Beliefs

What are beliefs?

• Beliefs are:
  • what we think is true about the world we live in.
  • a way that our brain has to represent and simplify the world we live in.

Let’s say for example that Paul was raised in a family where hard work was considered a virtue. From a young age, he observed his parents and grandparents putting in relentless effort to achieve their goals. As a consequence, Paul believes that hard work is a way to have success in life. So he studied a lot in school, he always works hard at work and in his personal life following his passions. Hard work leads to success have become one of Paul’s core belief in his life.

What are limiting beliefs?

Limiting beliefs are the beliefs that forbid us to act towards our goals.

Let’s imagine a scenario about Paul’s childhood. He had a strong passion for a particular sport. He dedicated a lot of time training because he believed he was very good at it. However, Paul failed in an important sport event. As a consequence of this experience, he began to think that he was not good in anything and that it is not useful to spend time training because in any case, he would have failed.

The thought that he inevitably fail regardless of his effort is a limiting beliefs because it is limiting Paul to taking the necessary actions, such as training, that are necessary in any area of life to achieve his goals.

Why do we have beliefs?

• Beliefs are used by our brain to take fast decisions and therefore save energy considering a simplified version of the world instead to re-evaluate every time all the inputs from the environment before to take a decision.

How are the beliefs built?

• The beliefs are built from:
  • past experiences we lived
  • how we interpreted these past experiences
  • the education and culture we received that is what someone has taught us.

How the beliefs work?

• We use the beliefs to evaluate the world we live in.
• The process we use to evaluate the world is:
  1. Select the information we received from our sense.
  2. Integrate the information selected with our beliefs giving an interpretation of the reality.
  3. Believe that our interpretation of the reality is true. Then we do not change our thinking until something of completely unexpected happens that question our beliefs.

How are beliefs and values related?

Values are beliefs that are particularly important for us. Our values shape the things we believe are true in life, therefore our beliefs. Therefore changing values contributes to change our beliefs.

Why is it so difficult to change beliefs?

• One of the main reasons why it is difficult to change beliefs is because typically the brain consumes more mental energy to change beliefs instead to justify existing beliefs.
• Our brain tends to save mental energy, therefore the brain tends to justify existing beliefs instead of change beliefs.

How to reduce the resistance to change beliefs?

• Practice little continuous changes usually reduces the resistance to change because they requires less mental energy.

Why are beliefs important?

• Beliefs define your mindset.
• Mindset defines our decisions and in particular the habits we do every day.
• Decisions and habits define our behaviour.
• Behaviour defines our actions.
• Our actions contribute to define the results we obtain in life.
• The results we obtain in life contributes to define our happiness.
• Be happy is important in life.
• Therefore know our beliefs and be able to change that is important.

Can we change beliefs? How?

• Yes. To change beliefs:
  1. Write down the belief you want to change.
  2. Ask yourself: Is this a limiting belief?
  3. Write down a possible new belief that can help you to act towards your goals.
  4. Do what follows:
     • Give a different interpretation to past experiences (see Cognitive Reframing)
     • Speak with someone that have different beliefs and learn from them
     • Live new experiences that question our existent beliefs

My current Conclusions about Beliefs

• Beliefs are important because they define our behaviour and therefore contribute to our happiness.
• Beliefs can be changed also if it is hard to do it.
• Practice little continuous changes usually reduces the resistance to change.
• Beliefs are mainly based on events that we experienced in life. If we:
  • investigate what are the events on which we build our beliefs
  • do little experiments to verify the accuracy of our beliefs
  • mitigate the effects of the mental bias that could influence our thinking

then we can question the beliefs verifying what is the objective likelihood that they are true in order to have more accurate beliefs.

References

• Creiamo cultura insieme. Facheris I.
• Your Best Year Ever. Michael Hyatt
• Fattore 1%. Mazzucchelli L.