The power of your beliefs

One of the biggest realizations of my life came when I understood that our life goes according to our personal beliefs literally about everything, and for me it was mind-blowing revelation. So let me share with you why you absolutely should be aware of what beliefs your mind holds and the impact it has on your life.

So what is a belief?

It is a conscious and/or subconscious interpretation of any fact that you absolutely hold as true in your mind’s eye. Let me underline the word subconscious, because too often people are not even aware of their deep-seated beliefs about themselves and different aspects of life.

I strongly believe that our belief system is life navigation tool of our life. Your belief creates your vision of future, which then trigger your actions. If in you belief system you are sure that something is unattainable, no matter how hard you work for it, it will stay unattainable.

Where do beliefs come from?

Most of them are programmed when you are a child until the age of 6-7. And even though your beliefs evolve with the time, the childhood programs remain the main anchor for your belief system. Hence your parents/caretakers and environment in which you grew up, had one of the highest impacts on forming your belief system. Beliefs about money, relationships, family, your character, health, people etc. primarily are shaped by them. As a child you accept them, without any questioning. Further, as we grow our beliefs additionally become shaped by painful or pleasurable experiences that come along our way.

What is the impact of our belief system?

How many people do you know who despite of their best efforts, are unable to attain their goals for which they work really hard for? At some point they might blame their poor fate, luck, karma and other external factors. Randomly however the realization comes that its purely their internal aspect of their belief system which creates this reality for them.

The problem is when these generalized programs create limiting beliefs that absolutely don’t serve us in life. Let me give you concrete examples:

• The moment person takes on the belief that rich people are bad/selfish/unkind, their subconscious will not allow them to financially prosper

• With the belief relationships are scary/unsafe/unreliable – person will struggle big time to create harmonious/healthy long-term relationships in their life

• Believing one cannot make decent living from their hobbies and things they truly love, person will most likely end up with the job that does not bring true joy.

  I can list endless limiting beliefs on any topic that most of us hold without realizing the impact of them on how we lead our lives.

Be also aware that your mind can hold a contradictory beliefs about a specific topic simultaneously. Example: 1) committed relationship brings satisfaction and feeling of peace; 2) committed relationships brings loss of freedom and self-sacrifice. Depending on which of the two belief is stronger and which brings more pleasure and pain to a person, they will act accordingly. Nevertheless holding these two beliefs simultaneously can bring quite some issues to a person who wants to create long-term stable relationship.

The problem is when we are so sure of our beliefs that we just live the life without ever examining them. In his book ‘’The code extraordinary mind’’ – Vishen Lakhiani the founder of Mindvalley talks about the term ‘’Brules’’ – which he calls ‘’bullshit rules’’ which we take on as absolute truth and carry them along with us. Examining and becoming aware of these ‘’Brules’’  is one of the fastest way to improving your life.

How to find the signs of limiting beliefs?

Here is one of the fastest ways that I know how to find a limiting belief. Think of the goals you’ve set in the past but haven’t achieved for whatever reason. Well that’s your biggest clue that on some level either conscious or not, you have limiting beliefs with the regards to the topic.

Let’s take following example. Let us say that you want to open your business, and you are really eager and motivated, so you set a goal to get started. However no matter what you do things just don’t go the way you intend and you eventually give up. This is a perfect time to examine your belief which is creating the situation. Ask yourself ‘’what do I believe and what are my thoughts about this topic (in this case opening a business)? Write down as many statements as possible that come to your head. Do not judge these statements, as your job is to find out all possible beliefs that your mind might be storing. Often you will find conflicting ones like – ‘’person with their own business can become fulfilled and wealthy’’ and ‘’’ person with their own business has zero time left for their private life or any other hobbies’’ etc. If the pain associated with the belief in this case – ‘’loss of free time’’ is stronger, then your subconscious will highjack your plan of opening a business finding numerous excuses and entangling you in situations which will not allow you to succeed. And this example can be used for any other endeavor you want to undertake.

How to change your beliefs?

There are number of things you could do:

1.You can use the method of so called ‘’Socratic questioning’’. In a nutshell this addresses your logical mind, where you question your belief from multiple perspectives.  Example if you believe ‘’rich people are bad’’ – ask yourself, ‘’are there rich people out there for who this statement is not true?” in other words ‘can I think of any rich person who is nice out there?’’

2. Meditation and gratitude: can be very effective way to change a belief. In meditative state your mind goes to alpha brainwave which can become a perfect ground for accepting new suggestions and new beliefs. In this state, if you use gratitude to turn your negative belief into positive one, you have a fast track to succeeding in changing your belief. Example statement: ‘’I am grateful for all abundance I have in my life’’.

3. Affirmations and visualization: both affirmations and visualization techniques can be very useful methods to change your current limiting beliefs by substituting negative statements with the positive ones. Repetition is the key here, as the subconscious mind can take some time to accept the new belief as a new reality.

4. Person open for alternative methods can try Emotional Freedom Techniques or EFT - a form of technique to change stuck limiting beliefs using tapping method on the body parts according to acupuncture, neuro-linguistic programming, energy medicine, and Thought Field Therapy.