When I was a personal trainer, I saw every spectrum of human psychology—and it wasn’t always pretty.
One common thing I noticed was that the people who exercised the most but got the worst results were usually the people who “knew” what they were doing. If you politely asked about their exercise plan, they got closed off and responded with a lot of “I know’s”—that they knew exactly what they needed to do, how to do it, and that their way was best.
But those two words can cripple your success tremendously, not just with health, but with everything else in life from your finances to relationships to career and much more. I’ll explain why it holds you back, and I’ll share the simple shift to undo that mentality so you can learn, grow, and take your life to new heights. Let’s get started:
Why “I Know” Hurts Your Success
It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.
— John Wooden
The first critical problem with saying “I know”—especially if someone’s struggling in that area—is that they will not be open to seeking new information to improve their results. Instead, they’ll stay stuck and try to defend and protect their beliefs.
But the reality is they don’t know, and that’s exactly why they’re stuck. Worse, if they pretend that they know, they’ll get the same (lack of) results they’ve always gotten. As the saying goes, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
After all, how could they actually know? They’ve never had what they want. For example, they want to get in shape, but they’ve never had a fit body or spent thousands of dollars on coaching. (Interestingly enough, the most elite athletes all have numerous coaches while a person who can’t do a single pullup will say, “I know.”)
The second problem is when people say “I know” in the form of “I know what I need to do, I just need to do it,” it’s usually an excuse to avoid blaming themselves. Rather than admit they’re wrong, lack knowledge, or lack effort, they’ll allege that the problem is they just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
But that’s false because, if they really knew, they’d have it already.
To know and not do is not to know.
— Stephen Covey
The third problem with “I know” is it often comes from a fixed mindset where they don’t believe they can change or improve who they are. Because of that, they always have to prove themselves, prove their knowledge, and avoid looking like a failure:
Believing that your qualities are carved in stone — the fixed mindset — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. If you have only a certain amount of intelligence, a certain personality, and a certain moral character — well, then you’d better prove that you have a healthy dose of them. It simply wouldn’t do to look or feel deficient in these most basic characteristics.
—Carol Dweck, Ph.D.
They need to appear like they know everything because their self-worth is at stake. To fall short, however, would be devastating so, rather than face that brutal reality (and admit they aren’t “good enough”), they delude themselves. But they’ll never get the results they want because they would rather “know” than “grow.”
The Simple Fix to Become More Successful
All you have to do is just add one simple word to that statement.
I DON’T know.
Admit you don’t have all the answers. Admit you might be wrong. Admit you’re making mistakes. I’ve had to do this many, many times in my life, and as humbling as it was, it was always the first step to growth.
If you’re not reaching the level of success you want — whether it’s with your health, career, finances, relationships, business, etc. — stop believing you “know.” Give up the need to defend your current level of knowledge or abilities, admit you don’t know enough, and get help from people who know more.
This can be a painful step because you might discover you spent years of your life doing things incorrectly, but it’s worth it. In my life, once I stopped believing I “knew everything,” I became open to learning new strategies and mindsets, which improved my results.
Keep learning; don’t be arrogant by assuming that you know it all, that you have a monopoly on the truth; always assume that you can learn something from someone else.
— Jack Welch
Ironically, the best way to grow and become successful is to not be afraid of being wrong. After all, you can’t know everything yourself; if you only rely on your personal experiences, you’ll have an extremely limited worldview.
Instead, embrace a growth mindset. Start to believe that your traits and abilities are open-ended and flexible. Start to believe that who you are today and what you know today are changeable and are things you can improve with effort and dedication.
Why waste time proving over and over how great you are, when you could be getting better? Why hide deficiencies instead of overcoming them? Why look for friends or partners who will just shore up your self-esteem instead of ones who will also challenge you to grow? And why seek out the tried and true, instead of experiences that will stretch you? The passion for stretching yourself and sticking to it, even (or especially) when it’s not going well, is the hallmark of the growth mindset. This is the mindset that allows people to thrive during some of the most challenging times in their lives.
—Carol Dweck, Ph.D.
Once you make this mindset shift, rather than clinging to what you know (and defensively saying “I know”), you’ll actually feel more excited and encouraged to say “I don’t know” because you’ll see the opportunity for learning and growth in front of you.
And all of that new information will help you improve your life.
Because it doesn’t matter how successful, smart, or accomplished you currently are: You can always learn something new and you can always grow.
I neither know nor think that I know.
— Socrates
In my life, the more I know, the more I realize I don’t know.
And that I know for sure.
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