To approach something with a beginner’s mind means to cultivate a mindset of curiosity, inquiry, and openness. It requires that you forget — or at least put aside — what you already know about a situation, a person, a topic, even yourself and look at it through a new frame.
Of all the skills that can help us solve problems, cultivate relationships, and learn new things, the attitude of “beginner’s mind” may be the most difficult to master.
3 Challenges of Beginner’s Mind
Here are 3 reasons why cultivating an attitude of “beginner’s mind” can be so challenging:
(1) Beginner’s Mind Goes Against our Most Basic Protective and Survival Instincts
As we go through life, we retain knowledge from experiences that helps us stay safe in the world.
If you put your finger to a flame, you’ll remember the feeling of the burn. It’s unlikely you’ll ever repeat that behavior. You retain the knowledge of what happens when your skin touches fire because its a vital survival skill.
Similarly, if your previous experience with a person tells you that they are a liar or a con-artist, you’ll be well-served by remembering that the next time you interact with them.
(2) Our Knowledge Eases Cognitive Fatigue
Learning new things is cognitively draining. If you had to relearn the basics every day, you’d be constantly exhausted. A storehouse of knowledge and experience makes decisions easier.
To take a simple example, once you’ve experienced what an 80-degree day feels like, you know that you don’t need to wear a winter coat. When you travel to a place where you’ve already been, you know what you need, which makes it easier to pack.
(3) Beginner’s Mind Contradicts Our Cultural Conditioning
We live in a culture of “experts.” From an early stage in our journey in any field, we are led to believe that our job entails having all the answers. Otherwise, why would someone pay you for your guidance or support?
The Risk in “Knowing” the Answers
To be sure, there are places in which our prior body of knowledge is useful and serves us. We don’t want to repeat mistakes that can lead to injury or harm.
Knowledge that eliminates decisions can ease our cognitive load. In addition, knowledge is cumulative. If you woke up every day having to re-learn the fundamentals, you’d never grow.
On the other hand, there are times when our prior knowledge — or what we think we know — doesn’t serve us or the people we serve.
Take, for example, or interactions with other people. People tend to exhibit patterns in their temperament, affect, and behaviors. Whether the knowledge you store is about others or yourself, it can feel useful to store those patterns in your knowledge bank.
But its equally important to remember that people can change their patterns. When we assume we know how others will act, we deny them a witness to their evolution. That goes double for witnessing ourselves.
Likewise, even the most established fields of knowledge are not static. We live in a changing world, and new discoveries change the landscape of what was previously known. When we assume we know the answers, we cut off the possibility of seeing a situation from a different angle.
The Middle Path: Cultivating Openness
Beginner’s mind doesn’t mean that we must let go of our existing body of knowledge. We want to retain the knowledge we have acquired through our experiences.
That said, our existing knowledge can be a restrictive lens that limits our view of a situation.
It helps to be open to the possibility that our prior knowledge might be proven outdated and that we might need to release it.
When we approach situations with curiosity in the context of our prior knowledge, when we are open to releasing what we previously knew, we can see situations and people from new angles and find answers and solutions that were previously our of our scope of vision.
Love it? Hate it? What do you think? Don't hold back...