6 Tips to Help You Form Your Own Opinions
I’m a strong believer in thinking for yourself, and understanding why you believe the things you believe in. So it may seem a little ironic to write about how you can do that, and expect you to believe me about it. But I don’t expect you to believe me- I expect you to try these for yourself and form your own opinion about whether they work. :)
With that said, why is it important to form your own opinions? By doing so, you are more able to withstand other’s words when they fight you on something. But it also means you know your reasoning, and you’re open to accepting new information and changing when that information comes to you. Being stubborn is not necessarily a trait of thinking for yourself. In fact it’s often the opposite, and less stubborn people are more likely to have done the work to think for themselves.
Also forming your own opinions means developing skills to make better decisions. It' takes effort, analyzing skills, reflection and often humility and vulnerability to be able to do this well. After all of that, you’ll have learned how to come to a conclusion and make decisions for yourself.
With that all said, let me share six tips with you to get started.
Question Your Beliefs and Opinions
This is a huge step. You can’t really solidify your beliefs and opinions if you’ve never questioned them. I ‘m a member and I grew up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Oftentimes, we’re told that while other churches are good and have good people, our church is the one with the most of God’s truth, that were lost and have since been and are continuing to be revealed and restores to the earth. That’s a big claim.
I remember being about 13 or 14, and admitting openly that I didn’t really know if that was true, or if I believed it. I was questioning my beliefs. But I still wanted to believe it. Something I do love about this church is that we’re invited to seek answers for ourselves- we don’t have to take anyone’s word for anything, we can do our own searching. I read The Book of Mormon, I prayed about it, and I felt something. I laid out the logic of it all, and it made sense. This doesn’t mean my questioning is completely over. While I do believe in the main elements of doctrine of my church, there are still plenty of things I don’t know if I believe in. I’m still questioning, I’m still studying. I think that makes me more open to change, more flexible in my beliefs, and more able to empathize with others who question it as well.
I’ve met people who’ve never questioned their beliefs about the church or other things, and these people are often quicker to shatter when things go wrong. Or, they may be quicker to try and hurt others for where they are in their journey, which is beneficial to no one, and harmful to many.
If you want to be able to form your own opinions, you’re going to have to be comfortable with uncertainty. The unknown isn’t scary- it’s path to gaining a stronger mind.
Do the Work
Once you’ve started questioning your beliefs, start doing research about them. You don’t have to dwell in uncertainty forever. Look to various sources for news and information. I like AP News and Reuters because they are pretty neutral, simply stating the facts. BBC World News and NPR are also good sources. You can also look at how news stories are told through various networks, and see where they come together and differ.
Ask yourself- what is their motive for presenting it this way? What are the positives and negatives? What kind of thoughts and beliefs might this perpetuate? How will it have an affect on people? It’s important to be questioning your beliefs and to be out of your bubble during this, or you will likely be tainted by your own biases.
If it’s a social justice or political issue, look up the actual facts from real sources, not just someone’s tweets. Listen to the stories and experiences of those affected, especially of minorities. If those contrast with what you’ve always believed, then it’s probably a good time to reevaluate those beliefs rather than dismissing someone outright.
Does something not seem right to you, but you’re not sure if it’s real or not? Check out Snopes or factcheck.org to discover what the truth is. These are reliable websites that do extensive fact-checking, and provide links to original sources. Facts mean a lot to me, because I think they’re hard to argue with. Search for some of your beliefs, disbelief’s and things you’ve heard here, and learn more about what’s actually true.
Avoid Confirmation Bias by Questioning Your Thought Process
It’s very easy to get into the confirmation bias trap when doing research. We’ll only seek out sources that confirm our views, and we quickly dismiss anything that doesn’t. This can often take some mental gymnastics.
If you find yourself reading something and automatically trying to dismiss it, think about why. Does it make you question what you believe? Maybe you feel your identity is tied to something. This can happen a lot.
People may think “I’m not a racist!” and then someone else will say something like “Making jokes about minorities like that is racist,” or “Assuming something about someone like their citizenship status, beliefs and attitudes, potential actions, based on their skin color or ethnicity is racist.” The first person maybe has done or still does some of those things. But they’re not racist! They have an identity tied to that. So clearly, in their mind, the other person must be wrong- those actions are not racist. Maybe they think the other just needs to lighten up. Maybe they just don’t understand. But the first person is not racist, so those actions they do cannot be racist. Or sexist or whatever it may be.
Oftentimes the person will deflect with a “what about…” in order to avoid the question and not have to confront themselves, their actions and beliefs. They may attack the speaker’s credibility, or participate in a number of logical fallacies. All because confirmation bias and identity are powerful forces. But if someone can break out of it and say, “I didn’t think I was racist, but that made me question it, and I want to be better now,” then they’ve shown they are learning and able to grow and form their own opinions by questioning their beliefs and their thought process.
The research and fact-checking mentioned above can help with that as well.
Use Syllogism
What the heck is syllogism? The Merriam-Webster dictionary explains that it is, “A deductive scheme of a formal argument consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion.”
