What is a belief? Simplified, a belief is a thought you keep thinking.
Why should you challenge them? Because a lot of the beliefs you carry aren't doing you good. And they influence everything you do and how you do it - including your career, your relationships and your daily choices.
To give you a few examples of beliefs:
- I am not good enough
- I will never succeed
- Rich people are bad people
- I'm different
- It's my job to take care of others
- I need to be in control at all times
Most of the beliefs we carry are unknowingly installed by our grown-ups, teachers, peers, grandparents and the likes during childhood and subsequently stored in our subconscious from which we operate 95% of the time.
Businessmen-authors John Assaraf and Murray Smith said that by the time you're 17 years old, you've heard "No, you can't," an average of 150,000 times. You've heard, "Yes, you can," 5,000 times. That's thirty no's for every yes. That makes for a powerful belief of"I can't."
Everything stored in our subconscious becomes automatic behaviours, thoughts and habits, so as grown-ups we act according to what was installed in our childhoods without realising it.
Now that you know this, what can you do about it?
The first step is to become aware of which beliefs you are carrying.
Try noticing when you hold yourself back or when you have negative thoughts in general or about others. Are these thoughts new to you? Can you detect a pattern?
Once you have narrowed it down and worked out what the repeating thoughts are, start questioning them.
Where do they come from?
Who installed them?
Were these beliefs true for that person?
Were they true to you when they were installed?
Are they true now?
Asking these questions can be incredibly powerful. Chances are you will conclude that actually, these beliefs aren't helping you at all - rather the contrary. And this is when you can start changing them.
Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle.
Write your current beliefs on one side.
On the opposite side you write the counter-belief, which could look something like this:
Gather the beliefs you would like to install on a fresh piece of paper and hang this page next to your bed. Every night, right before you close your eyes, you read the sentences out loud to yourself. You do the same thing in the morning right after you wake up. (Right before you fall asleep and right after you wake up, your brain is in the perfect state for new programming.) The changes won't happen over night, but turn this into a habit by doing it every day and you'll notice how, slowly, your mindset will start to shift - and your reality will follow.
Alternatively, get in touch and we can book you in for a free consultation call to explore whether a session with me might be the better way forward for you.