To me, humility means being teachable. That is, I don't have all the answers, I'm not immune to making mistakes.

Recently it has helped me to pay attention when my instinct is to drift off: the impulse of "I know this already, there's nothing new for me."

One instance is at the monastery, when a layperson asked the monk about working through the loss of a loved one. I hadn't personally experienced this recently, so my instinct was to let my mind wander to something more interesting (what a cool movie I watched yesterday...). Instead, I paid attention, and it was highly rewarding. The monk explained that grief should be faced directly, i.e. not avoided. Be present with the feelings, understand the feelings, process and work through the feelings. As an example, the monk shared a story of someone who still grieved for their late spouse after a decade: certainly, this person was still working through the feelings, or possibly in denial about the need to finally move on and let go.

I was surprised with how relevant the teaching was, despite my initial hesitation. I was not grieving the loss of a loved one, but I was grieving the loss of the "life I could have had" (e.g. missed opportunities, failures, so on). The same techniques and principles applied: face the feelings, be present with the feelings, understand the feelings, and process and work through the feelings. I want to work through my grief in order to let go and move on, as the grief will keep me anchored in the past, whereas I want to be firmly in the present.

To be fair, I don't always find something relevant or interesting when I pay attention. Just as often I will struggle to concentrate during a meeting or lecture.

But it ties into another idea I've been thinking over: setting the intention. When I try to pay attention in instances where I believe I have nothing to learn, I am setting the intention of humility: maybe I am wrong and I will learn something.

With enough repetition, the intention becomes second nature. Humility, openness, "teachable"-ness, becomes second nature.