It was nearly a decade ago that I first shared the idea of “being right means you often change your mind“, but that statement implies something else — it means that before you changed your mind, you were wrong about that belief.
Ray Dalio has a great Tweet from a few years ago that is along the same lines, but a bit more blunt:
If you look back on yourself and don’t think you were dumb then, you mustn’t have learned much. So, if you think you’re not dumb now and are not eager to find out how, you’re not forward looking.
In some professions, this is easy to do. If you write code for a living, it’s common to look back at your old work and wonder “what was I thinking?” In other areas, it takes a bit more introspection.
If you’ve grown and learned a lot over the past year, then your older self should seem dumb in comparison, and that’s an excellent place to be.
