Change Your Life by Changing Your Beliefs!

What has and continues to sabotage your greater potential? Your beliefs, your beliefs about yourself, about other people and about what's possible and what is not possible. Your beliefs are the only thing holding you back now.

Our beliefs shape our entire destiny and ultimately, they determine our results. Our beliefs either burden or embolden our inner potential and the potential of our future. They control everything that we are and everything that we do or don't do.

Our beliefs shape the entire experience of the world around us. What you see, what you interpret, what you feel, what you experience is radically different, than how I interpret feel and experience looking at the same thing.

All of the world around you are shaped by your beliefs. Once you learn how to change your beliefs, the ones that keep derailing and sabotaging you, then you can finally complete the process of changing your life.

How beliefs are formed

We all come into this world with no beliefs at all. We then watch the adults that raise us, their personal view of the world. They taught us how everything is, told us their opinions about everything and about everybody and what they thought of themselves and what they thought was possible. They told us what we are and what we are not, what we can expect, and what we shouldn't expect.

Lot of times, without them ever saying a word, just by observing them, their attitudes, their perspectives, their behaviour, we learn through observational learning and by imitation. Not just by what they say to us, but even how they look at us. What we observed them doing and how they react and how they interact with the world and with others, they show us by their own beliefs, what we can or cannot do.

We are also imprinted by other adult figures, other authorities that are around you particular in your growing and developing years. This includes all your teachers, coaches, what society and culture tells you are the authorities, all your aunts, uncles, your grandparents, neighbours on the street. They all contribute to programming your unconscious belief system.

And then of course, all those things we are brought up by our culture, what traditions, superstitions, spiritual or religious beliefs we were acculturated with. Those were put upon you. For children, acceptance of all these distortions is not by choice, but by a requirement for survival to be accepted by the elders of their tribe for safety and security.

As a child, you had very little choice even about your name, the language you speak, where you live and where you went to school, those are all choices you had no say in. You're also never given a choice about your actual beliefs. They were put upon you. They were implanted in you before you were even conscious enough to filter, to debate or to choose for yourself.

And once those beliefs are planted, you spend the rest of your life, watering those seeds, fertilizing them nurturing and defending them. You see these beliefs that you've acquired in your upbringing, they shape your whole world. 

Seeing the world through beliefs

Our beliefs shape our view on other countries, nationalities. Even when you look at different flags, you think and feel something different. Because for the most part, you know little to nothing about most of these countries, and the people and the families and their lives within them. Yet, you still have a belief. you have a view; you have a bias. That's either for or against many of them, it seems illogical and odd, right? To know actually very little, but still hold a strong opinion or feeling about them.

How about other religion? You have very charged beliefs and opinions for yours and against others. Again, often, without knowing very much about most of the others. Keep in mind for as deeply as you believe in your religion as the right one, as the only one, as the righteous one, others believe just as deeply in theirs and often much, much more deeply.

You feel different things about different races, just looking at their different faces. And once again, you probably know very little about the lives, about the feelings, the hurts, the worries, the fears, the pains, the wishes, the hopes, the dreams, people from each of these cultures have. Your visceral feeling, your reaction and belief is 100% a factor of implantation. You don't even know why you do or don't feel, one way or another, about each of these different people and cultures.

This has also informed your beliefs and opinions about different professions. Based on how you were raised, it will determine your different views of different professions. I was raised to believe that there are only 2 good professions to aim for if I want to be successful in life – engineering and medicine. You see what profession you deem worthy, respectable admirable is also a belief of what you were acculturated with.

How you feel in fact about success, about material wealth, about possessions, about achievement, about prosperity. Your entire belief system maybe even around money, was shaped by your acculturation. People have all sort of preconceived notions and odd beliefs about money that was handed down to them by their parents, by their religion and their upbringing experience. It took lot of time to overcome some of these limiting beliefs I had on success, money, or material wealth.

Beliefs were learned and not even from personal experience, but by the observations and the conversations of others. And likely you don't even know that you have these preconceived notions, these false expectations. most important, it has shaped your belief about yourself and what you can and cannot do. Not by actual experience, but by the words, or by the observations of those that you were acculturated by.

As Voltaire said, “Every man is creature of the age in which he lives. Very few are able to raise themselves above the ideas and times.”

But you can. If you identify what beliefs you have that are holding you back and which beliefs you need to take, that will take you to where you want to go. Because the implanted beliefs that you have, these installed beliefs, they become your prism. They are the lens for what you see everything through. You do not actually see things as they are. Everything that you see, everything you hear, everything you feel everything you experience first must pass through this prism.

And depending upon your unconscious installed beliefs, when you look at the world, passing through your prism, it can look either dirty, depressing, hard, lonely, and hopeless, or through your prism, the same world can look like dangerous and terrifying and violent, angry, and harsh, and painful and helpless. Yet through another prism, that same world, can look like brilliant and happy and joyous and fantastical and awesome and way more wonderful than it actually is.

All the while, the world just is. What it is to you, does not depend on the world. It depends on the belief prism you are seeing it through.

