Do you have an outdated belief system?

When was the last time you ran an update on your belief operating system?

Chances are, you review and update your socks, wardrobe or your computer much more often than your beliefs.

(Photo by Clint Patterson on Unsplash)

What is a belief?

My little friend ChatGPT tells me:

"A belief is essentially something you hold to be true, even if it can’t be fully proven. It’s like a mental “map” or assumption that helps you make sense of yourself, others, and the world."

What strikes me in that definition is the word “assumption”.

A belief is something you and I have assumed and come to believe as true. Quite often it was handed down by an authority figure or a system, and we hold onto it dearly - sometimes just out of old loyalty.

What I often see in coaching conversations, is that we “believe” a belief to be something so fundamental and concretely set in stone, that one need not AND should not question it 🛑- it is anyways too deeply engrained in us to be changed. 

And yet time and again, that belief and the story we lull ourselves with is what is holding us back from reaching our goals 🎯or making a needed change. It is a convenient excuse for maintaining the status quo, dressed up as loyalty to the family, to other values or "it's just the way I am".

I am not saying, we should abandon all of our beliefs. That would be pure chaos. 🤯

I am saying that our beliefs are the operating system of our lives. There inevitably comes a point when the system becomes outdated, and then we have a few options:

🔘Do nothing and watch things deteriorate - always an option, and they WILL deteriorate, frustration and discontentment will go and the system will slow you down. 

🔘Run a scan then install a patch or an update and delete the JUNK - a computer without the latest update is more susceptible to all kinds of viruses and interferences that massively slow it down. 

🔘Get a brand NEW system - there can be work in the process, but we go through the discomfort of moving files and setting things up once again in order to have something enhanced and optimized for us. 

Then we look back and think, “Wow, so much better - why didn’t I do this sooner???

(P.S. Coaching does the last two) :)

Yet somehow, we do not translate that same approach to our own thinking, to the stories and limiting beliefs we tell about ourselves and others, or to our dopamine-rush-addicted workaholism.

Here are a few questions to help you check on the status of your operating system:

💡Where did this originate?

💡When was the last time an update was installed?

💡What has this system done for me lately?

💡What kind of results, performance AND life quality is this creating for me?

💡What would become possible if I didn’t believe this (or just temporarily suspended it)? 

💡What could I experiment with?

💡What is the most urgent or important update needed?

What helps your system run optimally?