2 minute read
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
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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.
• Monitor Media Intake: There is no doubt that where we get our media from can and will
impact the way we think about and view certain issues. Thus, it is important to take a
critical look at the media we consume, the sources it comes from, and the motivations
those sources might have. This can help us decipher what ideals and beliefs we may be
regurgitating from a media source and what truly comes from us.
• Live Your Truth: Being true to who you are is one of the strongest ways to combat social
conditioning, but it requires a lot of self-awareness. You must take the time to know what
your true values, motivations, and beliefs are so that you can think, live, and act from
those and minimize or eliminate the impact of social conditioning altogether.
When you are firm in your beliefs, you can stay true to them even when social
conditioning is attempting to alter the way you think or what you believe. So, you must
first know what these are and then root yourself in them before you can fight against
social conditioning.
