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What are beliefs? Well, simply put, beliefs are what you believe to be true. Does it mean they actually are true? Not at all. It just means that you believe them to be true. Here I want to focus on beliefs that we have about ourselves. There are helpful beliefs and limiting beliefs. A helpful belief is something you believe that inspires you or could help you improve the quality of your life. An example of a helpful belief is, “I am confident that if I work hard, I can create a very successful business”. A limiting belief is something that holds you back from doing something, or lowers your confidence. An example of a limiting belief someone might have about themselves is, “I am not smart enough to create a successful business”.

It’s interesting that with either of those beliefs, the person does not really know if the belief is accurate. In other words, the person wouldn’t really know whether they actually could create a successful business. They really would just be guessing based on other beliefs they have.

What’s the purpose of having any belief that would hold you back? They are designed to protect you. For example, if you stood at the top of a tall building, it would be a good idea to have the belief that if you decided to jump off the building and land on the road, then you would be too weak to survive. If you believed that you wouldn’t be hurt at all from jumping, then you might decide to jump because it would be fun floating through the air. Even having a belief that you are not smart enough to create a successful business is designed to protect you. Creating a business takes a lot of time, energy, and often money. This belief is to protect you from losing those resources.

The problem is that in reality, some of our beliefs are harming us, even though they are all designed to help us. A lot of our negative beliefs are trying to protect us from the fear of failure. They are what cause us to not put our best efforts in. If you believe you will fail, you likely won’t even try. People often make a lot less money than they deserve because they believe that they are not worth any more. They would be afraid to ask their boss for a raise because they think the boss will certainly say no. Often these people really have no idea what the boss would do and are simply guessing. What about people who believe they aren’t attractive enough, successful enough, or interesting enough to date someone they really like. They often won’t ask and will never know.

Take a moment to write down 3 beliefs you have about yourself that you feel are limiting your life in some way. Think of things like, “I’m not smart enough to…” “I’m too old to…” “I’m too young to…” “I don’t have enough experience to…”. Recognizing and identifying these beliefs is the first step to changing them.

I will be writing more on beliefs very soon and how to control them to make a positive difference in our lives.

Please share your thoughts.

Andrew

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at 3:00 pm and is filed under Self Improvement. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.