It works like this- I might say something like, “People who are unhappy should get a dog. I am unhappy. I should get a dog.” It’s a logical sequence. Laid out better, it would look like this:
Major Premise: The government should do all it can to protect the well-being of it’s citizens.
Minor Premise: Loose gun laws do not protect the well being of the government’s citizens.
Conclusion: The government is not doing all it can to protect the well-being of it’s citizens.
There can be conflicting syllogisms. One may start with a false premise. Laying out your beliefs and opinions in this way, however, can help you understand your reasoning. Maybe someone does not believe that government should do all it can to protect the well-being of it’s citizens. If they can lay out why in this way, it can lead to a better discussion, and a better understanding of yours and other’s beliefs. If you can’t quite lay it out right in a logical way, or you lay it out and you realize it doesn’t actually make sense, then maybe this is a good point to realize your beliefs need more research, more understanding, and perhaps change.
It’s always good to step back and reflect, about yourself and your beliefs. This is a logical way to do so. It can even help with self esteem. I have a major premise that women should love their bodies. I am a woman. So I should love my body. Or, starting with a false premise, I could say, my friends don’t like annoying people. I am annoying. My friends don’t like me. However, do I have any evidence for the major premise? Not really. Also not really for my minor premise. So looking at it like that, I see how ridiculous it sounds, and I can alter my beliefs from there.
I’m a logic-oriented person, so this tool makes a lot of sense for me, and has been very helpful. But there are still others ways to develop your own opinions.
Experience New Perspectives by Doing Things Differently
If you’ve only lived one way your whole life, you may start to feel like it’s the only way to live. People who have experiences different than yours can feel like outliers, and they can be easy to dismiss. But doing things differently and going to different places can help break you out of this, and enable you to see things differently.
Traveling can be a privilege. I’ve been blessed to be able to travel a lot, including going to different countries, which helps immensely when you’re open to learning. Even traveling in your home country can make an impact.
I’m glad I got to spend my LDS mission in Alabama, because the culture there is very different from what I grew up with, and I learned a lot. Even though My opinions were different from many people there, I was able to love them and I have a better understanding of their situations. It makes me sad when people generalize about the South, because there’s just so much to it, and many things you may only understand by going there.
But I know that not everyone can do that. Luckily, there are other ways to break out of your bubble than by traveling.
One is by going to new places in your home area, if possible. Is there a museum or art exhibit or cultural center that you’ve never been to? Check it out. Is someone coming to speak about something you don’t know much about? Attend with an open mind. Maybe there’s an area of town you never venture to. Grab a friend or two and visit it, and if people seem open, ask them about their experiences, their stories, remembering to always be respectful and conscious of their time. You could even try attending different churches to learn about what they do, and what their beliefs are.
Doing these things will help you to understand better where others are coming from, and open your mind up to learning.
Another different thing you can do is follow different people on your social media. If your feed is full of the same stuff, diversify it a bit. I try to follow wholesome accounts, as well as political leaders, news accounts, and minorities and advocates for things I don’t know much about. I’ve learned a lot from reading threads of someone’s experiences on Twitter, and then doing my own follow-up research on it.
Social media is really an excellent way to learn from people you’d never meet or hear of otherwise. It can be uncomfortable at first, but through time, you can appreciate the perspective you gain. This is of course discounting trolls and bot accounts whose only purpose is to spread negativity, anger, and lies. You don’t have to follow people who are toxic.
You don’t have to, and shouldn’t take what all these people say as the truth and accept it at face-value, because that’s not forming your own opinions. But doing this can help you gain perspective, question your beliefs and thoughts, prompt research, and develop empathy. This all adds up to you forming your own opinions about whether to accept what they say or not, which can lead to a quicker process in the future. So branch out and see what happens.
Check in With Yourself Once in a While
After doing some of these things, you may have been able to discover what you believe for yourself, and why you believe that way, and you can then be more secure about it. This is a good thing. You don’t have to be neutral forever. You don’t have to question yourself forever. If you’ve researched something a lot to where you know what you’re talking about when it comes up, you don’t have to research that forever. It may be good to, you may want to, and that’s fine. But you can take breaks when your mind becomes more settled.
You don’t have to be open to and trying to learn from racists, sexists, xenophobes and homophobes.
And yet, while you may become more settled, while decisions may be easier, you still have to be careful. After a while, you may again become complacent, and fall back into confirmation bias. Maybe your bias is toward the truth, and is correct, but it’s still a good idea to check in with yourself periodically and do the fact checking again. To question yourself again, to branch out again.
This can be hard. I’ve become confident in many of my beliefs. I try to check myself and remember to do those things again once in a while. I want to stay up-to-date on the facts. I remind myself to be open, and if I see something that doesn’t fit with what I believe, to research it and accept that I’m wrong if I am. Being wrong is not a weak thing to admit. It shows strength, an openness to learning and self-improvement.
I want everyone to become confident in their beliefs, and to be able to articulate them passionately and logically. It’s possible if you put in the work. It’s possible if you remind yourself to use these tips, and others you may discover, when you start feeling like you’re being too stubborn, or dismissing others too quickly.
But don’t just take my word for it. Take yours.
