The Importance Of Changing Belief Systems

A belief is something that you regard to be true, either about yourself or the way that the world works. Our beliefs however, may not always represent accurate reflections of reality. Hundreds of years ago for example, people used to believe that the earth was flat, and that if you sailed far enough in a ship you would eventually fall off the edge of the earth.

Today however, we know that this is not true. Such beliefs which are not correct are known as false beliefs because they provide an inaccurate representation of reality and therefore lack validity in the real world.

Beliefs are extremely important when it comes to understand your own personal development as a person, because the thoughts that you have in your mind and the ideas that you hold to be true, play a big influence in determining the type of things that you do throughout your life, and consequently, the level of success that you feel is possible for you to achieve.

Suppose for example that a person believed that in order to be successful in life they needed a college degree, but since they never went to college to get a degree, they believe that the best they can ever hope for is to work at a low paying job. As a result of their belief, that is probably what they will end up doing for the rest of their life.

But now suppose that they hear a story about someone who didn’t have a college degree, but then went on to become a multi-millionaire. Soon afterwards, they hear more stories that provide them with more examples of such people. What do you suppose would happen?

In all likelihood, they will start to question their original belief that you need a college degree to be a success in life, and as a result, that belief will start to change to accommodate the new information they have discovered. As a result, their thoughts and actions will also begin to change, and they may start to look for higher paying jobs or even set up their own business.

Limiting Beliefs

Limiting beliefs occur when we form a belief based on incomplete or incorrect information and that belief subsequently limits what we believe to be possible for us. Although we like to think that what we believe to be true really is true, in reality, almost all of us have limiting and false beliefs that negatively effect our life in a variety of ways.

The result of these beliefs, collectively known as belief systems, can then affect the way a person feels about themselves. For example, a person whose mind is primarily filled with negative beliefs, will generally tend to be a negative person. They lack optimism, are unhappy most of the time and probably also suffer from low self esteem and low self confidence.

On the other hand, someone whose mind is primarily filled with positive beliefs will be the exact opposite. They will be optimistic about their future, have faith in their abilities and enjoy high levels of self esteem and self confidence.

Considering the fact that our thoughts largely determine the type of actions we perform, our behavior, who do you think is more likely to become more successful in life?

The reality is, that unless you take the time to think about your belief systems, and change them if necessary, your life will probably continue on as it has been. You will feel the same about yourself, continue to be in the same financial situation and have the same types of relationships with the people in your life.

So put quite simply, if your belief systems do not change, then neither will you.

Of course, nobody’s beliefs ever remain exactly the same throughout the course of their life, because all of our beliefs are subject to modification and revision by new incoming information.

Using the previous example given at the start of this article, people were able to change their belief that the world was flat to a belief that the world was round once they had enough information to prove that their existing belief was false.

So if you do want to change your life for the better and are embarking on a process of self improvement, then this is good news to hear because it shows that you can change your life if you want to and if you know how.

Where Do Beliefs Come From?

Most of the beliefs that people have about themselves and the world were formed during their early childhood. The reason for this is that as children we had no preconceived beliefs, and therefore, the experiences we had as children were the only information that we had to form our beliefs with.

Since we had nothing to compare those experiences against we automatically accepted them as being true, and the more similar examples we had of something, the more that belief was reinforced in our mind and the stronger it became.

For example, if a child is continually told that they are a “stupid idiot”, they will probably grow up to believe that they are stupid and so will do stupid things. Since they have been told this so many times, there would be no reason for them not believe that what they have been told is not true unless someone tells them that they are not stupid.

All of the things that we believe to be true as children ultimately end up creating a “scaffold” of primary core beliefs, which we then use to analyze and interpret new incoming information. Depending on the quality of beliefs that you formed as child, if left alone this scaffold can either build you a life filled with success and happiness, or a life filled with failure and unhappiness.

There are two main sources that our beliefs come from during our childhood, and understanding each of these sources is vitally important if you want to change your beliefs systems to help you achieve success and happiness in life rather than making it harder for you to do so.

Lets look at each of these two sources now.

1 – Parents

When you are born into the world you arrive with a blank slate, or as some psychologists would say, tabula rasa. You have no preconceived ideas about the world, how it works and you believe that anything is possible.

However, as a survival mechanism human beings are genetically programmed to mimic or model those around them, and as a result, are extremely susceptible to external influences.

These influences first come in the form of our parents. As we grow older, we learn from our parents what we can and can’t do. In short, we adopt their belief systems, which in turn filters our reality and therefore how we view the world.

