Creating Belief Systems that Work for You

What you believe about yourself, others, and the world impacts how you feel and the results you get in your life so it is important to have a belief system that works for you, not against you. A belief is an acceptance that something is true or that something exists. It is trust, faith, or confidence in someone or something. It is how you make sense of the world but your beliefs are not the “T” truth that you might think they are.

We all have beliefs. Some of our beliefs we are aware of and some run quietly in the background of our minds, or in our unconscious minds. The problem with the unconscious beliefs we hold that run quietly in the back of our minds is that despite their being quiet, they do influence how we feel, the actions we take, and the results we get in our lives. 

Before going further, let’s explore where your beliefs come from. Your beliefs are the result of some of the following: 

• Messages you have received from others over the course of your lifetime. These could be people you know or messages you received from the news, television, movies, or social media.
• Your life experiences. These are both good and bad and things that you have observed or witnessed.
• Assumptions you make.
• The things you repeatedly say to yourself.

These messages, experiences, situations you witnessed, assumptions you make, and/or messages you tell yourself can be empowering, or they can cause you to feel bad and limit what you think is possible for yourself and your life overall. 

Below are many examples of things from your past, or things currently present in your life, that could have impacted your belief system. As you read through this list, consider what may have impacted your current belief systems. This is an important step in being able to identify, evaluate, and determine if you want to hold onto your present beliefs.

• Perhaps while growing up you heard messages from people saying things like: 
• School just isn’t her thing.
• You can achieve anything if you put your mind to it.
• You are so important to me.
• We are just big boned in our family, that’s who we are.
• Good mother’s devote all their attention to their children.
• Women have the same opportunities as men.
• Luck just never comes your way.
• Relationships never last.
• You are worthy of everything you want in your life.

• Or maybe you have had life experiences where
• You applied for a promotion and got it.
• You were let go from a job.
• You applied for 10 jobs and did not get any of them.
• You had someone cheat on you.
• You have friends who are there for you no matter what.
• You grew up in a family that was struggling financially.
• You tried something new or challenging and it went really well
• You took a chance and tried something new or challenging and it went horribly wrong.
• You may have experienced or witnessed the abuse or bullying of others.
• You had a teacher who took you under their wing and made sure you you had the right amount of support so that you could be successful.
• You saw women in movies portrayed as sex objects or subservient to men.
• You have lost a loved one unexpectedly.

• Or maybe over the course of many years you have been telling yourself things like:
• I can do this.
• I am proud of myself.
• Things never work out for me.
• Everyone always turns on me.
• I am worthy of everything I want.
• It’s not selfish to take care of myself.
• I always mess things up.
• I can’t keep a relationship
• I will never get my dream job
• Life is hard
• I appreciate my life
• I guess this is as good as it gets

As I mentioned these are all examples to get you to think about what has been present in your life up until this point, so that you can start to explore how things may be impacting you, in either positive or negative ways. As a reminder, your beliefs are “perceived” reality, not “T” truth. This is why 2 people can see the same situation in 2 different ways.

The Pandemic was a great example of this. The same pandemic happened for many people however people’s perceptions of it were vastly different, which resulted in people having vastly different emotions about what was happening in the world. When people lost jobs, some panicked and worried if they would be able to find work again, while others felt the biggest sense of relief they had experienced in a long time because they could finally pursue a job they actually enjoyed. Some people were overwhelmed with their kids being home and by not being able to go out and do things they wanted to do while others felt blessed that they were able to have family dinners again and reconnect with their kids. It was the same pandemic, same lockdown, same uncertainty about what was happening in the world, however, the way individuals experienced it was vastly different, and what they believed about the pandemic happening was vastly different.

One thing that is important to note when we are talking about beliefs is the idea that we are all wired with a negativity bias.

This means that we all have the tendency to see more of, and focus more on negative things than positive, or even neutral things happening in our lives. This is because we all still have the primitive side, or emotional side of our brain which is the same brain our ancestors had years ago when they were living in caves and in physical danger much of the time. This primitive side of your brain has one job, and that job is to keep you safe. This was great for our ancestors because their brain was constantly scanning for danger (looking for negative things), and then warning them to fight, run, or hide. When we fast forward to today, we have developed the logical or thinking side to our brain, however, that primitive side of the brain continues to be very active with its only purpose being to keep us safe. 

The difference is, because you are likely not in physical danger most of the time, your brain is keeping you safe from other things happening that result in uncomfortable emotions. Even if there is not a threat of physical injury, there could be fear of things like loss, embarrassment, loneliness, or criticism. So, the natural thing for that primitive side of your brain to do is to scan for the hard things, the challenging things, the things you are most fearful of and the things that will bring you discomfort. Just like warning your ancestors living in caves that a tiger was coming, it will scan, find things that resemble anything that could cause your discomfort and have you focus on those things with the goal that if you focus on them, you can “save yourself from them”. 

