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Em, quite a lot, loads.

In fact, our beliefs just about shape us, they determine who we (think) we are, our behaviours, actions and results.

Let’s dive in, oh this is a longer post than usual, so get a cuppa of your favourite brew, I’ll hang on, I’ve already got mine.

Righty-o…

How much thought have you given recently to your beliefs? No, I don’t mean in the ‘navel gazing’ way!

Let me say this, your beliefs will either work for you or against you.

Nope ‘gonna say it twice it’s that important…your beliefs will either work for you or against you.

Quick clarification, so we’re on the same path, ‘beliefs are your truths, you’re convictions, you’re opinions on the way things are’.

Beliefs: Where do they come from?

Most of your beliefs are pretty well formed before you even think of yourself as independent little individuals, and they are handed down to you by your parents/carers, peers, teachers, society, media, basically anything or anyone one you experience in those first years alive.

And because we don’t know any different, we pretty much are like big sponges, we soak up everything in the world around us, and because we’re too young to evaluate the information (question it), we accept that the people around us (the people we trust, listen to, and look up to) aren’t BS us, and what they’re saying is right.

We soon learn that they are so very wrong, queue counselling and therapy!

Beliefs aren’t fixed, they can be changed.

When you adopt a belief as your own or personal ‘truth’, you unconsciously add further evidence to support the belief.

When your beliefs are challenged, or when someone questions your ‘truth’, your perceptions and interpretation of the world, you will defend the belief or you may begin to validate if the belief was right after all.

Beliefs become stronger (or wired) when you continually ‘search’ for and find evidence to support them, and even more so when you attach a feeling or emotional response to it.

Now, this is where it can become a little woowoo, but take a sip and read the following scenario and think about your life, and see if you can see how it fits for you.

A relationship example

Lets say for example, you’re in a relationship, you’re head over heels in love and dottyment of a fellow human being, and it doesn’t work out.

You get hurt. Stung. Dumped. Looked over. Passed up for another model. Painful, huh?

(*sigh*, back in a minute, away for a tissue)

Back, sorry!

And because of the intensity of that experience, you may think about it, a lot, a heck of a lot.

You go through the grieving process (all endings have a grieving period) and as you do (to make you feel better) you start to question all the good and bad of the relationship.

You attach emotions to all the events that happened within it. And it may have been a perfectly healthy, happy, exciting relationship, it just wasn’t going to be long term. But you’re hurting remember and you’ll be sure to protect yourself.

You then talk to your friends and say ‘they did this and that’ and ‘they were horrible when’, they made me feel………..’ fill in the blank.

Beliefs Can Be Distorted

 

You keep going until not only have you distorted the truth about what the relationships, but you have also created enough momentum and belief evidence that ‘never again, all men/women are like that’.

Phew! That is what we call…drum roll… a sweeping generalisation.

Now, do this same process in other areas of your life you’ve basically got a workable little recipe to disaster.

Okay, some generalisations of the world around us are useful.

You enter a dark room and go to switch on the light.  You are pretty confident that it will go on. Why? Because you have experienced it so many times before and it has almost worked every time.  Apart from blown bulbs and power cuts. If we walk in front of a bus, we’ll get knocked over, see some beliefs are useful!

However, the problems start when you make generalisations about all areas of your life.  These generalisations when adopted by you as the ‘truth’ become your beliefs.

Now, some of these beliefs can be so limiting they put a ceiling on what you can possibly achieve, including your confidence levels, success, goals and potential.

Let’s Take a Confidence Building Example

So, let’s say the end result you’re seeking is ‘confidence to be in any group’.

Let’s assume an event happened when you were little.

While at school one day ‘you froze’ when your teacher asked you a question.  The room went quiet, you blushed, everyone looked at you. You shuffled your books, lost eye contact with the teacher; they proceeded to tut and sigh.  What seemed like hours passed and then they hit you with the verbal ‘you SHOULD know this’. Which left you feeling horrible, stupid, useless, embarrassed in front of your peers. Snigger, snigger, snigger.

With work you can trace the route of a belief that is damaging to you

It got worse, you felt your breathing change, sweating, lost your memory, you physically were experiencing panic.

You had nowhere to go, run or hide.

You squeaked out a teeny ‘I don’t know’.

Then came a verbal belittling showdown from your sadist…oops I meant to say teacher.  The emotional pain associated with that event, you decide never to talk in class again!

You remember today that event in such detail because you attached such strong emotion to it…fear, shame, embarrassment and fright.

Bam! You had one event (a horrible one), attached painful emotion to it, that your belief is ‘I’m not confident in groups’.

One event can create a belief, is it enough evidence, however?

