When’s the last time you took stock of your beliefs? I’m willing to bet that we all have some old ones knocking around up there that continue to influence the way we think, respond and act. And we let those beliefs run the show, even if they no longer benefit us the way they might have when we were younger.
A belief is just a thought you keep thinking. The ones swirling around in your consciousness are the easy ones to identify; we’re responding to those every day all day. But imagine that there are ancient thoughts that you’ve mantra’d in the past that are stuck in your sub consciousness, kind of like an app you don’t use that’s sucking the energy from your phone.
Consider some of these common unconscious beliefs:
- I’ll never be happy
- I don’t deserve success
- I’ll never be rich
- People who don’t have the same world view as me are stupid
- It’s important that everyone like me
- People are talking about me behind my back
- I have nothing to offer
- No one will ever love me
I know many of these were mantras for me when I was younger, and I’d venture to guess some of them are still alive as hidden beliefs, even though they’re no longer on a continuous loop in my brain. Every time I bump up against a limitation, I can dig deep and find one of those old beliefs that directly stands in the way of where I want to go and who I want to be.
I’m sure I’m not alone. So let’s make an effort to clean out those closets and throw away the old thoughts that we grew up thinking that bring about more harm than good. Imagine identifying them and tossing them onto the bonfire, and then replacing them with better thoughts. With diligence and mindfulness, we can create new mantras that will turn into new beliefs that move us forward and expand our possibilities.
