Testing Your Beliefs

The antidote to emotional reasoning is a systematic willingness to test what you believe. Falsifiability is the key: for any belief held rationally, you must specify what evidence would change your mind.

Ask yourself: "What would I need to see to abandon this belief?" If you cannot answer, you hold it emotionally, not rationally. This test is not shameful — many valuable beliefs are emotional. The problem starts when emotional beliefs masquerade as evidence.