Your efficacy as a truth seeker will be proportional to how much you believe that everything you know is incorrect or incomplete.
Most adults get excited at the idea of going to a party, a baseball game, or some other social event. How excited do you get when you are corrected?
Most people would do anything to prevent getting corrected. Most actually do. That is no surprise.
We delight in learning the truths that align with how we choose to act, but are slow to recognize and do not seek the truths which would require us to change.
It feels good to experience life according to our preconceived notions. It feels bad to experience contradictions to our preconceived notions. It feels good to think you are wise. It feels bad to be shown that you are a fool.
By definition, an opportunity for further light and knowledge is also a realization of personal inadequacy. This is because improvement always involves changing something already in practice. Seeking light and truth is, by definition, uncomfortable. It is only borne by those who have come to hunger and thirst after the results of the search: righteousness. Unfortunately, it is the tendency of the natural man to hide in fear rather than expose himself in faith to the Lord, ready for instruction on how to improve.
Adam ran and hid when God came to correct him, and mankind has been running and hiding from reality ever since. The difference between a truth seeker and a truth avoider is not in the opportunity for improvement, but in the reaction to the invitation to improve.
Most people require a positive ratio of compliments to correction, whether the source is another person or God. How willing are you to be wrong? What is your ratio of compliments to correction? Why does it matter? If a person gains more knowledge in this life, it is because he exercises more diligence and obedience than another (see D&C 130:19). When it comes to how much light and truth you acquire in this life, your correction ratio will make all the difference. This is why the Psalmist said: “Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest, O Lord, and teachest him out of thy law.” (Psalm 94:12)
We ought to love correction:
5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil....
11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:
12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. (Proverbs 3)
Correction is always a good thing. “Behold, happy is the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.” (Job 5:17) Every time anyone accepts correction, they are better off than they were before. These are opportunities to discover how to have a more accurate view of reality. Whatever is more accurate is better, without exception, even though it might hurt a little initially: “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.” (Hebrews 12:11)
Illusions can bring pleasure or comfort, but always with interest. The bill always comes due, and when it does, it will always cost far more than acting according to a more accurate estimate of reality would have. Closing your eyes on a tightrope might ease your fear, but it won't make you safer, and might be the last decision you make.
We ought to beg and plead with God to correct us, and be diligent in seeking every interaction with others as a potential correction. “Whoso loveth instruction loveth knowledge: but he that hateth reproof is brutish.” (Proverbs 12:10) We ought to feast on the scriptures and other materials that could expose our weaknesses.
31 The ear that heareth the reproof of life abideth among the wise.
32 He that refuseth instruction despiseth his own soul: but he that heareth reproof getteth understanding.
33 The fear of the Lord is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility. (Proverbs 15)
Humility is a word thrown around a lot. What is real humility? It is how much correction you can take before you quit!
In order to consider yourself a fool before God, and yet relentlessly seek and obtain further light and truth from him, you must adopt the difficult position of at once being perceptive and faithful enough to act on everything you have been taught thus far while also being ready at a moment’s notice to cast it aside in favor of greater light and truth. You must be like a cat and like a bird at the same time. When you try to remove a cat from its location, it will dig in its claws and bite you. If you try to remove a bird, it will fly away at the first intimation of movement towards it.
Adopting principles of higher light and truth requires the greatest tenacity. You will have to tenaciously seek for it, and tenaciously reconcile your perceptions, actions, thoughts, and desires to what you learn. Then you will also have to tenaciously cling to the light God has given you in the face of persecution from those with less light. At the same time, adopting light and truth requires great humility, because you never know the source or content of the next dispensation of light and truth. While charging forth in tenacity, you have to be absolutely humble to any potential additional light and truth. When presented with putative truth, you have to instantly consider whether it might be true, putting your most bedrock assumptions and beliefs up to reinspection if need be.
A proper response to an invitation from another to consider a different point of view should always be met with patient, unbiased consideration. Some respond to an invitation to consider a new point of view with anger:
10 And it came to pass as he began to expound these things unto them they were angry with him, and began to mock him; and they would not hear the words which he spake...
12 And it came to pass that they saw that the people would harden their hearts, therefore they departed and came over into the land of Middoni. And they did preach the word unto many, and few believed on the words which they taught. (Alma 21)
Should you find yourself getting angry at such an invitation, it should serve as a signal that you have cut yourself off from the learning process, and have become one who thinks they are wise (see 2 Nephi 9:29, 42). Anger is never a result of rational consideration of evidence. It causes God to withdraw the opportunity to learn more.
When putative truth is responded to with anger, it is not the putative truth that is on trial. Instead, this reaction reveals the desires and intent of the hearer:
20 For behold, at that day shall [Satan] rage in the hearts of the children of men, and stir them up to anger against that which is good.
28 And in fine, wo unto all those who tremble, and are angry because of the truth of God! For behold, he that is built upon the rock receiveth it with gladness; and he that is built upon a sandy foundation trembleth lest he shall fall. (2 Ne 28:20, 28.)
Why would putative truth ever make you angry, when everything in the gospel is designed to improve you by leading you from something worse to something better? When a good person hears putative truth, they consider it. If something they believe is wrong or incomplete, they want to know! If they reject a putative truth, they do so only after hearing it out, and do so with calm reason, not emotional rage.