Power of Beliefs

How much power do beliefs have? This post from Lou Tice at the Winners Circle follows on from the one last week, and continues to explore our beliefs about ourselves, and the effect they can have on us.

Your beliefs are the compass and the maps that guide you toward your goals. Today, I am going to discuss how we can use them a bit more effectively.

Do you realize how important your beliefs are? There is no more powerful directing force in human behavior than belief. The people who have changed history – Columbus, Einstein, Edison, Christ, Mohammed, and others like them – have been the people who have changed our beliefs. In many ways, the power that beliefs have over our lives defies the logical models most of us have. However, it is clear that powerful beliefs can affect us in equally powerful ways.

Studies conducted by Dr. Andrew Weil, a Harvard educated physician, have shown that the experiences of drug users correspond almost exactly to their expectations. People who were given sedatives, but were told that they were stimulants, behaved as if stimulated. People who were given stimulants, but were told that they were sedatives, behaved as if sedated.

When you were a child, you didn’t have much choice about your beliefs. Now that you are grown, it is a different story. So ask yourself, “What do I choose to believe? Do I choose beliefs that limit or support me? Do my beliefs turn on or shut off possibilities? Do they move me toward failure or success?”

Lou Tice
The Pacific Institute

I’m reminded of St Paul’s words in his first letter to the Christians in Corinth: “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways” (1 Corinthians 13.11). We could add, “I believed like a child.”

I know that some of the problems I have with self-image, especially around manhood and work, are as a result of things I learned/believed in my childhood. And I also know, deep down, that some of those beliefs are just not true. I need to do some work on my beliefs about myself. Hopefully, with the knowledge I have now, that work will be successful.

Another helpful post from Lou Tice at the Winners Circle. If you think you might benefit from more, do please consider subscribing to the daily emails yourself; it doesn’t cost anything.