In what areas of your life are your beliefs holding you back? Your subconscious mind is the Master Ruler of Your Universe. You may think you have a sharp logical/conscious mind (and that may be true), but it's your subconscious that runs the show. Financially "I'll never get ahead." "Rich people suck." "I'll never get out of debt." "I'm not one of 'those people.'" "Money doesn't grow on trees." Relationships "I'm not loveable." "I'm ugly." "I can't maintain a relationship." "I'm not the kind of person who can commit." "I can't find my perfect match." "Most marriages end in divorce so why try?" "I don't trust men/women." "I lose my identity when I am in a relationship, men are controlling." Physically "Diets don't work for me." "God meant for me to be fat." "Skinny people are shallow." "My body wasn't made for all that exercise." "Eating healthy is too much work." "I can't heal." "I don't deserve to be healthy." "I hate my breasts." Emotionally "I'm just flighty." "I'm moody." "It's not safe for me to show my emotions." "The healthiest way to deal with feelings is to let them all out as soon as they come up." "I don't have emotions." Mentally "I'm not smart enough to get ahead." "Only smart people can do great things." "If you're too smart, people won't like you." "Going back to school is the only way to gain more knowledge." Unconscious behaviors Think about how hard it is to change an ingrained habit or seemingly perpetual thought process. Your conscious mind may think about making changes, but your subconscious, where the habits have been etched, will keep pulling you into the same rut.
Why you do what you do You think you know what you believe, right? The fact is that most of us are driven by behavior based on beliefs that we may not ever have examined. So let's get straight to the nuts and bolts of why you think, feel, and act the way you do. The Iceberg Model The Iceberg Model provides a simple metaphor that explains how beliefs influence our emotions and motivate our actions.
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As you know, an iceberg is approximately 90% unseen, submerged underwater, so we only see the tip of it. We can't really know how big it is or what it looks like. That iceberg is very much like beliefs-very few of them are conscious. Most remain hidden from us, submerged deep in our subconscious mind. We are not aware of what our unconscious assumptions and beliefs actually are, and yet they influence every aspect of our lives.
Our behavior is our actions (what we do, say, etc.) and how we carry those actions out. Behaviors have a style that is encoded by beliefs. For instance, by our worldview and our personal style, which are things that can be generalized, e.g., some people are outgoing, action-oriented, extroverted, or introverted.
Our behaviors are driven by our emotions and feelings. We all know how powerful emotions can be; they can inspire us or paralyze us. When we feel confident, excited, appreciative, and happy, we think and behave very differently from when we feel self-conscious, unsure, frustrated, and depressed.
To change our lives, we need to go deeper than merely our emotions; we need to get to the level of our core beliefs.
Emotions can be clues to our beliefs, but they alone are not enough to tell us what is really influencing us and our lives.
Beliefs go much deeper and form a more or less stable, even if unconscious,"palette" by which we live our lives.
The reality is that percolating beneath any of our core emotions is a set of conscious and subconscious beliefs that control our perceptions of life, and thus, also control our emotions, thoughts, and the quality of our actions and behaviors.
Beliefs are not only abstract things that have an impact on you psychologically. They are real electrochemical signals that are broadcast throughout your body. They affect every aspect of your being, from your outlook on life to the cascade of your hormones, enzymes, and overall body chemistry.
Consider one other possibility in the job-interview example:
A person heads off to the job interview feeling well-qualified for the job and confident. However, when she is actually on the spot in the interviewer's office, she suddenly wilts. She becomes a nervous wreck and doesn't even know why her confidence has crumbled and her eloquence has fled. Her attitude was confident and positive, but unconscious self-limiting beliefs rose to the fore as she actually faced the interviewer. Beliefs do that; they rise up and expose the lie of our surface emotions.
We all know people who may not be very talented or qualified, but they are stellar at advocating themselves and often win opportunities.
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You CAN change your beliefs. And when you change your beliefs, your thoughts will change as a result, which will also respectively affect your actions. Different ACTIONS lead to different RESULTS. Any questions? Please contact me on [email protected]
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