One of the building blocks of self help and personal development is the concept of beliefs and belief systems.  What are beliefs, and why is it important to understand them?

Beliefs are basically the building blocks that describe your own version of reality.  You live your life based on YOUR beliefs, not based on facts.  We all do.  Why is this important?  What’s important about understanding that we live our lives based on our beliefs and not facts, is that we are all mostly unaware of our own beliefs and how they are used to interpret reality.  Consider this example of Mary and Betty.

Mary has the following beliefs:

• People who wear baggy pants and bandannas are probably in a gang.
• Gangs are violent and they can attack and exploit innocent people.
• Gangs often target women in their attacks.

Betty’s beliefs on this topic are as follows:

• Most people who wear baggy pants and bandannas have low self esteem and are actually quite fearful.  They wear such clothing to make themselves feel tough.
• Gangs will leave you alone unless you yourself are in a rival gang, so if you leave them alone they will most likely leave you alone.
• Gangs only target rival gang members in their attacks.

Now, I’m not going to argue the validity of Betty or Mary’s beliefs, because neither is right or wrong, they are just different.  Throughout their lives, Betty and Mary experienced different things which shaped their beliefs.  Betty and Mary might not even be aware that they have these beliefs in their minds.  When Betty and Mary walk down the street and they see a kid walking towards them with baggy pants and a bandanna on, they will each react totally differently due to their different beliefs.  Mary might become really afraid and might cross the street to avoid the kid.  Betty might walk by and maybe even smile at the kid.  This isn’t due to the fact that Betty is tougher than Mary, it is simply due to the fact that they have different beliefs even if they don’t know it.

So, how does that relate to you and your life?  Well, it’s important because if you haven’t taken the time and don’t take the time on a regular basis to study yourself and your own beliefs, you will not be aware of some of the fundamental reasons why you act and think in certain ways.  You will dismiss your thoughts and actions with excuses like “That’s just the way I am.”  Yes, you are your own individual, but the problem is that we are all walking around with millions of beliefs in our heads which affect our daily life and we are mostly not even aware of them.  These beliefs have been conditioned into us by our parents, society, TV, media, friends, books, magazines, blogs, etc.  To truly start to take control of your life, you will need to start to become aware of your beliefs and learn ways to change them if you want to.

Why would we want to change our beliefs?

We all go through different stages of our lives, and we all learn how to survive and thrive in our environments.  For example, if you lived in an abusive household you would have developed different beliefs than a person who lived in a loving household.  If you went to a school that was full of highly competitive kids you will have different beliefs compared to a person who went to a school with kids who liked to help each other and weren’t very competitive.  None of the things you learned as your beliefs are right or wrong.  They just are what they are, but just because you learned a belief at one point in your life, it doesn’t meant that it still serves you today.

For example if you used to be a little kid in school and kids used to pick on you and beat you up you may have developed beliefs that would make you afraid of being violently attacked by people, yet as an adult you may now be 6 foot 3 and weigh 250lbs with a fully muscular physique.  However, since most of us are not aware of our hidden beliefs you may still be afraid of people and may even now be getting pushed around just like it’s grade 2 all over again. 

How to change your beliefs?

If you’ve identified beliefs that you have which you feel you would like to change, there is an effective process you can use to change your beliefs.  You can do this in writing or just in your head.  I find writing it all out is much more effective. 