Years later you think ‘I must do something about this’.  You hate speaking in groups, are shy in new company, get frightened when you have to make small talk. So you sign up for a class on ‘confidence’. (Oh, if it was with me, the following wouldn’t happen, I’d have asked you what you feared most. *Rubbing halo*)

On day one (remember you have done no work on changing the belief yet) and from that one event in the classroom years ago, you automatically are searching for more confirmation that groups and classrooms are ‘not for you’, even though you want to end the misery.

More chance you’ll feel what you felt than remember the event

The tutor asks you a question and instantly all the feelings, not the event from school, are back with you, you are back in the moment, experiencing what you felt all those years ago.

The tutor has no idea how you’re feeling or what happened in the past. Yet that one question is enough for you to add to your belief ‘all teachers are the same’, ‘teachers make you feel ashamed’ and they ‘put you on the spot’.

Here you are, in a group as an adult, yet you still hold the same feelings you had that day in class 2B!

Now, that’s two events that have happened, you get where I am going with this don’t you?

You decide that you are not strong enough or that you are confident to be in a group, that your belief was right.

The result, you create a stronger belief that groups are awful places to be and that you will avoid them at all costs, never to be in one again!

If we take this a bit further let’s think about where groups exist: we have teams, meetings, employment, social places, people that share the same hobbies.  This list is never ending.  The problem with this scenario is, if the feelings are so strong, you will apply the generalisations everywhere where groups exist and the beliefs will start to grow and limit you in all areas of your life.

In the What is Confidence post, I asked you ‘where in your life are you not confident’.

Ask yourself: what events in my life led me to believe this so called ‘truth’, where is my evidence, do I have enough evidence, is the belief I hold 100% the truth. As certain as I breathe?

Photo Credit (thank you) Jonny Goldstein Public Speaking Image

Confidence is pretty easy to define:

1. Trust or faith in a person or thing
2. The state of being certain

Okay…yada yada yada. Dictionary defintions don’t cut when a lack of confidence and low self esteem exist.

But getting to a definition of confidence, one that is going to suit everyone is rather tricky.  It’s so darn personal.

How does the following grab you?

Confidence is your ability, determination, resilience, positivitity and motivation to reach your end result.

Combined with the dictionary definitions it would read:

‘that you trust yourself enough that whatever you set out to achieve you will adopt the mindset that it is possible, that you’re able to follow it through, no matter the setbacks, jumping the fear to get to wherever it is you want to go.’

Is the ‘problem’ we can’t physically see confidence, we feel it, it’s a mindset, a behaviour, a way of being.

You definitely know when you have it and when you don’t, and isn’t it funny how we can feel high confidence in some areas of our lives, and none in others.

For example, you can be a confident parent and at the same time lack confidence in a social situations.  You can confidently discuss your plans, hopes and dreams with friends but lack the confidence to discuss these same topics with a potential employer during an interview.

When working with clients, they may start by saying ‘I’m not confident’, however in no time at all, we usually are talking about fears:

• the fear of failure
• the fear of ridicule
• the fear of judgement
• the fear of lack
• the fear of change
• the fear of being authentic
• the fear of uncertainty and so on.

And To Confuse Matters We Attach Confidence to Success

Confidence is not success and success is not confidence.

Let me give you an example of why I believe this is true:

Let’s say you have just walked out of an interview and you 100% feel you have done your best: you know they liked you, you answered amazingly well, you leave feeling fantastic, there is NO way they would not employ you, people phone you and you say ‘its in the bag’.

Then, two days later you receive the slim, white enveloped ‘no’ letter.

Bang!

You’re all tears and snotters, then anger.

You may start the mental process and think ‘what’s wrong with me’.

You’re so gutted, you may decide, after one life event not to apply for a job for a while.

In fact, you may decide not to get excited about applying for work again.  You decide that you will not put as much effort, planning or thought into your next interview. Then surprise surprise you then believe that you are not worthy of a job anyway!

And there we have it.  An example of success and confidence having a rather wicked relationship and playing havoc with your brain and you’re your emotions.

The two are related that’s sure.  But distant relatives.  Second cousins. Now imagine the letter said ‘yes’ your confidence about your success would be through the roof.

You would associate the two are one and the same.

Here’s a some questions to help you discover what confidence means to you.

They’ll help you determine your own definition of confidence, I would suggest to you to write the answers our, and spend time on them.

Maybe start today and then revisit again at the weekend?

• When you say ‘I’m not confidence enough’, specifically what do you mean?
• When you say ‘I wish I were more confident’, what behaviours and attributes would you have?
• In what areas of your life do you wish you had more confidence?
• What 3 words would you use to describe confidence?
• Has there been a time in the past when you felt more confidence? How did it feel?
• Was there an event that happened (an experience) which you can pinpoint as the start of the lack?
• If it doesn’t change, what will happen?
• If it did increase, what will happen?

