Beliefs and Behaviours
Fundamental to the successful achievements of our goals are our self-beliefs. If we believe we can achieve something we will carry out the actions necessary to achieve our goals.
Even when we encounter difficulties and setbacks, we see these as only temporary, and not as failures. We are not stopped by them, nor do we give up. We stay committed to our goal. We often see the setbacks as learning opportunities which teach us how to proceed differently or in a better way.
However, if we have obvious or sub-conscious negative beliefs about our ability to achieve this goal, then every setback will confirm that negative belief and failure will be assured. It will appear to us that our negative belief was true all along and then we give up. To quote from Henry Ford:
“It you believe that you can, or if you believe that you cannot, you will be right.”
We all have both positive and negative beliefs about our ability to reach certain goals. We may have positive beliefs about certain areas of our lives and negative beliefs about others. If we refer to the important areas in our lives, mentioned in The Wheel of Life exercise, under Goal Setting, we may find we have, for example, very positive, empowering beliefs re career, but very negative, disempowering beliefs re money.
Fortunately, beliefs are not imprinted forever in our lives. Unfortunately, we often live our lives as if they were. I have found the following statement about beliefs to be useful:
A belief is NOT an idea that the mind possesses …
It is an idea that possesses the mind!
We often chose to view our self defeating beliefs as if they were based on absolute truth! This is mostly not the case. We think that it is so because we confuse beliefs with facts! It may be a fact that one squanders money, but it is a belief that “I am useless with money”. The first is a fact and the second a belief.
We invent millions of limiting beliefs and operate as if they were true. They affect the things we want to do, be and have, for example:
I am a bad communicator
I will never be respected
I am always unlucky
I cannot swim
I cannot use a computer
I have bad luck
I will never have a nice house
I will never be fit
Etc, etc
The source of beliefs
Beliefs are designed & imprinted in our sub conscious mind, mostly, but not exclusively, in childhood. So, something happens in our lives. We then create a belief around this and live our lives as if that were the truth. For example, imagine that as a 10 year old, I spent my mum’s shopping change on sweets. I then got scolded, beaten and told that I was “useless with money”. Two years later, I lost my mum’s change on the way home from the shops and was told that I was “useless with money”. Two years later I lost my wallet and money and got told by my teacher that “I was useless with money”.
In spite of the fact that I may have had a money-box, and usually looked after money well, this still becomes my belief about money. It becomes engrained in my sub conscious mind .Any further apparent negative happening with money reconfirms this belief, continuously, throughout my life. My reality eventually coincides with my beliefs and I become “useless with money.”
I composed the following short poem below to illustrate this point:
F*** it
He said
Getting it wrong again
His mother told him that he would
He did!
It is not beneficial to assign blame to parents, teachers etc for our beliefs. Normally, adults do their best, with their own belief systems, to educate us. Sometimes they get it wrong. But often it is not what people say that gives us our beliefs; it is our interpretation of what they say. In either case, apportioning blame has no benefits. Blame hands away our power to the other person. It allows us to adopt a victim mentality. It is more appropriate to create self-awareness, notice the impact of the limiting belief, acknowledge it is a belief (not as the truth) and decide to replace it with a more empowering one.
Changing Beliefs and Behaviours
The diagram below demonstrates how our beliefs and behaviours are constructed. It shows that our beliefs are determined by our knowledge/information. Based on this we construct our model of the world/our paradigm. This model determines our beliefs, which, in turn, give rise to our attitudes then feelings. These then support our actions.
We can now see why it doesn’t work when we tell people to “not feel that way” or “not do that”. In order to change actions, feelings, attitudes or beliefs of ourselves or others, we must change our education, knowledge. This allows us to construct a new view of our world, a new model. This is referred to as a “paradigm shift”. When it occurs it allows us to believe, feel, and behave differently.
This also explains why New Year’s resolutions, diets, and exercise routines do not work. They are often attempting to “change” or “fix” things. But they are operating too far down the cascade. Education, which includes self-awareness, understanding and reframing of limiting/negative beliefs, is essential.
When one gets an understanding of the reason for a limiting belief, one can eliminate it and replace it with one that is empowering.
Beliefs and Human Behaviour
Education
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Paradigm / model
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Personal Beliefs
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Attitude
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Feelings
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Actions
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Results
The subconscious mind is simply a filing system which is non-judgmental It only reacts to any negative event in the way that we have trained it to. It produces positive or negative responses to events based on the way in which such similar events and responses were filed in the past. The responses/feelings either help or hinder us. The response is Pavlovian. This means that it is a conditioned response that is outside our control.
The good news, though, is that we can change the negative responses and associated negative self-image, by replacing the files that no longer serve us with empowering beliefs that do.
How do we replace disempowering beliefs with empowering ones?
Persistent thoughts on any subject open up memory pathways or channels in the brain that become bigger and more responsive, depending on the frequency and emotional impact of those thoughts. Frequently we train these pathways (dendrites) with our persistent self-talk. We are encouraged to listen to our self talk, to notice how damaging it can be. We do this to create awareness, followed by action to change it. We do not do it to create self-pity, which has no useful purpose. This inner self-destructive voice has been likened to our “gremlin”. The negativity can be overpowering. It is great to realise that it is only our sub conscious mind telling us stories that it has heard and filed. A useful website and book for dealing with this negative self-talk can be found at www.tamingyourgremlin.com.
A summary of techniques used to place more empowering beliefs are placed in our minds are:
Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
Affirmations
Visualisations
Positive acknowledgement
Rational analysis
And the NLP techniques of:
Reframing
Pattern breaking
Powerful anchors
Brain washing?
Some people become concerned and frightened by the thought of replacing their current negative beliefs with others. Their fear is that they will lose their identity.
This does not happen. Our identity is more related to our values in life than our beliefs and consequent behaviours.
We must remember that a belief is only sustained by the knowledge / information that create it. If we change the information, we change the belief. So, if we believe we are no good because our Mum/Dad told us repeatedly that we were useless and we now see that she/he did this to challenge and encourage us (even though it didn’t), then why not replace it with affirmations telling our mind that we are Wonderful, Amazing, Brilliant?
The alternative is to stay stuck with a limiting belief that could also be regarded as brainwashing. Why not have joy and happiness rather than disempowerment, resentment, frustration and anger?
