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One of the most important attributes of living true includes remaining flexible in your beliefs. Essentially, this means being willing to change your beliefs about what you ‘believe’ to be true. This is important because what you believe can be the real difference between an ordinary life and an extraordinary one.
What are beliefs and how do we form them?
Beliefs are simply what we believe to be true according to our perception of our experiences.
We may be born with no beliefs but they begin to form from an early age, especially about our self. Either through real or perceived events/thoughts in our head or possibly even something taken out of context. Sometimes they may even be passed on through the influence from family and friends and of course our environment. Unless our experience of life relating to that belief tells us otherwise as we move through life, we can remain stuck with old beliefs that may not serve us well.
The beliefs we form can either be positive or negative. Positive beliefs empower us and enhance health and happiness. Negative beliefs do the opposite and are known as self-limiting beliefs.
What may appear trivial to others can be detrimental to yourself and lead to the creation of self-limiting beliefs which can last a lifetime. For example, your dad saying “shut the door you stupid child” could lead to you growing up with the belief that you are stupid.
As times goes by our heads get filled up with all of these beliefs and suddenly the way we perceive ourselves and the world becomes distorted. This is because our beliefs, whether they are real or not, positive or negative, shape our reality. Our beliefs influence and affect everything in our lives, including what we think, say and do and our part in the world.
Why is it important to remain flexible in your beliefs?
The reality is that many of the beliefs we form or adopt in life are simply not true. As such, most of us today are living with a distorted perception of not only the world, but more importantly ourselves.
There are two primary reasons why you need to remain flexible in your beliefs:
- You are not living true if you don’t – instead you are living in a box; a fictional based reality that you have created based on your perception of yourself, the world and everything in it. Our false beliefs take us further from who we really are and robs us of our confidence, our gratitude, our resilience and our happiness. It affects our relationships, our career, our finances, our faith and the lifestyle choices we make around things like food, sleep and exercise.
We all know people who think and act like they know everything. These are often the same people who seem to struggle in life in different ways – a victim of their own stubbornness if you like. Some would even rather die than change their beliefs, which can be frustrating because you really want to see them change and be happy.
The problem with being a “know it all” is that you become blinded only by what you know. If you can relate to this, then it’s really important that you resist the need to always be right and acknowledge that you don’t know it all because if you did then your life would be pretty peachy in every way which is very seldom the case.
Experience has taught me that most people know enough to make a good living and survive in the world, however surviving is not thriving. The reality is that very few of us (and I say this without judgement), actually know enough about the true nature of ourselves, love and life, in a way that allows us to really be happy, healthy and fit.
So please, unless your name is Google, don’t assume you know everything because none of us do. The moment you think you know it all, is the moment that you close yourself off from reality and this is not living true. I can guarantee that as long as you think you know it all, you will not achieve your true potential in life. The key is to always remain curious and interested about everything. By doing so, you remain open, expanding your beliefs for greater awareness and expansion of not only the self but the world around you also.
- You begin to open yourself up to reality as it really is – not the reality you perceive exists. A reality which brings you an enormous sense of joy, peace and enthusiasm in each and every moment regardless of what is or isn’t going on in your life. One where true lasting health, happiness and fitness is really possible. This is life itself, without all of the dysfunction. And this is what is available to us once we let go of old beliefs and open ourselves up to new beliefs and ways of being in the world. So please, don’t shut out things simply because you don’t understand or are fearful of them – but rather try to keep an open mind to all things. There are many things outside of your awareness that you are not even aware off, let alone understand.
Therefore, the first and foremost attribute of living true requires that we be flexible in our beliefs and in doing so begin to let go of any self-limiting beliefs which no longer serve us. Here are some tips to do this…
Free Will – You always have a choice:
Each one of us has the ‘free will’ to change our beliefs and believe what we want to believe and to choose the life that we want to live. If something in your life isn’t working, then it may be helpful to examine your beliefs, it may be that you are stuck somewhere. It’s entirely up to you!
Ditch the guilt:
Sometimes we hold on to self-limiting beliefs because we don’t want to disrespect or dishonour someone who matters to us. Family members are especially good at making you feel that you don’t really love them if you change your beliefs. However, the reality is that nothing could be further from the truth. You don’t need anyone’s approval – you are free to believe anything you want to believe. You are not responsible for others belief systems.
Get out of your comfort zone:
Humans are creatures of habit – we do what we know and often what we know is what we have learnt to survive. However surviving is not thriving. In order to get everything that you truly want in life you need to step outside of your comfort zone. So get comfortable with being uncomfortable. This includes resisting the temptation of staying with what you know because you think you have it figured out, and you are safe and doing ok, and you know what is coming next. Instead of being apprehensive or scared of change, be willing to step into the unknown and trust the process.
Let go of the past beliefs which no longer serve you:
So many of the beliefs we form about anything are in relation to the past. However the past only exists in your own head – all we really have is the present moment. So be careful that your past beliefs are not diverting your time, energy and attention away from the present and effectively robbing you of life. Understand that what was true or seemed to be true in the past, may not necessarily be true today – due to time itself, your own growth and awareness, technology, or any other reason.
Get to know your true self:
The only thing limiting you in life, is the belief that there are limits. As you become more aware of your true self, you begin to realise just how limitless you really are. As such, any self-limiting beliefs you may have once had, simply begin to fade away. I’ll talk more about getting to know your true self in another post, but for now just try listening to your intuition which always knows the truth – it’s your mind that creates and clings on to false and self-limiting beliefs.
Realise that everything is your teacher:
Everything you experience and everyone you meet in life has something they can teach you no matter how insignificant it may seem. Look at everyone who crosses your path as your teacher and take the attitude that you never stop learning in this classroom called life.
Ask someone else:
Often in life we don’t always see our limitations, but sometimes friends or even strangers are good at pointing this out. Sometimes their insight can add help you see the truth of the situation, because many of us have beliefs that make no sense but we keep on believing them.
Don’t rely entirely on research:
I love science – however, it’s important to not base all of your beliefs on science, including researched based evidence, to the exclusion of all else. Why, because science is not everything, and there are still so many questions that science cannot answer. Take the most powerful force in the universe called love as a primary example; we all know love exists, but science still to this day cannot prove it. The human spirit is another example – we know it exists but we can’t prove it – well not yet anyway. This means that if you base all of your beliefs around scientific research alone, then you won’t believe in things like love which has an enormous capacity to transform and heal anything in your life. Fortunately with new technology, there are scientific discoveries being made every day which are shattering preconceived beliefs about everything.
See a professional:
Healing distorted beliefs allows for greater insight into who we really are. So it may be helpful to seek the help of a professional to help where ingrained beliefs are limiting our potential for growth and happiness.
So remember, a big part of living true includes remaining flexible in your beliefs and in doing so letting go of any self-limiting beliefs that no longer serve you. If you can do this, then you will be on your way to living a happier, healthier, fitter life. So believe big and live big. But most importantly, believe in yourself and you will be unstoppable.
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Q.What beliefs are holding you back from living a happier, healthier, fitter life?
Q.What beliefs have you let go of and what affect has this had on your life?
Robert
