Are you suffering from your own beliefs? There are times that you should hold fast to your beliefs, of course. But there are also times when you must challenge your beliefs to move on and grow. As Stevie Wonder sung in Superstition, "When you believe in things that you don't understand, then you suffer." So, what?
What if you don’t hold beliefs about rabbits’ feet, broken mirrors, black cats, cracks in the cement, alleged stolen elections, or even conspiracy theories? What if this not what is holding you back, but it’s rather something else, whether it is conscious or unconscious?
Perhaps, you wouldn’t say that you are superstitious—neither would I—but there are some things that we need to reconsider about our beliefs. This can also relate to implicit and explicit biases, and how attributes and actions are directed and sometimes withheld from certain populations while others believe in and assert their privilege, consciously or not.
How can you apply this to yourself? Whether you have been in a situation or experienced an event that caused you to respond in a certain way, or you did not experience the situation, but saw it dramatized in pictures or heard stories passed down through generations, you will find that many of your beliefs have been shaped around these circumstances. Now you have views about and have attached meanings to these things or occurrences. You’ve developed these beliefs, and you can apply them to most, if not everything. You believe that you can or cannot do things because of your beliefs and experiences. This becomes like a self-fulfilling prophecy, also known as the Pygmalion effect.
You don’t understand why the same undesirable things keep happening over and over again. Your beliefs develop into a web of beliefs and your mind gets set in its ways. Your mindset drives the behaviors that you choose, whether consciously or not.
Do you have beliefs that may have worked for you before, but are not working now? Have you attributed beliefs to a relationship that was never really there in the first place? How did your beliefs serve you in the past? How are your beliefs serving you now?
Are your beliefs true absolutes or situational? Could it be that your beliefs served you well or protected you based on your perception, but that the beliefs are not serving you nor others well now? Acknowledge, examine, and decide what you want to do with your beliefs now, seeking help if you need it.
If you find yourself believing in things that you don't understand, don’t continue to suffer.
Instead, eliminate or reduce your suffering by increasing your awareness and examining your beliefs about yourself, your organizations, and other people. Minimize the amount of suffering in your own life! No matter what beliefs you hold, it is important to examine them. Why, you may ask?
Again, your beliefs shape your mindset, which informs your action or inaction, which sets patterns and cycles in your life. Understand? If you want to have breakthroughs and change your cyclical outcomes, examine your belief(s), challenge and shift your mindset, and alter your patterns of behavior, as needed. Otherwise, you may wind up fulfilling an unwanted self-fulling prophecy. You may accidentally sabotage or undermine your own success or the success of your own team, organization, or others. So, do yourself a favor and begin the examination process, such that you can take appropriate steps that support your personal and organizational well-being.
Laura D. Harver is the founder and CEO of Harver Edge, LLC, the Innovative Solutionista™, and a credentialed Professional Certified Coach (PCC) through the International Coach Federation (ICF). She covers topics centered around leadership, health & well-being (individual, family, organizational), diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and legacy development.
