5 Ways To Overcome The Impacts Of Social Conditioning Social conditioning is hard to escape, but there are some action items that can be taken to help you overcome the impacts of social conditioning. •
Be Open: One of the most important ways to combat social conditioning is to be open to the idea that you’ve been influenced in some way by social conditioning. People often don’t want to be viewed as weak or easily influenced and can view the idea of being influenced by social conditioning as a negative indictment against them.
This sort of attitude towards it can close people off to the openness needed to become aware and make changes so that they can become more independent thinkers. •
Reflection and Introspection: The ability to reflect and use introspection is absolutely necessary to loosen the grip of social conditioning in our lives. We must see the ways in which we’ve fallen prey to social conditioning in our lives.
Reflection and introspection gives us a way to do this by looking at major areas of our lives and assessing whether our views and thoughts are truly our own or if they’ve originated from another source. •
Get Feedback: When you’re on the inside looking out, it can be hard to identify areas where social conditioning might be influencing us. Having some people in our inner circle who know us, observe us, and engage with us often that can offer us insight about ourselves can be truly valuable.
They can often see things that we’d likely miss or overlook. The key is to avoid defensiveness and to be open to what might be shared with us. And then to take what is shared and explore it to determine the truth behind it. 6|Page
