Got Beliefs?

Sometimes the beliefs you hold don’t play well together, and yet…they’re kinda stuck in the same brain with you. Holding two conflicting beliefs is a recipe for confusion and suffering. The good news is getting them to shake hands and be friends is totally doable.

Let me tell you a story. When I was a girl, I thought my parents were easy-going and supportive. For my part, I could go anywhere my legs or bike could carry me and nobody ever checked my homework. Both were hard workers who set a good example. When I was frustrated with my ability to live up to my own expectations, I was encouraged to just do my best.

I was raised with a real sense of self-sufficiency and independence. There was no doubt that if I put my mind to something, I could achieve it. No matter what, I could always do a little bit better. No matter what, growth was possible.

Sounds fine right? I was all set to be a self-confident, competent little person.

Instead, I was hyper self-critical and unable to ask for help. I floundered, lapsing into depression. One day, a counselor handed me a book on depression and I was introduced to the idea of mutually exclusive beliefs.

I searched my mind, listing out all my beliefs and found this happy pair:

I just needed to do my best.

I could always do better.

Good times, right there.

Each one of those beliefs sounds positive, innocent and believable. Together they’re a nasty little circle of sharp teeth and discouragement. A perfect instrument of personal suffering.

Beliefs are just ideas that we’ve heard over and over, thought over and over and agreed with repeatedly. They get internalized and then we don’t take them out and look at them ever again. This saves us a lot of time. We don’t have to constantly reprove that gravity exists.

Here’s the thing, we need to clean out our old beliefs, just like we do our sock drawer. Some of them have no use anymore. They don’t fit, they’re out of style or they just don’t go with our lifestyle. Sometimes, they’re mismatched.

Here are a few really great ones:

• You have to work hard to get ahead.
• I don’t have enough time to get my work done.

• There’s never any budget for training.
• To excel, you have to be learning all the time.

• It’s selfish to want more money
• The company pays for performance.

• We strive for excellence at work.
• We strive for rapid response at work.

To figure out your mutually exclusive beliefs, just write them down. Sit down and list as many as you can in ten minutes. That’s a LONG time. Then as the next day or so goes by, add any you missed.

Look at your list – are there any that are in direct conflict with each other? Write them together on a page. You can reconcile the beliefs without disputing them using “but” and “and since” statements – as in this example:

• It’s selfish to want more money but money is how we pay for things and there is no other way to support my family than to obtain money and since I want my family to do well, wanting more money is part of that. And since nobody can tell me what to do with my money, who’s to say if my having more is selfish or just smart or the way I turn around and add value to the world.

• The company pays for performance but I think money is selfish, it’s a little hard to excited about that. I want to perform well because I believe in doing excellent work and since the company uses money to let people know when they do a good job, I’m not being selfish, I’m just being me and money is the result.

Or you can dispute the beliefs directly – using “it’s possible” or “What if?”

• You have to work hard to get ahead. – It’s possible I can get ahead without working longer hours.
• I don’t have enough time to get my work done. What if I can find a way to get my work done in a new way that will allow me to get ahead?

If you would like to explore your beliefs and how they hold you back, sign up for a free session with me. Click here. Sessions are done using Zoom. You pick a time that works for you and then we both show up at that time and discuss what’s holding you back currently. I provide an outside perspective and tools to help make working through issues quick and effective. At the end, I ask if you if you want to sign up for more. You get to say yes or no. Simple.

Sometimes getting rid of a roadblock created by mutually exclusive beliefs is ridiculously simple once you can see them laid out. Here’s the solution my mom gave me for mine.

Just do your best for now.

You can always do better later if you want to.

And that? Is just good to know.