do so you can start being more open minded.
Being closed minded, or having a mind completely unreceptive to new ideas has just one outcome: sure failure. But the benefits of open-mindedness are, as you might expect, open ended. Whether you apply an open mind in your business practice, leadership practice, or in your everyday interactions, you can guarantee your success!
Open minded people are way too different from others and that gives them so many advantages. They always do what they want even if no one supports them at first. They are not afraid to prove their opinion no matter how hard it is. They always want to bring something new in this world and the humanity grows and develops thanks to these creative people. What other special traits of open minded people do you know? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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