Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me)

Three of the ideas you’ll keep

The Clif summary of Mistakes Were Made (But Not by Me) pulls out 7 insights. Here are the first three.

1. Catch dissonance early: the discomfort you feel after a questionable choice is the moment to reconsider, because every justification you add makes the decision harder to reverse.
2. Treat 'I'm a good, smart person' as the thing under threat. Most rationalizing isn't about the facts of a decision, it's about protecting your self-image, so separate the two on purpose.
3. Recruit a few trusted naysayers who are willing to tell you you're wrong, and actually thank them for it instead of arguing back, because you can't see your own blind spots from the inside.

The other 4 — and the full 11-minute summary — are in the app.

What’s inside: 9 chapters

The whole summary runs about 11 minutes, read or listened to.

1. The Engine of Self-Justification
2. The Pyramid of Choice
3. Blind Spots, Bias, and Naive Realism
4. Memory, the Self-Justifying Historian
5. Good Intentions, Bad Science: Self-Justification in the Clinic
6. Law and Disorder: Justifying Wrongful Convictions
7. Love's Assassin: Self-Justification in Marriage
8. Wounds, Rifts, and Wars
9. Letting Go and Owning Up