Choose empowering beliefs

How we perceive ourselves, and the natural world around us, depends a great deal on our beliefs. Our beliefs are at the roots of our happiness, or indeed our unhappiness. If we change them we may free our minds for a better life.

Writers believes we can break free from a mind-made prison by changing our inner beliefs.Their view is that we all have amazing potential deep inside us waiting to breakthrough, but we are often hindered by our minds. All we need to do is change our interpretations of life, as interpretations are just meanings we self-create within our minds - ‘meanings’ that hold us back from personal freedom.Interpretations establish beliefs. We prop these interpretations up by accumulating so-called ‘evidence’ throughout our life. Or at least we believe we do. Purely subjective experiences are therefore interpreted as ‘evidence’ that we can or cannot do something.

What if the real question is: are these true or false interpretations that I have chosen for myself? 

We can always question our subjective beliefs, however. We can even take a chainsaw to them; bring the bad ones crashing down. Create new ones. Live out new ones. All we need to do is change the way we think; whilst being realistic at the same time, of course. We can be simplistic as we want to be too, since interpretations only need to work for us and no-one else. With a little effort our minds will believe whatever meanings/beliefs we have created in order to free our minds. For example, instead of a core belief like ‘I will be free when I am rich’ – a detrimental interpretation to our present sense of happiness – why not choose a more empowering belief such as ‘I am free because I control my mind?’

When people believe they have no control over their life situation they begin to behave in a helpless manner. A mental state called ‘learned helplessness’ arises from years and years of limiting beliefs. This is an established behavioral theory to describe people who have negative expectations that their life is out of their control - leading to a total inability to act in an effective way. Low self-esteem, sadness, depression, failure and bad health can occur due to vicious circles of thought. For example, a ‘shy’ person may believe they’ll be shy for the rest of their life – consequently they’ll avoid a party which makes them even shyer, and so on…They may even believe they were born ‘shy’ – as if the shyness gene was embedded deep in their DNA.

Consequently, some people eventually become enslaved to limiting beliefs about themselves and over time this manifests as self-fulfilling prophecies – hindering their freedom to live happy and successful lives.

But what if instead of ‘learned helplessness’ these people chose to believe in ‘learned empowerment’?

What if they chose to empower their lives with empowering beliefs?

What if the evidence for these beliefs were actual facts?

What if they used these facts to have better expectations for themselves?

Tony Robbins says that once we no longer feel certain about our inner beliefs - the enlightened moment we begin to question them and the experiences we attach to them - the greater the opportunity is to replace old, disempowering beliefs with new beliefs that actually support us in the direction we desire to take our lives.

Examples of empowering beliefs from Tony are: 

--The past does not equal my future

 --There is always a way if I’m committed.

--There are no failures, only outcomes 

– as long as I learn something I am succeeding.

--I create my own reality.

Take the limiting belief that you can’t make it on your own, for example - if this applies to you, of course.

Today, as James Altucher points out, Choose Yourself, you no longer have to wait for the corporate gods to come down from the clouds. You can develop your own ideas, execute them and choose yourself for success, he says,You can choose your destiny.You can be your own boss.This brave new world means unique opportunities for ordinary people who want to break free from the rat race and choose an empowering reality.

Everything has changed with our new technology. Barriers to market entry are crumbling into dust. Now is a great time to embrace personal freedom. If you still have any lingering doubts, maybe you need a reality check?

 --Are your thoughts holding you back from living the life of your dreams?

--Have other people’s views and opinions trapped you with a set of limiting beliefs?

 --Do you choose to see yourself more as a ‘character’ in a story, rather than the author of your life?

We should be more like authors. In other words, we shouldn’t allow ourselves to lose control of events in our lives. We should feel free to make big changes, if we so wish. Take ownership. Take charge. Write our own destinies.

Live free.

After all, we’re not major or minor characters helplessly embroiled in dramatic events beyond our control. Our purpose in life is not to serve a false reality.

We create our life. We are creators: a powerful expression of nature.