18/11/2023 0 Comments What Difference Do Our Attitudes MakeAn attitude is an expression of favor or disfavor toward a person, place, thing, or event (the attitude object). Wikipedia
Attitudes are an expression of our beliefs and mindsets about a person, place, thing or event. An attitude first requires a belief to justify and sustain it e.g. if my strongly held belief is that we shouldn’t have overseas immigrants, then my attitude towards such people will be negative and show itself either overtly (in treating this people group badly, avoiding them or criticising them openly - or covertly with subtle inflections in my voice, body language etc). I may not even be aware that I am behaving in this way. We can have attitudes towards authority that are shaped from negative beliefs and mindsets gained from harsh parenting. We can have a negative attitude towards work which can be influenced by poor self esteem, which may have its roots buried in a negative belief about ourselves we have taken on somewhere in our journey. How often do we say to our children/teenagers “you need to change your attitude”? Yes they probably do; but more importantly what is the mindset or belief at the root of it that needs to change. We choose our attitudes. We have a choice about how we will respond to people and situations. Negative attitudes close doors of opportunity for us, damage our relationships, close our minds to new ways of thinking and generally keep our world small, unhappy and unproductive. Equally we can choose to have positive attitudes. People with positive attitudes are more likely to be given favour, be employed, included in social events, have healthy friendships and marriages, achieve their goals etc. The list is endless. Successful people who achieve their goals and live meaningful lives that impact others have positive attitudes, and see negatives as challenges to be overcome.
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18/11/2023 0 Comments Defining MomentsBeliefs are usually formed and imprinted in our sub conscious mind, usually, but not always, in our childhood. A significant situation, circumstance, or comment may occur in our lives and based on our experience of that we then create a belief system or mindset around this and live our lives as if that were the truth.
For example you may have always wanted to be a great dancer. However, one day as a young girl, your Dad comes into the room and finds you trying to ballet around the room. He’s in a bad mood and says something like: ’stop that stupid dancing; who do you think you’re trying to be you clumsy oaf’. A new belief kicks in that now says ‘I will never be a good dancer, I’m always clumsy’. You never from then on put yourself in a position where your dancing could be criticized again. The facts are that you were a child dancing in her lounge, and it was merely your father’s irritable opinion that you were clumsy. Any passion you had for dancing is now destroyed. In these circumstances, we must always forgive. Normally, adults do their best, with their own belief systems, to educate us. Sometimes they get it wrong. But often it is not what people say that gives us our beliefs; it is our interpretation of what they say. In either case, apportioning blame has no benefits. Blame hands away our power to the other person and it allows us to adopt a victim mentality. It is more appropriate to create self-awareness, notice the impact of the limiting belief, acknowledge it is a belief (not as the truth) and decide to replace it with a more empowering one. Defining Moments A defining moment is an important past event, often experienced when you were a child, such as the girl above. What makes the event important is not the intensity, greatness or the significance of the event itself, but the importance you have given it by unconsciously forming a lifelong belief or set of beliefs around the event. Most adults have five to eight defining moments in their lives e.g. Julie’s partner got very drunk at their wedding and she formed the belief that her husband will always let her down at important events. Another example: James was told that he was a great artist by his teacher in second grade. He decided that he was artistic from then on. We also have positive defining moments. Many years ago when I had very low self esteem, lacked confidence and struggled to stick up for myself, I attended a workshop on assertive behaviour and language. That workshop gave me the tools I needed to give me back my confidence and my self esteem grew from there. It was a crossroads event in my life that changed me from that day on. Once you have formed a belief from a defining moment, you hold on to it and search for evidence to strengthen the belief. If you have created an empowering belief, such as James did, this is great, but if you have latched onto a disempowering belief you are in real trouble, because over the years you build up so much evidence to support the belief that it becomes ingrained in you and you don’t even think to question it as an adult. The good news is that you can let disempowering beliefs go as we discussed above. You can’t change the past but you can change your interpretation of the past, and you can reshape your belief to serve, support, nurture and challenge