Beliefs are shortcuts to help us make decisions. Constraining beliefs hold us back, while freeing beliefs empower us. To change a constraining belief, choose one, identify a freeing version of it, and look for evidence that it is true. Changing one belief can shift multiple others.
Your beliefs have a huge job: they are there to help you understand every single thing that ever happens to you, to other people, and to the world.
Each day, you need to make so many decisions: not only what you’re going to say and do, but also how to interpret everything everyone else says and does. Your brain already consumes 20% of your body’s energy — there’s no way that it can make all of these decisions in a thoughtful, conscious way. It needs shortcuts, and that’s what beliefs provide: a faster way to make decisions, set goals, prioritize, and problem-solve.
Given that your beliefs have such a profound influence upon you, it’s important to ask yourself: are your beliefs constraining you or are they freeing you?
Constraining beliefs might sound like:
I’ll never be able to achieve my dreams.
Things just don’t work out for me. The world is a dangerous place and you can’t trust anyone. I don’t have any control over my life.
Things just don’t work out for me. The world is a dangerous place and you can’t trust anyone. I don’t have any control over my life.
Freeing beliefs might sound like:
I’m capable of doing what I put my mind to.
Things always work out, even if they don’t unfold in the way I imagine they will.
The world is full of good people who are working to make it better.
I can shape my life in the ways that matter to me.
If you discover that your beliefs are constraining you, here’s the good news: you can change them with these three steps.
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Choose just one constraining belief; for example, “I’m not lovable.”
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Then, identify a freeing version of that belief; for example, “I’m surrounded by love.”
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Look for evidence that this belief is true; that could be messages you get from friends, loving time spent with family members, and moments of kindness that you witness in person or online.
Here’s the even better news: when you do this exercise, it has the power to shift multiple constraining beliefs.
Recent neuroscience research has found that beliefs tend to cluster together. If you have one constraining belief, you probably have multiple ones; they reinforce and build upon one another. That means that once you start to change just one of your beliefs, you’re also starting to shift the other ones, too, without even trying. Bit by bit, you will set yourself free.