The Psychology Of Beliefs (And What Not To Say To Yourself)
- Jan 30, 2023
- 5 min read
Written by: McKing Lee, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
If you don’t already know this, then you might want to read and understand yourself better. You see, our beliefs are so important and form a core within us.
Our beliefs also structure our life, ranging from relationship to health, career to relationship, and our beliefs also guide our thoughts and emotions, actions and behaviors.
So what are beliefs and how does it affect us?
Is it something like, “I believe in God” or “I believe in you”?
What other beliefs are there?
That’s what we are going to explore today!
What Is A Belief Statement?
Beliefs are statements which we believe to be true.
That’s the starting base point.
For example, I believe most, if not all, living things on Earth need food, water and air to live.
Or I believe I’m a human being.
In fact, I don’t necessarily need to start with “I believe” either.
I’m Lee McKing.
You are reading this.
We are on a planet called Earth.
These are statements which we believe or know to be true (for us).
If you believe you are on a planet called Mars, well, that’s another story.
Essentially, any statement can be a form of a belief statement.
The things we say or think to ourselves, the stuff we say to other people, and so on.
I think at this point you are starting to gain awareness about the statements we use and how it might impact us.
But if you haven’t figured it out yet, it’s alright.
To help you understand deeper, let’s break it down further into 3 types of belief statements.
The neutral beliefs, the empowering beliefs, and the limiting beliefs.
The 3 Types Of Beliefs
Neutral belief statements are pretty straight forward, they are beliefs that neither empower or limit us.
Of course, it is entirely possible that one of your beliefs that is neutral to you, might empower or limit another person!
That is entirely up to the perspective of each individual.
“The sun is above us” is a neutral belief statement and most of us will agree with this statement.
Of course, some people might say since the earth revolves around the sun, then technically the sun is more beside us rather than above us, even if it appears above us.
It is perfectly fine if someone disagrees with your beliefs (if you do sales and someone doesn’t agree with your product or service, it is ok too!)
“I am a man” is also a neutral belief statement, but to some people, they might say it might empower or limit us.
Once again, it is up to the individual’s perspective.
Empowering beliefs are statements that empower us, strengthen us, give us hope, power, confidence, etc.
“I am a confident person” will allow us to feel confident in completing our tasks for the day.
“I have excellent cooking skills” might allow someone to feel good about cooking and preparing for a dinner for his/her family.
Naturally, if the belief is empowering, it is ‘harder’ to turn it into a limiting belief.
However, I will caution that some beliefs that seem empowering might actually be limiting instead.
I will not be covering this today because it requires some finer nuances as well as specific examples.
Lastly, limiting beliefs are statements that limit and hold you back, usually tend to give more problems in the long run.
Some you might already recognize as an issue.
“I have anxiety” is an example of a limiting belief, of course, it highly depends on what you intend to do about it?
Recognizing that one has a mental health issue is one thing, deciding which path to take is another.
Whether you will seek ways to resolve or manage it, or whether you decide to bottle up and live with it.
If you have such a statement and yet seek ways to resolve it, then eventually you will resolve the issue and the statement might change to “I had anxiety”.
Yes, the past tense plays a part, hehehe.
However, if you decide not to do anything with it, you can imagine how the anxiety might grow over time and become more serious in the future.
“The project is difficult” is also a limiting belief!
In this case, this suggest that the project is difficult to complete and what will happen is that you will face difficulties and problems in completing the project.
Now you might be thinking, what if you see the project as a challenge?
Then your statement might be “the project is a challenge” and if you compare both statements, which do you feel or find more difficult and hard? 😉
All these statements can potentially frame up our mind, emotions or even actions.
Words Have Power
If you want to, you can do a little activity for yourself.
It is for your eyes only!
I want you to write 10 statements about yourself beginning with “I am…”
Be honest with yourself!
If you want to write more, that’s fine too.
Once you are done, I want you to check each statement and note which is neutral, empowering and limiting for you.
Think of a way to change those limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs!
If you can’t do a quick change, you can gradually change to neutral first or like in the example above, changing the word ‘difficult’ to ‘challenge’.
Take your time to do this and relook at your statements over time!
This is especially if you had an issue before but have resolved that issue, if that statement still appears in this list, then you might want to put it in the past tense.
Instead of “I am anxious”, if you have resolved it, you can say, “I had anxiety”.
Another thing to note is how you speak to people around you.
Although this might take some practice, if and when you do realize that you use negative or limiting words on your friends and family, then change those words too!
It will be a work in progress but I believe you can do it.
Continue to empower yourself and the people around you!
With love and peace~ 😊
If you want to educate yourself about the mind, be sure to share this article and check out the links below!
Read more cool articles on my blog
Watch my Tiktok videos too.
Thank you for reading and I’ll see you next time! :D
McKing Lee, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
McKing Lee is a conversational hypnotist, NLP Practitioner, and a student of life. After nearly dying in his sleep when his lung burst for no reason, McKing develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and fell into depression. He subsequently sought his own recovery through learning NLP and hypnosis. Having a unique understanding of how the mind works, he has helped many people with mental and psychological issues, relationship and emotional issues, and interestingly enough, sometimes physical ailments too. McKing was recognized and won APAC SEA Business Awards Hypnotist of the Year 2020, and has been featured in local and overseas media over the years. He aims to help people as effectively as possible, through sharing of knowledge and with the right application of skills.
