Beliefs are the hardest things of all to change. Beliefs are critical to how effective we function as human beings. Why? You don’t believe what you see, you see what you believe.
Beliefs come from five sources:
- Essence. These beliefs are your deepest convictions. If you take an action that conflicts with a belief which comes from your essence, you will find that you sometimes endure extreme distress.
- Indoctrinated. Political and religious beliefs often come from this source. These beliefs heavily influence our value systems and choices.
- Parental/peer. When you are impressionable, (and for some of us, that can be our whole lives!) your parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, as well as close friends and peers, impact your beliefs.
- Societal/mythic. These are things that advertisers tell us to believe. You need to be young, good-looking, rich, drive a snazzy luxury automobile, etc.
- Instinctual. These are beliefs that are hardwired into primitive areas of our brain. Essentially, these are unconscious responses to cues. Think Pavlov’s dog or how a baby learns that the stove is hot.
Beliefs shape our internal “self-talk”. Social scientists tell us that perhaps 65-75% of our self-talk is negative. This is because many of our beliefs are negative:
- “I am fat.”
- “I don’t deserve a raise.”
- “I screwed up my marriage.”
- “I am a bad parent.”
- “I am old.”
- “My business will never succeed.”
If you change your beliefs, you change your self-talk, and you create the foundation to move forward towards success in relationships, business, and life.
So how do you modify your beliefs to have a more positive effect on your life?
For those of you who have access to my private client website, log in and click on “forms”. Then, click on “documents”, and select “The Big Four 2010.” Here you will find a valuable beliefs exercise.
There are many other exercises and methods by which you can modify your beliefs to enjoy more success, satisfaction and happiness. Both emotional intelligence coaching and energy leadership coaching rely heavily upon ascertainment of a client’s beliefs and what, if any, modification needs to be made to a belief system in order for a particular client to move forward towards desired goals.
Yes, beliefs are hard to change. Nevertheless, the impact beliefs have on our day-to-day lives, and our long-term as well as short-term goals, is profound. This is an area where a little bit of introspection can yield significant results!
———