I will present here some methods to change/eliminate limiting beliefs and to create empowering beliefs that will help you to reduce your anxiety and will make you move toward your goals and dreams.
The process of changing a belief usually takes time, especially for those personal strong beliefs that were proved so many times to be “true” and, as a result, are so well ingrained within us. But it is worth the effort to change them. Imagine getting rid of beliefs that are making it difficult for you to drive a car, talk in public, express your feelings, have more confidence, and the list goes on and on.
The first step to change or eliminate a belief is to identify it. How do you identify your limiting beliefs?
Remember something that makes you feel anxious and find out what your thoughts are when you feel anxious. For example, if you suffer from social phobia, imagine that you are going to give a presentation to a group of people. This makes you feel anxious. Then you ask yourself: “what thoughts are going through my mind?” Write down all your thoughts. Choose one of the thoughts that you wrote down and ask yourself what would be the problem if what you are thinking would actually happen. For example, if you think that “people will judge me when I give a presentation”, ask yourself the question: “what is the problem with people judging me?” The answer to this question will be another thought. Then you ask the same question again, and another thought will come up. Keep doing this until you find the underlying belief.
For example, if we continue this process with the thought “people will judge me when I give a presentation” let’s say that we get the following sequence of thoughts:
• People will see how bad I speak and how nervous I am.
Then you ask yourself: what is the problem with people seeing how bad I speak and how nervous I am. This will bring the following thought:
• It will mean that I am not good enough
Then you ask yourself: what is the problem with not being good enough. This will bring the following thought:
• People won’t like me if I am not good enough
At this time we can see that we found the following belief: “If I am not good enough people won’t like me”.
NOTE: Make sure you write the thoughts that come up to your mind.
Now going back to our question: How do we change a belief? Basically the answer is: focus on those things that reinforces what you want to believe in. It is easier said than done. But let’s talk about some things that will help you with this process.
The first thing I want to mention is that beliefs are not necessarily logical. We can actually believe on anything.
Beliefs are always true to us due to the following mechanism:
• We focus on those things that confirm our belief and ignore those that prove it to be wrong
• We act in a way to make other people and situations react as if our believe was true
• We are attracted, and get attracted to, people and situations that confirm our belief
To create a new belief we need to focus on the things that support the new belief. For example, if you want to have the belief “People like me the way I am” make a list of all the people that you get along with well. Include the people you work or study with, your relatives, friends, spouse, etc. Focus on how well you relate to them. If you focus more, and with more intensity, on the good aspect of your relationships (instead of the bad ones), with time, you will probably end up believing that people like you the way you are.
It is also important to learn to watch your thoughts and feelings emotionally detached, without judging them as good or bad. For example, if somebody acts in a way that makes you feel bad, just pay attention to the thoughts and feelings that you have without judging them as good or bad. Learn to do this with all the things that causes you discomfort. With practice this will help you in the process of getting rid of the beliefs that don’t serve you.
Another way of learning to believe that people like you the way you are (still using our example) is to relate to people that have this belief. Notice how these people behave, how they approach others, how they relate to other people. You will notice that their behavior not only reflects their belief but also reinforces it (see again the little list above about why beliefs are always true to us).
You can also use visualization, as discussed in a previous post, to help you develop a new belief. Visualize yourself acting as if you already had the new belief. Do this at least two or three times a day.
As previously mentioned, it may take a good time to change beliefs (perhaps months or years), especially those that are deep rooted within us, but the effort is more than worth it. And after you change or replace a belief, it will probably be much easier to change other beliefs.
Master all the tools described above. Keep using them persistently and, with time, you will reap the great rewards!
Terrific.