You, Sir, are contradicting none less than W. Somerset Maugham, who famously wrote: "Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind.

You, Sir, are contradicting none less than W. Somerset Maugham, who famously wrote: "Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one's mind." :P Seriously, it does take discipline and willpower to do the due diligence of acquiring facts and thinking through issues rather than just going with what's convenient or feels right. We are wired to do a lot of the latter and only a little of the former, because thinking rigorously is hard and slow work ill suited to everyday survival needs. I suppose learning about our bimodal thinking - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow - and about common cognitive biases - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases - is a start. There are many off-the-shelf decision making processes one could consider adopting - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision-making http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision-making - but, again, it's a lot of work...