Without awareness and intention, your brain will offer you up much more information about negative things happening, or things that could potentially happen, even if there is a .001% chance that they will actually occur.

And in doing this, it will ignore many positive things happening, which will certainly have an impact on your beliefs. The other thing to note about this is that these negative thoughts and emotions can feel stronger and like they are more likely to occur than positive emotions. When this happens, they are more likely to be stored into your long term memory because they are wired with emotions and because they often go unnoticed, unchecked, and unquestioned.

This can create a lens in your brain which has your brain looking for more and more of what it thinks you need protection from, whether real or perceived. An example of how this works would be if you have a belief that relationships never last and you start to become more and more afraid of a romantic relationship you are involved in ending. That primitive part of your brain will note that this is something it needs to protect you from which will then have it scanning for evidence that relationships don't last.

Remember, your brain thinks that if it shows you all of this evidence that you can somehow protect yourself from your relationship ending. Because of this, it will make sure you see instances of celebrity breakups, it will make sure you see any posts on social media about bad relationships and relationship breakups, it will highlight for you any small things that could indicate that your partner is going to leave you or isn't that into you. And the more you see and think about things like this, the more your brain will highlight them for you. The idea that "relationships don’t last", will be reinforced by any real evidence and also by “perceived” evidence and because you only have so much capacity in your brain to notice and remember things, your brain will continue to highlight things that are in alignment with this belief (even if loosely aligned), and it will dismiss anything that indicates that many relationships last, are amazing, and that your partner is 100% committed to you.

Your beliefs can be empowering or they can be disempowering. Let's take the last example and what if instead, you had a belief that you are worthy of a strong, committed, and loving relationship and that there are many relationships that last 50, 60, even 70 years, your brain would no longer try to protect you from fear about your relationship (because it would not exist), and instead if would make sure that you noticed all the things your partner does for you that indicate their commitment. It would have you see elderly couples celebrating many years together, and it would have you see more couples falling in love and planning their lives together.

What is actually happening out in the world does not change. There are couples in amazing relationships and there are couples in awful relationships. It is what you believe about relationships that impacts what you actually see, what you think, and how you feel. This applies to everything including your beliefs about what kind of job you have, what kind of friendships you have, how much money you can make, the kind of home you can live in, that level of health you can have, your ability to get a promotion, the kind of parent you are, the way you deserve to be treated, and every other area of your life.

Consider the phrase “I’ll believe it when I see it'' vs. ``I’ll see it when I believe it”.

When you believe something, you will start to see more and more evidence of it. I am sure you have had this happen in your life. You buy a new shirt that you really like and suddenly it feels like everyone else has the same shirt. Or imagine you go to buy a new car and all of the sudden you see that exact car on the road everywhere. When this happens, it is not that the shirt or car magically become more popular. What happens is that you are excited about the shirt or car and are thinking about them so your brain starts scanning for them and highlighting them for you.

Whether we like it or not, this is just how the brain works. Because of this, it is important for you to consider what you spend time focusing on, what your brain thinks it needs to highlight for you, and what it thinks it thinks it needs to protect you from.

It is important for you to get clear about the stories you are telling yourself about: your health, finances, relationships, career, capabilities, and worthiness. Are these stories empowering or are they disempowering?

When you tell yourself disempowering stories, you create limiting beliefs which are thoughts that you believe as the absolute truth that stop you from doing certain things, that impact how you feel about yourself, others, and the world, and that ultimately impact the results you get in your life. We often think that situations happening around us create our feelings and influence our actions, however, situations trigger thoughts, and it is these thoughts that create emotions and feelings. The emotions and feelings you experience impact the actions you take, and then your actions impact the results you get in your life. This is why it is so important to notice the thoughts that are running in your mind so that you can challenge them and change them if needed.

As humans, we all experience limiting beliefs. It is when they go unchecked and unchallenged over time that they can become problematic. That is when they start to have a negative impact in your life without you even really realizing what is happening. So, now that you know all of that information about beliefs, start to put it into action. I created a free guide for you to help you do this called 9 Steps to Overcoming Your Limiting Beliefs. This guide will walk you step-by-step through a process that will help you uncover your limiting beliefs and challenge and change them so that you are living with a belief system that supports you and all that you want to create in your life.

Live your best life! 

~ Karen 

Karen Vincent Solutions 

If you are interested in more information about how to manage unhelpful thinking patterns, you can grab my free 5 Common Thought Distortions Guide HERE. 

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