Intelligence does not matter. It does not matter what somebody's IQ is. Somebody can be brilliant academically and be retarded in their beliefs. 

How you reinforce your beliefs

Your limiting beliefs are continuing and perpetually being reinforced. And we do this in four ways:

Seeking

We are proactively scanning our environment with our reticular activating system, seeking that which reinforces your existing beliefs and your self-talk. You will find whatever you are looking for out there. Our findings are then backed up by more self-talk like - see, I told you so, and I knew that was going to happen. Thus, you will become strong in your convictions, in your beliefs even if they are self-sacrificing or self-sabotaging.

Filtering

Even when you see and hear data that is contradictory, you will actively ignore it as if it doesn't even exist. As if it's not real, it didn't happen. We interpret information that comes into our senses and then fit the way, we want the world to be not necessarily how it really is.

Recalling

This is called hindsight bias. We will literally go back in our history that you've seen, heard, and experienced. And then you will select and pick memories to function as proof.

Falling

We fall back into your default psychology in times of stress or strife or uncertainty. You default back to your core beliefs. We saw a lot of that in the pandemic, particularly when it first started.

Your beliefs become your identity. They define who you are to yourself. They become the mask that you wear. your beliefs, depending on what they are, give you identity labels like worthy or worthless, competent, or incompetent, powerful or powerless, lovable or unlovable, self-reliant or dependent, confident, or insecure, accepting, or judgmental, accountable or victim. We accept the voice that talks to us in our head all the time as the source of truth. 

Categories of limiting beliefs

We need to know where the bars are so that we can break them. If you want to change them, you first have to identify them. 

Hopelessness

Hopelessness is a feeling of alienation, a powerlessness or doom. Hopelessness causes us to have little to no expectation of future improvement or success, whatever it is, it's beyond hope. There is no use even trying, if you are hopeless, you don't believe in yourself.

This probably happened because somewhere along the way, your heart got broken. Someone, that you counted on, that you depended on, that you relied on. Someone broke your heart, they broke your trust, your safety, and your esteem.

Helplessness

Helplessness means that you feel you have no control over what happens. You just have to accept fate. Expressions like, if it's meant to be, it will happen. If it's God's will, then it will happen.

God gave you free will for a reason and that is to use it. We buy this helpless storyline that other people have fed us, then we make them our own. We become excellent storytellers, we develop a story for everything, to keep reinforcing this helplessness.

Worthlessness

Worthlessness would have you believe that you don't deserve this. That you're not good enough, that you are a fake, that you don't have the ability to do it, that you aren't smart enough, or you're not talented enough, or this is not for somebody like you, or you wouldn't be able to do it anyway.

Somewhere along the line, you were just made to feel not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough, or capable enough. The consequences here are significant. They most definitely affect your confidence or your doubts in the abilities that you have affect your future.

Stop believing these limited beliefs about yourself. Before we ever agree to believe I am not, it was somebody else's opinion. You are so much more capable than you believe. You are so much more powerful than you believe, you are so much stronger, braver, courageous, and extraordinary than you believe.

These beliefs that you have are learned. Everything that we've come to believe was all learned, which means, you can unlearn them. You can literally reshape your beliefs and unlock the prison doors. Those stories that you've been telling yourself that are no longer serving you, you can break free from those, the power exists in your mind. Simply put, what you think and believe will affect the way you behave and perform, you will then therefore shape and live your life. 

Changing your Beliefs

Once you change your underlying beliefs, then you can change your choices. You can then act on them, repeat them, and sustain them until you achieve your goals and become who you were intended to be.

Identify

Identify what beliefs are hindering you and what beliefs you need in order to get you to where you want to go. To become who you intend to be, to achieve your desired goals and the positive choices that you need to make, what three beliefs do you need? Come up with three new beliefs that you need to install to become your ideal self.

What do you need to believe about yourself? What do you need to believe about what you can do? What empowering or confirming stories do you need to find or create? What do you need to believe about other people? What do you need to believe about the world and what's possible and what the potential is and your place in it?

What three beliefs do you need to eliminate?

These are the ones that keep derailing you, pulling you off track, sabotaging your forward progress. These are the ones that are constantly holding you back. You are going to have to dig deep here. Most don't even know or acknowledge the deeply seated beliefs that they have that are so destructive and derailing. You might need to turn to somebody who knows you. Who's observed you from the outside. Because you might be too close to see your own limiting beliefs. Ask them what they think your limiting or negative beliefs might be in relation to what it is that you want to achieve. 

Decide

Choose to reinterpret whatever experiences you have had, choose to see your adversity as your advantage, not a wound that you need to heal from, but the muscle strength that you built for you to be able to go on and do the extraordinary things that ordinary people just can't do. It's as simple as that, but not easy.

There are plenty of people that have lived before, who have done exactly what you want to do. People probably less intelligent than you, less attractive, less gifted, and not as well positioned and prepared like you are. They already broke your limiting beliefs. You just have to decide to do it for yourself.

