A-Z Guide For Successful Singles. B is for Beliefs

Your beliefs affect your reality – they are the “lens” through which you see, experience, interpret, and react to what goes on in your world. Imagine that I came from another planet (some of my friends think I do) and I asked you to describe your world to me.

Now imagine wearing a pair of glasses with a blue lens in it – what color would the description of your world be to me? Now imagine wearing a pair of glasses with a yellow lens in it – what colour would the description of your world be now? Same world – different lens results in you describing a different “colored” world to me.

Have you ever had one of those family discussions where you disagreed on some event you all experienced? Siblings, for example, can often remember childhood experiences differently. The oldest may have a different lens than the youngest in the family. I’m the oldest of four girls and when we talk about our childhoods and growing up, our memories of even the same events is different. Each of you is trying to tell the others the “truth” about what happened – yet each of your stories is different.

Your world is filtered by a lens that is unique to you – your beliefs. This is the reason people can remember and experience the same event in very different ways. “Truth” really is perception.

“Whether You Believe You Can Or Can’t, You’re Probably Right”

Henry Ford

There are two kinds of beliefs – limiting beliefs and empowering beliefs and these beliefs drive our behaviours. Empowering beliefs propel you forward in getting what you want and need. Limiting beliefs sabotage your efforts in getting what you want and need.

We all have fears and limiting beliefs. If we didn’t we would all be infinitely more successful than we are. The problem, however, is that most of the time we aren’t aware of them. What you might be aware of, however, are certain recurring patterns in your relationship history.

* Do you stay in bad relationships, even when you know you want to get out?
* Do you get in relationships where you are the rescuer?
* Do you get in relationships where you are the one being rescued?
* Do you put up with bad behaviour?
* Do you keep getting together with people who can’t/won’t commit?

What drives these relationship patterns are your beliefs. So if you want to change your relationship history – the secret is to change your beliefs. If you try to change your behaviours without changing your underlying beliefs, what you will find out is that after awhile you will revert back to your old behaviours. It happens all the time with corporate training and in the diet industry – people make initial changes, but eventually revert back to their old familiar behaviours.

“Although the past cannot be changed, it is not a predictor of your future,

unless that is, you believe it to be”

Susanne Jorgensen (Get Real! Relationship Success Is An Inside Job)

People hold lots of mistaken and erroneous beliefs about beliefs. Some of the myths about beliefs include:

* My beliefs are facts and you can’t change facts
* My beliefs are who I am
* I can’t change my beliefs
* It will take years to change my beliefs

Firstly, beliefs are not facts. They are simply judgments, interpretations and conclusions based on your life experiences. Your belief that that you will lose your independence if you get in a relationship is a conclusion you made from past relationship experiences – it’s not a fact. You can be in a relationship and be independent.

Secondly, your beliefs are not who you are. Conclusions from your life experiences get translated as beliefs. I spoke with a friend recently who recalled how, one day out of the blue, her husband walked out on her. That experience became her dominant belief: “I’ll be hurt if I trust.” What happens then is, we create rules or strategies to protect ourselves. The ‘rule’ or strategy that my friend stuck to was “don’t trust” – and then she couldn’t understand why she couldn’t meet anyone. The belief isn’t who my friend – the belief drives her behaviours. In the minute she changes her belief she will be different and have different experiences.

Thirdly, you can choose to take on life-enhancing beliefs, rather than continue to live out limiting ones. Here’s proof that you can change beliefs. What you probably don’t realise is that your beliefs have changed over time without you realising it. Think of concepts like money, health, beauty and love? What were your beliefs about these concepts when you were a teenager or when you were in your late 20’s, 30’s, 40’s – and what do you think your beliefs will be about these concepts when you are 60 or 70? Beliefs do change over time and with experiences.

Fourthly, it doesn’t have to take years to change your beliefs – only if you believe it will.

Here’s what you can do – and if you do this it will save you years of therapy (and a a good deal of money too):

* Look at your relationship patterns and ask yourself what beliefs must I be holding? Write them down.
* Think about the beliefs you would like to hold. State them in the positive and write them down.
* Ask yourself: what would I do, think and say, if I held those beliefs? Write this down.
* Ask yourself what skills, resources and supports you would need. Write them down.
* With your resources, step into those new beliefs “as if”……
* Practice, practice, practice – get the new beliefs in your muscle. After awhile, they become part of who you are.

What are you waiting for – You CAN change your love story!

(Get Real! Relationship Success Is An Inside Job - http://tinyurl.com/yjfbjk3 )