Are you generally an optimistic person or are you negative most of the time? Are you a calm person or do you have a bad temper? Compare your characteristics to those of your parents, and see how many belief systems they passed onto you.

Like most people, you will probably discover that you have many similarities to your parents, or that you used to have many similarities, and that will show you just how powerful of an influence your parents had on determining the type of person you are or used to be.

2 – School

Another major factor that shapes the things we believe to be true is the time we spend at school undergoing formal education, and this can come in two forms.

The first, are the things our teachers tell us about the subjects we learn about. For example, it used to be taught that once neurons in the brain die you cannot grow new neurons. But now we know that this is not true, as neurons are continually growing and changing throughout the course of our life.

The second major influence during our school years comes from our classmates. People who are teased about their appearance for example, may later grow up with feelings of inadequacy as a result of what their classmates said to them. While popular children, are likely to grow up feeling confident with who they are.

What is important to understand from these two influences, your parents and your school years, is that the beliefs that you formed during this period essentially created a set of rules within your mind that edited your reality and filtered how you perceived the world.

Some beliefs allow you to filter the world in a way that makes the achievement of success much more likely for you, whilst other beliefs, will filter the world in a way that makes it much more difficult for you to achieve success.

Therefore, if you can change your belief systems you will also change how you filter the world, and ultimately, how you live within it.

How Can You Change Your Belief Systems?

Not all the beliefs that you have are bad, so in order to improve your life for the better you only need to focus on any limiting or false beliefs that you have.

One of the most effective ways to do this, is to start by writing down all the things that you believe to be true about a particular area of your life.

Starting with your health, finances, relationships and career are usually good places to begin because those areas tend to have the biggest impact on a person’s life in terms of how they feel about themselves and the overall quality of life that they live.

You may want to write your answers down as follow:

I believe that…

I think that…

I doubt that…

I am certain that…

Once you have finished writing down all the things that you believe, go over each belief and identify any that you believe to be limiting your life in any way.

The next step is to decide whether that limiting belief is actually true or not. Can you, for example, find any scientific information or stories of people which show that what you thought was not possible actually is possible?

If you do this exercise seriously, you will probably discover that many of your limiting beliefs have no basis in reality and so can be rejected as false.

Once you know that something is false, slowly your thoughts and actions will start to change in order to accommodate your new belief, and this process will occur more rapidly the more examples you are able to find which go against your original belief.

Self Talk

Here is a belief that I have successfully used to overcome my own limiting beliefs. It is a simple phrase that I have memorized and internalized, and has really changed the way that I perceive the world and how I act within it.

“I firmly believe that anything is possible. You just have to know what to do, how to do it and then keep doing it until you succeed”

Try applying that statement to anything that you believe to be limiting your life in some way, and see how it changes the way you look at things.

The Myth About Hypnosis

Undergoing hypnosis is a common suggestion given for reprogramming limiting belief systems, and whilst it may seem like a quick and easy way to accomplish this goal, the reality is that hypnosis is only effective for a small percentage of the population. I say this based upon scientific research.

What psychologists have discovered is that around 10% of the population are highly suggestible to hypnosis. When you see a show on TV that has a stage hypnotist hypnotizing people to do funny or strange things, they are doing so on the few highly suggestible members of the audience.

For the majority of people however, hypnosis has little to no effect. In other words, most people in the audience could not be made to bark like a dog when the hypnotist says their name. As a result, the hypnotist has to be very selective over who they choose to perform in the show, and so because you only see the highly suggestible people it appears as though anyone can be easily hypnotized.

Therefore, for most people, hypnosis is not an effective means for changing beliefs and you are likely to get better results doing the exercise previously described.

Preventing Future Limiting Beliefs

Once you know how to identify and change the limiting beliefs that you have, you will over time form new beliefs that empower you rather than restrict you.

However, we are all subject to the exposure of new information throughout the course of our life which can challenge our existing beliefs and form new ones. What you do not want to happen is to form more limiting beliefs.

An extremely simple way to guard against this from happening is to question everything that you are told to be true and never accept something on face value. Even if something seems like it could be true, try to find supporting evidence to back it up before you internalize it and this will guard your mind against many intrusive false beliefs.

Summary

The information that we are exposed to throughout our life shapes how we perceive the world and how we act within it. Beliefs however, can be limiting and cause a person to feel badly about themselves and perform well below their true potential.

Changing beliefs is a relatively straightforward process, although it is by no means always an easy task. This is especially true for the beliefs that we acquired during our childhood, simply because we have lived with them for so long and have accepted them as being true for so long.

Protect your system of beliefs by questioning everything that you are told and never believe that something is true without backing it up with supporting evidence.