Change Your Beliefs = Change Your Life

TOPICS IN THIS EPISODE

• What is a belief and how are beliefs formed? 
• How can limiting beliefs hold us back in our lives?
• How to transform your beliefs to help you achieve goals ? 

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Transcript

Today we will talk about your belief system. We will discuss how your beliefs can hold you back and what you can do to challenge them and create new supportive beliefs. 

So, what is a belief ? It’s a thought that you keep thinking. So it’s a thought we regularly think

And as we have over 20 thousands thoughts per day we also have a large number of beliefs. So how does it all work ??

Most of our beliefs are formed in our childhood and are based on our past experiences and the thoughts related to these past experiences. They are stored in our subconscious mind and form our belief system. Our beliefs can support us or they can work against us. 

Thoughts —> Events —> Feelings → Behaviour —> Beliefs

In CBT we usually focus on our thoughts, behaviours and relationships between these thoughts and behaviour. We also focus on our moods and how we are feeling.

You might wonder : Where do our thoughts and behaviours come from? Why do you all have different thoughts about the same things and why you and I act differently under similar circumstances? One of the main reasons is that we have different sets of core beliefs. 

Core beliefs are our deeply held underlying beliefs that we have about ourselves, others and the world around us. These beliefs influence how we think and act and engage with others. They determine how we interpret everythings that's going on around us.

Core beliefs are the tinted glasses through which we view things, each of us with a slightly (or in some cases vastly) different shade of tint. 

The basic aim of CBT is to learn to change the way we think and act, in order to change the way we feel.

Core beliefs are important, because they determine how we think and act. 

So if we can change our core beliefs -  changes in how we think and act will naturally follow. 

And how we feel and act will change the way we feel.  

Let’s look at negative core beliefs because these are the ones that we want to be able to change in order to help us feel better about ourselves.

Negative core beliefs about ourselves are grouped into three categories : hopeless, unlovable and worthless.

So an example of a hopeless core belief can be: ‘I'm a failure’’ or ‘’ I’m a loser’’. 

Example of unlovable core belief could be : ‘’ I’m attractive’’ or ‘’ I don't fit in’’.etc  

In between our core beliefs and our thoughts and behaviour there's another level called rules and assumptions which are also known as intermediate beliefs because they fall in between our core beliefs and our thoughts and behaviour.

We set up rules for ourselves which are statements such as: ‘’I should’’ or ‘’I must’’ and then we make assumptions which are ‘’if then statements’’ based on our core beliefs.

So for example if we have the core belief ‘’the world is scary’’ 

We may have rules such as:

• ‘’I must always keep myself safe’’, 
• ‘’I shouldn't take any risks’’     

and assumptions such as…..

• ’’ if I'm not careful enough then something bad is gonna happen to me’’.
• ‘’If I relax too much then I'm going to get hurt’’ 
• ‘’ if I don't take any risks then I'll stay safe’’ 

These rules and assumptions influence our behaviour. We act in ways that avoid violating our rules or to avoid the negative consequences or achieve the positive consequences of any of them. 

We might avoid anything we perceive is scary or provokes any anxiety.

These rules and assumptions influence our thoughts And they might it might lead us to worry a lot and always ask ourselves: ‘’what if this happens’’ , ‘’what if that happens’’, 

‘’ what if …’’

So the tricky thing is that our core beliefs aren't as accessible to us as our thoughts and behaviour are. If we want to know what we're thinking we can ask ourselves what's going through my mind right now?? no matter what we're doing, we are usually able to take a step back and notice how we're behaving in the moment.  But if I ask you what are your core beliefs, what rules do you live by, and what assumptions do you make about yourself, the world and others and you probably don't have an answer for me right away and may not even know where to start looking….

 Our core beliefs develop over time beginning in childhood, with lessons we learn from our parents and things we learn through observation, as well as through things we've learnt from our interactions with other people in our lives are important to us (like siblings, other relatives, teachers, role models and friends, peers)

One way to uncover core beliefs are simply ask yourself :

‘’What did I learn from these people ? About myself, About the world and About other people? 

Did I form any beliefs, rules or assumptions based on what I learned from them??

Core beliefs also develop as a result of experiences we have as children.

Think of your early life experiences and ask yourself 

• What did I learn from these experiences -  about myself?  about the world? and about other people? 
• Did I form any rules or assumptions based on these experiences?

And then you can look at people who have been influential in your life and significant  experiences you've had since childhood and ask yourself the same questions. 

Some of the beliefs, rules and assumptions among women are:

Examples of beliefs 

• the people I love take everything I do for granted
• you can’t never count on other people 
• people only care about themselves 
• Having a business is very hard
• it's better not to tell the truth as people will use it against me.
• my friends don't care about me

Examples of rules 

• I must do everything right 
• I should try to make everyone happy 
• My house must always be clean
• I should always be prepared for the worst 
• I must always be present at dinner time 
• I must take care of everyone 

Examples of assumptions

• If i'm always nice to everyone then people will like me 
• if my marriage ends then I'll be alone forever 
• if I don’t do something myself it will never be done
• if they cared about me then they would ask about how I was doing