Have you ever found yourself believing something “just because”? Just because your family does, your friends do, or the “facts” as you know them just seem intuitively correct? Maybe this belief has been there your entire life, and is cemented deeply in your psyche as “the truth” regardless of whether or not the facts support it. Or maybe you believe something, but have no clear idea where the belief started or why you believe it at all. My guess is that you, like me, believe a lot of things that have no basis in objective reality – but you have never stopped to question many of those beliefs.

It’s human nature to like things to be simple. We don’t like to muster up our cognitive reserves to dig into the rationale, the logic, the reasoning, or the “why” something is the way it is. It’s usually easier to simply believe the so-called experts and focus our energy elsewhere. Quite often this is the right tradeoff to make, in fact. You don’t have to research cyanide to know that you shouldn’t put it in your mouth – it doesn’t rank high enough on the “investment relative to importance” scale to question whether or not it will harm you. Similarly, there’s no reason (for most people at least) to personally test the safety features of their car. You can take it on faith and a small bit of research that the claims made by your car company are valid without putting them to the ultimate test. But there are other things that really DO matter – or at least SHOULD. Things that could make a BIG difference in your life if you spent the time digging into them to understand them just a little bit more… and didn’t assume the answer was correct “just because”.

The definition of dogma: a principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true; prescribed doctrine proclaimed as unquestionably true by a particular group.

Being dogmatic about something could hardly be described as a good thing, yet so many of us cling to dogmatic beliefs without realizing it.  Of course, dogma is typically associated with religion (of just about any kind) but is applied just as evenly across so many parts of modern life. The fitness and nutrition world is rife with cult behavior and half-truths based on pseudo-science. Martial artists believe they can “beat up any attacker” or have a “death touch” despite never actually testing on a real person (thankfully, I guess). Liberals and conservatives believe their way is so obviously right that debates are just a rehearsed show, not any sort of meaningful introspection. Most people who worship a god of some sort believe their god is “the” god, despite the existence of billions of people around the planet who believe something else entirely. You can’t bring up DC Comics with a Marvel fan around, and if you’re a PC gal these days, the Mac crowd won’t let you hear the end of it. And don’t even get me started on sports (but let’s go Yankees anyway).

Carl Sagan once said that “it can be dangerous to believe things just because you want them to be true. You can get tricked if you don’t question yourself and others, especially people in a position of authority.” Sagan believed that anything that’s truly real can stand up to scrutiny. So isn’t it worth spending the time to see if your most important beliefs, whatever they are, can stand up to scrutiny?

’What is’ is more important than ‘what should be.’ Too many people are looking at ‘what is’ from a position of thinking ‘what should be’ – Bruce Lee

Yet with so much dogmatic thinking around us, how can you determine the truth about anything? How do you really know what’s for you, what could make the difference? In other words, how do you know how you should apply your limited focus? Here’s one approach that has worked for me:

1. First, figure out what really matters to you. Don’t inherit someone else’s focus areas; really dig deep and identify the things that would have the biggest impact on your life should your beliefs be questioned. I recommend starting with a big thing.  You really want to maximize the impact crater of your research. Questioning a belief about how many days it takes a banana to ripen probably isn’t going to be as impactful as a long-held belief about marriage, parenthood, or disease. The more important the area is to you, the higher the impact it will have on your life should you adopt an updated point of view.
2. Research that area by making it a point to learn about both the “obvious” view you may already have, as well as the contrarian view the “others” have. Keep an open mind and read, listen, and observe as a scientist would with no inherent bias towards the outcome. Have empathy towards those who believe something different, and try to put yourself in their place. In other words, don’t dismiss their position out of hand. Do the research.
3. Identify a set of principles or a framework that underline a specific point of view or way of thinking. A framework is a basic structure underlying a system, concept, or text.  If you can identify with and understand the fundamental principles underlying one approach, you will have a baseline for further testing.
4. Test the framework itself, and iterate over time to build an individualized approach. An open mind at this stage is key as being tied to any outcome means you’re no longer unbiased about the results. However, it’s also important to work at something until you feel some sense of mastery, else you may dismiss something without ever fully knowing it. So start with the framework as-is, and only deviate once you’ve tested it for yourself.  As Pavel Tsatsouline, strength coach extraordinaire, has said, “You would not ask a music student who can’t yet play sheet music to do free form improvisation”. You need to understand it before you can start tweaking.  Is it validating the hypothesis you started with?

All the while, be willing to change your mind or start over with an entirely different framework if it’s not working. This is where having “no dogma” comes into play – if your ultimate goal isn’t to validate a belief you already have, then there’s no harm in changing your mind. There’s a great anecdote about Jeff Bezos, CEO and founder of Amazon.com [and my uber-boss]: “He said people who were right a lot of the time were people who often changed their minds. He doesn’t think consistency of thought is a particularly positive trait. It’s perfectly healthy — encouraged, even — to have an idea tomorrow that contradicted your idea today.”

As a case study, I used these exact steps to arrive at my current approach to diet & nutrition. I determined years ago (step #1) that eating well was going to make a huge difference in my life – if I found my way on this path, I would feel better, look better, perform better, and live longer and healthier. I spent over a year digging into the research (step #2) and questioning many of my own beliefs about fats, grains, dairy, protein, meal timing, and overall food composition. Based on that research, I decided that a framework (step #3) grounded on evolutionary biology principles was as good a starting place as any, and adopted a pretty strict paleo diet for some time. Over the years since, I’ve built upon that baseline, tinkered quite a bit, and formed a more individualized program (step #4) that’s a better approach for me based on tons of my own observation and experimentation. Ultimately how I look, feel, and perform coupled with bloodwork is the ultimate test for me… not what the experts say.  While still based on many of those same paleo principles, my program is more fine-tuned and specific to my biology and psyche. (Of course, after I had done all of this, I found this great article by Chris Kresser distinguishing between the “paleo diet” and a “paleo template” – he says it better than I could). This experimentation and observation is still, and always will be, a work in progress for me.

Something doesn’t work? Start over. Something could be improved? Don’t shy away from progress because of dogmatic thinking.

Ultimately, the end result of this work is a journey to your truth. Not mine, not someone else’s. Yours alone.