Talk with friends to solidify it
from the book “Useful Not True”:
After you privately internalize a belief, talk about it with friends. Explaining it to different people helps you refine it. They might see an angle or consequence you hadn’t considered.
You hear it for the first time outside your own mind. You’ll hear it sound wrong or right when telling someone else.
It feels like an announcement. It helps solidify the decision. You can ask them for help to support your choice, and to hold you to it.
We know ourselves through others. If people say you have nice eyes, then you must have nice eyes. When your friends acknowledge your belief and echo it back to you, it really feels like reality.
The conversation doesn't just refine the belief, it stress tests whether you actually hold it or just find it appealing. Most ideas feel solid until you have to defend them to someone who isn't already convinced. The ones that survive that are the ones worth keeping.