“Inversion can be particularly useful for challenging your own beliefs. It forces you to treat your decisions like a court of law. In court, the jury has to listen to both sides of the argument before making up their mind. Inversion helps you do something similar. What if the evidence disconfirmed what you believe? What if you tried to destroy the views that you cherish? Inversion prevents you from making up your mind after your first conclusion. It is a way to counteract the gravitational pull of confirmation bias.

Inversion is an essential skill for leading a logical and rational life. It allows you to step outside your normal patterns of thought and see situations from a different angle. Whatever problem you are facing, always consider the opposite side of things.”

Inversion: The Crucial Thinking Skill Nobody Ever Taught You

“Life can be frustrating. Oftentimes we know what our problems are. We may even know what to do about them. But we fear that taking action is too risky, that we don’t have the experience or that it’s not how we pictured it or because it’s too expensive, because it’s too soon, because we think something better might come along, because it might not work. And you know what happens as a result?

Nothing. We do nothing.

Tell yourself: The time for that has passed. The wind is rising. The bell’s been rung. Get started, get moving. We often assume that the world moves at our leisure. We delay when we should initiate. We jog when we should be running or, better yet, sprinting. And then we’re shocked—shocked!—when nothing big ever happens, when opportunities never show up, when new obstacles begin to pile up, or the enemies finally get their act together. Of course they did, we gave them room to breathe. We gave them the chance.

So the first step is: Take the bat off your shoulder and give it a swing. You’ve got to start, to go anywhere.”

Holiday, Ryan. The Obstacle is the Way (p. 72). Profile. Kindle Edition.

Image credit to Relationship Rules on Facebook.