As a result of nourishing an open mind, I tend to change my mind about things every once in a while when I get new information about them. I’ve changed my opinion on almost every aspect of my life at this point, and continue to learn to adapt to new information.

At work, this is even clearer – especially if you’re running your own thing. Almost every day, I’m learning something new about our customers and the business. Something I thought was true yesterday probably doesn’t apply anymore today. Timelines change, crises happen. A new idea pops up that could change the direction of a project. Or something I didn’t know I didn’t know appears! This tends to shift ground beneath me, but in a great way.

With the work that I’m doing now, it’s even more critical to stay close to the research. Learning about sunscreen ingredients now, the science behind skincare, and the actual process of creating them, still appalls me at times. There are so many claims I took for granted that aren’t true or backed by science. There’s a lot of fear-mongering out there that’s totally unwarranted.

There’s sometimes the pressure to be self-congruent. “I said this in the past,” I would think, “Does it make me look fickle for changing my mind about it?” I probably overthink these things. It’s likely better to be a little more right than to be consistent in life. People do get a little annoyed with it, as far as I’ve seen, but not that often. If I’m just able to be candid and transparent with my thought process, they tend to follow the logic.

That said, it’s easy to get carried away and try to change your mind too often. I believe in having conviction when you need to be convicted. Especially as an entrepreneur or product designer, I’ll often hear conflicting feedback. It would be a big mistake to change directions each time I hear something different. The important thing is to consider the new information and how it fits, especially if you’re the person driving the decisions forward.