Learning to drop familiar tools

Why no tool, ideology, training, or habit applies to all situations.

1. The idea that "X" is the one tool to rule them all

The first tool you should drop is the idea that there's a "one-tool-to-rule-them-all".

2. Wealth

Let's say you want to be wealthy.

There are infinite ways to do it. You can start a business, get an education, invest in real estate, invest in stocks, etc.

You can't just "become" wealthy by doing one of those things. It's not linear like that.

So if you try to do just one of those things then you'll fail because you didn't do any of the other ones as well (and there are infinite others).

You have to experiment and try many different things and see what works for you. And even then, nothing is guaranteed so you have to continue trying new things your entire life. There's no one way but there are many good ways if you explore enough of them.

But we like to think there's a linear path to anything so we feel more comfortable with our choices if we think they will lead us directly where we want to go. But they won't unless you're very lucky and there are no wrong turns along the way (which is impossible since everyone has different interests). So I suggest dropping this idea and experimenting with many different approaches instead of searching for the perfect linear path from A to B when A and B might not even exist or might be very different than what we imagine them to be anyway. 

3. Books / courses / podcasts / etc that seem really great

but maybe they aren't great at all

Drop them
(they are NOT your tools)In order not to feel lost when choosing which books or courses or podcasts or whatever seems great, I suggest dropping these altogether because they will only confuse matters further if taken too seriously as "tools"
Whatever seems like a good course or book probably is good but it doesn't matter much since everyone will take away something else entirely from it anyway
It's better just to read more broadly across all topics than follow specific courses/books/etc on any topic since each person will get something unique out of everything they read/listen/etc regardless of how popular it is or isn't
It's better just to read broadly on everything rather than trying specific courses/books/etc

4. Your own ideas about how things work

Drop them!They might be right but again, it doesn't matter much since everyone has their own biases and will take away something completely different from anything they study no matter how objective it seems on the surface

5. Your expectations about what "should" happen given X training or book or podcast episode

Drop them!Nothing should happen except for personal growth in some area(s) depending on what interests you most in life right now
Life doesn't care about your expectations at all so don't expect anything back from your studies (unless perhaps studying chess helps improve your game at chess)
Expectations only come into play when we stop studying an area because we expect results back from our studies (which never happens)
If someone says "this course changed my life!" then maybe it did, but only if they kept studying after the course was over and didn't expect anything back from their studies (which nobody does)