1. First, identify the belief you want to change.  For example: “Everyone is mean.” might be a belief that isn’t serving you anymore. 
2. Secondly, create an opposite belief that you want to replace your old belief with.  For example you may want to change this one to “There are a lot of loving and supportive people in my life.” 
3. Thirdly, begin to question your existing belief (”Everyone is mean.”).  Pretend you’re a cop interrogating a suspect: “How do you know everyone is mean?”, “Yeah, but how do you know for sure?”, “So what Billy in grade 2 was mean, that doesn’t mean EVERYONE is mean does it?”, “What proof do you have that EVERYONE is mean?” etc.  The more you question the existing belief, the less you will believe it.
4. Fourthly, think of valid examples that support your new belief (”There are a lot of loving and supportive people in my life.”).  For example, maybe you can think to your last birthday.  Who was there?  Which people showed up?  Did they bring gifts?  Did they wish you a happy birthday?  or think about your best friend right now.  Does he/she support you?  Can you share things with them?  The more aware you become of the supporting statements that align with your new belief the more you will believe it.
5. Link pain to your old beliefs.  Envision the devastating consequences of continuing to believe your current belief (”Everyone is mean.”)  Think about how that belief will negatively affect your relationships in life, how it will make your life more miserable.  Imagine the effects of your belief being extra devastating.  Exaggerate a bit to really drive the point home to your brain that you no longer want this belief inside your head.
6. Link pleasure to your new beliefs.  Envision how wonderful your life will now be with the new belief you have.  Imagine how much more open you will be to making new friends, meeting new people and building strong connections with people.  Exaggerate a bit to really drive the point home to your brain.
7. Use what’s called “Creative Observing” to find “proof” that your new belief is true.  Creative Observing is the process of seeing reality accurately, but slightly biased in the direction you want to go in.  So, in this example, let’s say that your friend brings you a Birthday cake for your Birthday.  Take the time to mentally say to yourself “SEE!  There ARE a lot of people who are supportive and loving in my life!”.  Do you really know if your friend is loving?  You can argue both ways, but why with “Creative Observing” whenever an opportunity presents itself to reinforce your new belief, do it!
8. For those of you who believe in the Law of Attraction, using “Creative Observing” will also cause you to attract more and more situations that “prove” to you that your new belief is correct.  You will attract more examples of your new belief, then using creative observing you will send out mental energy verifying your new belief and that process will once again begin to attract even more events to your life that support your belief and on and on and on.

I will also define some terms relating to beliefs so you can understand them better:

• Limiting Beliefs: Beliefs that limit you in life, regardless of their validity at some point in your life.  For example “I am a failure.” is a limiting belief.  Usually when we feel “stuck” in life, there is a limiting belief lurking somewhere in your subconscious that’s stopping you.  Try to figure out what it is and if it doesn’t serve you in life anymore, change it!
• Subconscious Beliefs: Beliefs that lie in your subconscious mind that you are not even aware of.  They automatically filter and color your experience of the world around you, whether you’re aware of them or not.  Most beliefs are in fact subconscious.  Only by exploring a topic and asking yourself questions can we surface hidden subconscious beliefs.  There are also dispositional beliefs which are beliefs that you actually believe through “common sense” but aren’t aware of because you never thought of them yet.  For example if I ask you “Do zebra’s wear purple pants?” the first thing that might pop into you head is “No!”, which means you don’t believe they do, but you probably never thought about that.
• Global Beliefs:  Beliefs you have that are general and affect almost every part of your life.  They usually start look like this: “People are…”, “Life is….” etc.  Often times when we change some of our global beliefs, we can experience a lot of transformation in our lives just by changing one single belief.  For example, just imagine a person living their entire life with the global belief of “I am a failure no matter what I do.” all of a sudden changing that limiting belief to “As long as I keep trying, I will eventually succeed”.
• Empowering Beliefs: Beliefs that empower you to live a more fulfilling life.  Sometimes when we look through our beliefs and have to decide whether certain beliefs still serve us we can ask ourselves “Will this belief empower me?” and if the answer is yes, keep it, and if the answer is no, get rid of it.
• Dis-empowering Beliefs:  Beliefs that dis-empower us in life.  The validity of the belief may be debatable depending on who you ask, but if the belief dis-empowers you, then why keep it?  For example, a belief like “I’m ugly” is a dis-empowering belief.  Regardless how you look and what you were told in school, having such a belief will not help you in life so why keep it?  If nothing else, at least change it to “I am average looking.”

What are belief systems?

Belief systems are sets of beliefs in certain areas of life.  For example, you may have a belief system in the area of money.  Perhaps the majority of your beliefs in that area of life are dis-empowering and limiting so as a result you have a tough time with finances.  For example, your belief system in the area of money and finances could have limiting beliefs like “Money doesn’t grow on trees”, “I am not good at math.”, “You need money to make money” etc.

In a different area of life, like lets say relationships you may have a set of beliefs (Belief System) that is empowering, like “Women love me.”, “I am a lovable guy.” etc.  In this area of life you may find yourself very successful due to your belief system.

Ever wonder how some people can be so successful in one area of their lives, but be totally struggling in other areas?  This is usually due to them having a bad belief system in that area of life.  Most people may have been raised by their parents who had empowering belief systems in certain areas and dis-empowering belief systems in other areas.  In such cases, unless their kids identify this and remedy it, they may be subject to the same challenges in life as their parents.  For example, kids who were raised by parents who had dis-empowering belief systems around money may grow up and get into debt just like their parents did, etc.

This concludes my brief discussion of beliefs and belief systems.  I hope this helps to shed some light on the subject for those who haven’t really consciously thought about beliefs and just how much they affect our lives.

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