Borrowed Beliefs are beliefs that you adopt without question. They obscure your options and therefore limit your choices. They can also become the basis on which you hide from your responsibilities. This piece explores how you uncover them and make them your own or leave them behind.

This passage from Fried Chicken is Awesome – Finding YOUR way in a world gone mad, Brad Allen (2019).

Borrowed Beliefs:

Borrowed Beliefs are beliefs that I adopt without question. I adopt them without understanding the assumptions and context on which they were formed. They obscure my options and therefore limit my choices. They can also become the basis on which I hide from my responsibilities.

Beliefs:

Beliefs drive our behaviors, consciously, and unconsciously. We use beliefs to evaluate our experiences. Also, in a sense, beliefs encompass our goals in that goals represent the desired future state of something that we value.

Beliefs address everything we do and experience. We have beliefs about what we eat, how we dress, and who we socialize with. Beliefs address the simplest of notions, like that of wearing matching socks. They address more complex notions of what we believe about how we greet people we’ve just met (i.e., should you shake hands firmly, go for one peck on the cheek or is it two, or even three, or what about a bear hug?)

Our beliefs drive how we work and play. For example, consider these questions:

(1) What beliefs do you have relating to working away on your laptop, while in a meeting, or on a conference call?

(2) What beliefs do you have about what are appropriate topics for conversations in the office, the home, or in the pub?

(3) What beliefs do you have with respect to using phones while having dinner, minding the kids, or catching up with friends?

Beliefs also govern how we evaluate our experiences (i.e., we use them when we judge others on how they behave in a meeting or at the dinner table, or in passing in the hall, or not saying this or that).

The most interesting thing for me about beliefs, is that beliefs can be changed. In fact, they can be changed in an instant. All you need to do is revisit the assumptions or context from which the belief was formed.

For example, who thought football boots should be the same color? Or on a more serious note, what beliefs were shattered the day the two planes flew into the Twin Towers?
Beliefs can be changed, sometimes for the better, or sometimes not so much. As a youngster I learned that trying to catch the ball was important because when the ball hit my chest or head, it hurt. That belief served me for a period, then when my fingers got in the way trying to catch a hard cricket ball, I formed a new belief. I believed that I should not try to catch the ball, I should get out of its way instead. That belief didn’t serve me as well because now I wasn’t picked for the team.

The process:

Change is not hard. Putting aside pride on the other hand, is. Resisting change is where I find it hard to accept there might be a better way to do something. It is where I find it hard to accept that what I believe is wrong. Change is hard when I let pride get in the way of my seeing another and perhaps better way to do something.

Change is simply the process of taking a new belief and using it instead of an old one.

Time after time, I have found that my certainty about how best to do something is suddenly unfounded. This idea is true of all aspects of my life, be it how I manage relationships, my career, projects, and even how I manage things I need to do (i.e., to-do lists).

I found that I hide behind the beliefs. I have found that when something isn’t the way I want it, I stick to what I know even though I know it causes me other problems. I use the excuse of “change is hard” or “people don’t change,” or “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” This attitude simply gets in the way of my being the person I want to be. The simple fact of the matter is that what makes us humans vastly different than all the other creatures we share this planet with, is that we change. We find better ways of doing things all the time.

Along the way, I learned that the process of enabling this type of change is easier than I originally thought:

(1) When I find myself disappointed with something I am doing or I perceive others are doing to me, I ask myself “What do I believe to be important about this?” and I write these down.

(2) Then for each thing I have written down, I ask myself “What is important about this belief? What does it give me? Where does it put me? Where is it used?” I then write these answers down too.

(3) For each of the subsequent answers, I ask myself “What is important about this? What is the context of this? What am I assuming?”

(4) If I am unsure, I check my memory for other times I have applied the same sort of logic and look for anything else related to assumptions and context.

(5) One of two things typically happen next. Either I find that I have borrowed this belief, or I no longer value the reasons on which the belief was based.

In all cases I either find a better way or find that I am now willing to search for one. Pride is still a stumbling block, but once I have clarified the reasons behind what I believe, I find it much easier to forgive myself and move on. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t have all the answers and I haven’t got it all right, but I am willing to look for better ways.

Uncovering borrowed beliefs doesn’t solve all my problems. However, working from a set of beliefs that are my own does make it that little bit easier to find the path that is truly of my own choosing.

All Rights Reserved. Copyright Brad Allen 2019.

https://bradallen.coach/#books