you if you choose to. Answer the following questions for one of your defining moments: How old were you? What happened, who was there, and what was said? What did you tell yourself then? What belief(s) have you carried forward since then? What would you have wanted to happen? What belief(s) do you want to keep? What belief(s) do you want to change and what will you change it to? What will you be giving up if you don’t create the change? What is one thing you can do to reinforce the new belief(s) on a daily basis? Negative Sentence Starters Often these belief systems or mindsets are preceded by sentence starters such as these below. Go through the list and think about how often these phrases come up in your thinking. You could write them down, and then write down an empowering statement to replace them with. I always... I never... They are.... I can’t... We are... I must... They must... My work is... My time is... My team is... There are times when I... Life is all about... I love... Success is... Teamwork is... Life is... Family is... Love is... She can... My parents are... He could... He is.... I am ... They are... I can.... I should... They should... I should have... If I hadn’t..... If only.... If I do this.........this will happen If I try this.......this will happen I can’t be a.... because ..... I can’t do......because.... I’ve always wanted to..... People always notice me when.... I will never make any money because..... I think people always think (about me)..... My parents are always..... Bosses are always...... People don’t really care about me.... I’m a failure because...... Teachers are always..... Changing Beliefs and Behaviours Our beliefs and behaviours are constructed from our education, paradigm model, personal beliefs, attitudes, feelings and actions. They are determined by the knowledge and information we receive about ourselves and our lives. Based on this we construct our model of the world - our paradigm. This model then determines our beliefs, which, in turn, give rise to our attitudes then feelings. These then support our actions. This is why it doesn’t work when we tell people to “not feel that way” or “not do that”. In order to change actions, feelings, attitudes or beliefs of ourselves or others, we must change our education and knowledge. This allows us to construct a new view of our world, a new model. This is referred to as a ‘paradigm shift’. When it occurs it allows us to believe, feel, behave, perceive and act differently. Education, which includes self-awareness, understanding and reframing of limiting/negative beliefs, is essential. When we get an understanding of the reason for a limiting belief, we can eliminate it and replace it with one that is empowering. The subconscious mind is simply a filing system which is non-judgmental. It only reacts to any negative event in the way that we have trained it to. It produces positive or negative responses to events based on the way in which such similar events and responses were filed in the past. These responses and feelings either help or hinder us. They are a conditioned response that is outside our control. The good news is that we can change the negative responses and associated negative self-image, by replacing the files that no longer serve us with empowering beliefs that do. How do we replace disempowering beliefs with empowering ones? Persistent thoughts on any subject open up memory pathways or channels in the brain that become bigger and more responsive, depending on the frequency and emotional impact of those thoughts. Frequently we train these pathways (dendrites) with our persistent self-talk. To change them listen to your ‘self’ talk and notice how damaging it can be. This will help greatly with your self awareness, but is not to be used to wallow in self-pity, which has no useful purpose. This inner self-destructive voice has been likened to our “gremlin”. The negativity can be overpowering. It is good to remember that it is only our sub conscious mind telling us stories that it has heard and filed. We can rewrite the stories. One technique you can use is to ‘catch yourself’ thinking a certain way or using a certain belief system and replacing that thought immediately with a positive belief e.g. using the example above, the next time you are asked to dance, tell your brain ‘no, I’m a confident dancer and I can do this’. Yes, it takes a bit of courage, but sometimes it is as simple as pushing through at the next opportunity to break that cycle. Other techniques used to place more empowering beliefs in our minds are: Affirmations, positive acknowledgement, rational analysis, reframing, creating new associations (anchors) or replacing it with a more powerful belief system. Breaking down a belief and analyzing it can often help us identify the untruth that is in it and show us how it has ‘bound’ up our lives and stopped us from moving forward in different areas. It then becomes easier to let go of and change, because it has now shown that it no longer carries the value or significance that we want or had unconsciously given it. There are many different modalities that can help you to overcome your negative beliefs and choose a different life giving story for yourself. |
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