You acknowledge what you used to believe, and then proclaim your engagement in getting better at it every day. 

Take back Control

You have to take back control of all the inputs that are influencing, triggering your beliefs. You are constantly turning over your mind, your power, and your life to those who would take advantage of it. Understand this, what controls your attention, controls your life. What you look at, what you're seeing. Because our mind is just the processing system, Input - output, garbage in - garbage out, greatness in - greatness out. What it sees, it moves towards.

Your body, your life will follow your eyes. If you point it towards what is scary and worrisome and fearful, you will start to see that everywhere in your environment. And it will start to show up in your behaviour, ultimately in your results. You have to be hypervigilant where you point your eyes, what you allow into your ears.

Three things that you can do to take back control of your attention.

1.  Protection

Your mind is the most powerful organ in the system, you must be so vigilant about protecting your mind. Because it is sensitive. It is immensely powerful as an organ. It is non discerning, whatever seeds you plant in it, it will grow. If you feed it negative and sensationalized news via social media. If you feed it, fear, danger, worry, anxiety, it will reproduce that and will grow that in your life.

The only way to protect yourself from it is to turn it off. All of it, unless it directly affects your family, your company, and your immediate goals. It is not necessary to corrupt your mind with it. It is not necessary to consume it.

And beyond media, often what you need the most protection from are other people. You will need to limit and disassociate with people who negatively influence your mind. You don't want their seeds impregnating your mind. In this case, the only prevention is abstinence. 

2.  Flush

The world is going to infect you. You are going to get some of the world's filth in your mind. Your mind is like an empty vessel, like an empty glass. A glass will hold, whatever you pour into it. It doesn't judge, it doesn't filter. It will just hold whatever you put into it.

So, what can we do? Because we're all going to get this dirt in our mind. In fact, the greatest source of the dirt in your glass is from your own self-talk. How do you get the dirt out of the glass? You have to flush it, you have to force clean pure, fresh water into the glass. And if you do it, it will start to flush the dirty water out, but you got to keep flushing it.

And eventually you'll end up with a glass that is full of nothing but clean, clear water. Now, as you look through the world through this glass, you can see that it's all positive. It's all possible. It's all potential. It's all hopeful. 

3.  Feed

After you have protected, and after you keep flushing the dirt, now you have to feed your fertile mind the seeds it needs to produce the harvest that you desire. Read books, enrol to personal development courses, attend seminars, get into mastermind groups, associate with positive minded people, seek mentors and coaches. These are the productive seeds that you need to plant in your mind.

People focus on the outside. They focus on what they needed to grow their business. They focus on what they need to do to lose weight. They think the problem is outside. The source of the problem was their belief, their self-identity set point. That's why their weight will always go back to whatever that set point is.

You see, it's not the weight, it's not the business, it's not the money, that is the problem. All those are outcomes of the cause. And that outcome can only be equal to your set point.

Unless you raise your set point, you grow yourself, the outcomes remain same. When you improve, everything in your life will improve with you. If you grow, everything will grow, every external effect in your life will grow in equal correlation. 

Act

You have to act. If you are looking for the power to change, the power to improve, the power to grow, as Waldo Emerson promised, “do the thing and you will have the power.” The only way to admonish fear is to step into the fear to break limiting beliefs. You have to step into them. You have to attack what you fear.

The reason successful people are successful is because they pushed so hard and high on pain, failure, sadness, heartache, rejection, and sacrifice. The only way to achieve more success is to put yourself out of your comfort zone.

Maybe experience more failure, defeat, rejection, and sadness. And once you know this, you're no longer afraid of it. You actually accept it as a necessary part of the process. In fact, it becomes your game.

Finally, take the view from your creator, and look back down on your miracle making. The amazing, beautiful, and infinitely capable being that is there. Look back down at yourself and describe all the things that this individual could accomplish.

If we just gave up on our limiting beliefs, if we just overcome our fears, if we fully utilize the maximum of our capability, what would that look like?

Fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of defeat, fear of embarrassment, fear of success, or whatever. All fear is generated by our ego and the false and limiting beliefs, somebody else decided for you. I want you to attack those beliefs, attack those fears, and they will lose grip over you.

You are worthy. You are capable. You can do this. You will prevail. 

Yours Loving  

Arjun Vijeth  

Peak Performance and Life Coach  

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P.S: 

1. Download the Discover Your Core Values Workbook. This consists of:

1. 7 Steps to identify your core values and discover your authentic self.
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Please download it here – Discover Your Core Values

2. As a Peak Performance/Life Coach, Mentor and Certified Lifebook Leader, I am pleased to share and provide a structured, proven method that helps anyone define or redefine their goals and purpose.  

Lifebook is a transformational lifestyle design system that empowers you to envision, plan, and achieve your very best life - on your own terms, and nobody else's. By breaking down the 12 key categories that make up your life, and implementing successful goals, you'll be equipped with the tools to take charge of your life in the best way possible. 

If you or anyone you know might be interested, please check out the link here.  

We've been given this one life, why not make the most of it?