Let me know how you get on with those, feel free to leave a message below, if you’re stuck or need clarification.

As a personal development trainer and coach, my journey has led me to try out a range of therapies, treatments, courses, ideas and theories over the years.

I’ve had my body covered in smelly oils and been worked by the elbows, hands and feet of strangers.

I’ve lay on grass as hot stones were placed on my meridian lines and wrapped in smelly crap + gunk, sorry, life, from the sea.

I’ve allowed healing hands to pass over my clothed body and chosen to have my auras cleansed and charkas re-aligned. I’ve sat in forgiveness circles and needed a Tena Lady at Laughter yoga.

I’ve screamed to the pain of reflexology and laughed uncontrollably as a shaman worked his stuff with his snuff, only to then burst into tears.

I’ll admit I do prefer latte to tai chi, and I’ve giggled my way through a rebirth-y-thing, which was just meh.

I’ve walked on fire, drummed in the woods at midnight, sat naked once in a tent.

Then there’s being tapped, attuned, swished and hypnotised and spent loving moments getting cosy with my nemesis snakes and spiders.

Yeah, I agree, there are quite a few to choose from. And we haven’t even started on the success-skills-personally-developmentie stuff yet.

For the most part, many were pleasant, a few amazing, others I found boring.

And some I regret as I couldn’t stop thinking ‘this has cost me how fecking much’, and others, well, they gave me an experience as tangible as the dog that lies now at my feet or the air I breathe.

What Results Are You Seeking?

See, I received an email recently that asked ‘how can I choose a personal development course, I want to learn more this year, but there are too many options to choose from’.

The question was ‘how can you choose the right course for you?’ my honest answer is: I cannot answer.

I don’t know you personally, I have no idea what you’re searching, seeking or what you feel as though you are missing (if anything).  What results are you looking for?

And the big question, do you need to ‘pay’ for what you already have and are perhaps afraid to use?

Life is Personal. Develop It.

I think, personal development is giving yourself a challenge of a lifetime: there is no choosing, except perhaps when you do have pay for the knowledge you think you are missing.

And just because someone says ‘it’ll change your life’ or ‘it’s the easiest way to [insert desired result]’ this is true, to them.

It’s their experience, not yours.

Let me give you an example: a few years ago when I was feeling less than my usual 95% positive, very tired, pissed off with life in general and needed a pick me up, I went for a walk.

6 days and 96 miles later I ended up in Fort William, after having completed the West Highland Way.  It was one of those tangible experiences I mentioned above and involved nothing being done to me.  I set out on a walk, what I received was clarity, peace and for a very long time a clear, focused, calm mind (what I needed). I came back a nice person again.

But that’s not why I walked. Was it the walking, the silence, the breathing, the beauty, the challenge?

Who knows?  It was solely my experience, and as such, it needs no explanation. That is the same for you. What you choose for you needs no explanation, if it works, great!

Will everyone there have the same experience or feel the way I feel? No, it’ll be unique to them. For some their life will be changed forever, others will think, it was okay, and others will think what the hell was the fuss about.

My point: never believe you have to choose one over another, what you decide will be the best decision for you at this time, there is more time to come and other decisions waiting to be made.

Oh, and keep going, would be my next recommendation.

I see this happening a lot, especially in the healing/helping world, when people find their ‘thing’ they can close down to other possibilities and options.

Even today, I still choose to go on courses and programmes, because I’m aware that others have information, knowledge and ideas that can add value to my own life and those of my clients. In other words, dive into learning.

And also I would advise to search outside the realms of the world of personal development, (I believe) what we need to learn can happen anywhere.  (But that’s my experience. Yours may be different.)

Here’s a few questions to help you choose:

1. Why is it important for you to develop yourself?
2. What is happening right now in your life that has led you seeking a programme in personal development?
3. What do you hope to achieve by following a specific course?
4. Are there any alternatives?
5. How will you know you have achieved what you set out to learn?

Oh and if cost is a factor or is a limit to your choices: take a look at meetup.com there may be a group that practices what you want to know in your area. When you get there, just enter the cities closest to you,  or even start a group!

And on a final note, the choosing is actually the easiest part.  I recommend to people not to book another course or buy another book until they have at least applied 20% of what  already bought.

Oh wait, and the final final note. When you speak to those in the personal development professions (therapies etc) be aware if they want to ‘hold onto you as a client’, a great therapist should give you options, if they do you’ll know they have your interests at heart, not their pocket.

Your Turn

Where did you receive the biggest and most rewarding ‘unexpected learning’?