Unlearn to Grow: How the CHANGE Framework Turns Outdated Assumptions Into Your Next Breakthrough
The advice that helped you get here may be the same advice holding you back.
That process that once made your business more efficient may now create unnecessary delays. The communication style that earned you respect early in your career may now make people hesitant to speak up. The “best practice” you copied from a successful company may have worked in a completely different market, with different customers, tools, and expectations.
Growth is not always about adding more information.
Sometimes, growth starts when you question what you already know.
That is the focus of the Education pillar in the CHANGE framework. Education is not just about collecting skills, reading books, or taking courses. It is about keeping your thinking current, and having the courage to replace beliefs, habits, and systems that no longer fit your life.
As we explore in the book CHANGE, lasting transformation requires attention to six connected areas: Communication, Habits, Attitude, Network, Goals, and Education.
Today, let’s focus on the part of education that can feel most uncomfortable: unlearning.
Why your old success formula can become a ceiling
Every result teaches you something. The problem is that you may turn that lesson into a permanent rule.
You get promoted after working long hours, so you assume long hours are the path to advancement. Your business grows through referrals, so you assume referrals will always be enough. One difficult conversation goes badly, so you decide direct communication is dangerous.
These conclusions may have been reasonable at the time. But they are still assumptions, not universal laws.
The environment changes. Your responsibilities change. Your customers change. Technology changes. You change.
A “best practice” is usually a practice that worked well in a particular context. It is not automatically the best practice for every person, company, season, or problem. As Harvard Business Review discusses, copying popular practices without examining the context behind them can create more problems than it solves.
Outdated assumptions quietly become part of your operating system. They influence:
The customers you target
The opportunities you pursue
The people you listen to
The meetings you hold
The metrics you track
The risks you avoid
The decisions you make
You may believe you are protecting what works. In reality, you may be protecting what is familiar.
Start with an assumption audit
Set aside 30 minutes this week for an assumption audit. Choose one area where you feel stuck: your career, business, relationships, health, or personal routines.
Write down five statements you currently believe about that area.
For example:
“My customers want the lowest price.”
“I need to handle every important task myself.”
“The best way to show commitment is to be constantly available.”
“People on my team will ask for help if they need it.”
“I am not ready to pursue that opportunity yet.”
Now challenge each statement with four questions:
What evidence supports this belief?
What evidence challenges it?
When was the last time I tested it?
If I were starting today, would I choose this approach again?
The last question is especially powerful. You may be continuing a process because you built it years ago, not because it still produces the best result.
For a business, ask your team to complete the audit independently before discussing it together. Compare answers. You will often discover that people are making decisions based on different versions of reality.
The goal is not to prove yourself wrong. The goal is to make your thinking visible so you can improve it.
Kill your darlings: retire one outdated process
In writing, “kill your darlings” means removing a line or idea you love because it does not serve the larger work.
You can apply the same principle to your career or business.
Choose one process you are emotionally attached to. It might be:
A weekly meeting
An approval step
A reporting format
A sales script
A morning routine
A social media strategy
A product feature
A way you organize your calendar
Write down what the process is supposed to accomplish. Then ask:
Does it still accomplish that purpose?
What does it cost in time, money, attention, and energy?
What would happen if we paused it for 30 days?
What is the simplest alternative we could test?
What result would tell us the new approach is better?
Do not redesign everything at once. Run a small experiment.
If a 60-minute meeting exists to make decisions, try replacing it with a 20-minute decision session and a shared document. If you review every task personally, test delegated ownership with a clear outcome and deadline. If your marketing plan is based on what worked three years ago, run a new channel experiment before committing more budget.
You are not disrespecting the past by updating the process. You are respecting the purpose behind it.
Learn from people who are already ahead of you
Unlearning is difficult when your entire information environment confirms what you already believe.
That is why your network matters.
Find people who are ahead of you in the specific area where you want to grow. Not just people who are more famous or successful overall: people who have already solved the problem in front of you.
Then ask better questions.
Instead of asking, “What should I do?” ask:
“What did you believe at the beginning that you no longer believe?”
“Which practice did you stop using as you grew?”
“What problem did you underestimate?”
“What do beginners in this field commonly get wrong?”
“What would you test first if you were in my position?”
Pay attention to what they have discarded, not only what they have adopted.
You can also learn from people who are closer to the work than you are. A newer employee may notice customer friction you no longer see. A younger colleague may understand tools or cultural shifts you have dismissed. A customer may reveal that your “efficient” process is frustrating to use.
This is one reason the MIT Sloan guide on assumptions leaders should reconsider is useful: strong leadership requires questioning inherited beliefs about people, work, authority, and performance.
Your network should not only encourage you. It should occasionally interrupt your certainty.
Create a simple weekly learning cadence
You do not need an elaborate education system. You need a repeatable rhythm.
Try this 45-minute weekly cadence:
10 minutes: Review. What decision, behavior, or result surprised you this week?
10 minutes: Question. What assumption may have influenced it? What might you be missing?
15 minutes: Expose. Read, listen to, or study one perspective that challenges your current view. Choose material from outside your usual sources or industry when possible.
10 minutes: Experiment. Decide what small change you will test during the next seven days.
Record the result. Keep, adapt, or discard the new approach.
This cadence turns education into an active practice rather than something you postpone until you have more time. It also gives you a regular opportunity to notice when your knowledge has become stale.
The Atlassian field guide to unlearning offers a similar reminder: making room for new thinking often requires deliberately letting go of old patterns.
Education does not operate alone
The six CHANGE pillars strengthen one another.
Communication: You need to communicate your updated thinking clearly. You also need to listen well enough to notice when someone is challenging an assumption you did not realize you held.
Habits: One insight does not change your life. A recurring audit, experiment, or learning block turns insight into a new pattern.
Attitude: Unlearning can feel like admitting failure. A growth-oriented attitude lets you treat it as an upgrade instead. You are not losing your identity; you are improving your response to reality.
Network: The people around you shape what you notice and what you consider possible. Seek relationships that expand your perspective.
Goals: Your goals determine which assumptions deserve attention first. If your current strategy is not moving you toward the goal, the strategy, not only your effort, may need to change.
Education: This is the pillar that keeps the entire framework responsive. It helps you ask whether your communication, habits, attitude, network, and goals still match the world you are trying to navigate.
This is also central to effective decision-making. Before making a major choice, challenge what you think you know. The principles explored in Business Decision Making apply here: do not evaluate a new opportunity using assumptions that belong to an old situation.
Your next breakthrough may begin with a question
You do not need to abandon everything that worked before. You need to stop treating the past as permanent proof.
This week, choose one belief, process, or “best practice” that has gone unchallenged. Audit it. Ask who might see it differently. Run a small test. Then decide based on current evidence, not nostalgia, ego, or fear of wasting what you have already invested.
The question is simple:
What do I believe is true that may no longer be useful?
Ask it regularly, and you create room for better answers.
For more conversations and practical ideas from the CHANGE framework, visit the CHANGE podcast and explore the PodCentral Publishing Network. Your next level may not require more information.
It may require the courage to replace what you already know.
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