Chapter 5 - How You See The World? (Beliefs, Day 3) | Begin with “I” by Rohit Sethi - Self Help Learning PDF Download

How You See The World?  (Beliefs, Day 3)

“It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen” ~ Muhammad Ali

The alarm rings. Ron jumps out of bed, turns off the alarm and launches himself straight into the morning rituals as instructed by Ron+. Although this is the second day, it still does not feel natural and Ron has to drag himself out. However, he has already been made aware that it typically takes around three weeks for human beings to firmly establish a habit, so he is fine pushing himself at this point.

On one end of the bathroom mirror, Ron has the list of things he is happy about in life. He starts reading them as he brushes his teeth and starts to subconsciously feel good and resourceful to handle the challenges that this day might present. He has already handled critical challenges in the past.

In the shower, Ron feels grateful about all the good things he has in life. It feels less strange than it did the day before. If we look at our lives and write down what we are happy about, we will realize that more than 90% of the things about our lives are going right. We somehow just choose to focus on the 10% that are not.

It is Ron’s turn to take his car. The car pool seems to have evolved to a less negative and more constructive experience. They start with greetings and quickly get into their own business. One is busy reading. The other is listening to music that would charge him up for the day.

It is usual routine in the office. Ron works with a sense of urgency and ensures that most of his office time is utilized for productive work. Ron is aware that today is his last day with coffee before he switches to green tea from next day onwards. He is aware of Ron+’s strategy about the peer group – ‘get them on your side if they resist; if they don’t, use your discretion to inform them or not of your new choices.’

The car pool on the way back home is quiet with the radio playing and the guys relaxed. At home, Ron follows his routine. He heads to the gym for a run on the treadmill. The run is still tough, but Ron knows he will start feeling fine over the next few days. He comes back home, orders in dinner, showers, watches television for a bit, finishes dinner and it is time for the chat with Ron+ again.

“Ron, today we will talk about the second element of Individuality, Beliefs.”

Principle 1: Our beliefs are the glasses through which we view the world and life (yes, calling them glasses to emphasize that they can be changed too!)

“In addition to the beliefs we have about ourselves that we covered within self-image, we all have beliefs about the world and life in general. These beliefs define the frame of reference from where we view the world. As Stephen Covey said, ‘We see the world, not as it is, but as we are─or, as we are conditioned to see it.’”

“If we examine our beliefs closely, we will realize that most of them come from our family, schools and the society in general. We did not reallyquestion or test them for ourselves. Most people do that as it is easier to take an established idea and believe it, rather than question and verify it for ourselves. Over time of behaving in accordance with our beliefs, we get massively conditioned to act in certain ways.”

“Over time of behaving in accordance with our beliefs, we get massively conditioned to act in certain ways.”

“As Mark Twain said, ‘The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, but that they know so many things that ain’t so.’ He was referring to beliefs that people continue to have without understanding where they came from. Just think about it – What if just some of your beliefs were not true and have been stopping you from unleashing your highest potential and living your best life?”

“What if just some of your beliefs were not true and have been stopping you from unleashing your highest potential and living your best life?”

“Ron, do you know how fleas are trained?”

“Not really. Tell me about it.”

“They are put into a jar with a lid. They jump up, hit the lid over and over again. With time, something interesting happens. They continue to jump, but no longer high enough to hit the lid, so you can say they become conditioned to have a ceiling there. Even if the lid is removed, the fleas continue to jump to same height. At this point, someone looking at the jar can safely assume that the fleas are incapable of jumping high enough to get out of the jar. But that is not true at all.”

“This was still a situation where the fleas experienced the lid themselves. Let me give you another anecdote. Five frogs are put into a box with an open top. Each time a frog tries to jump out, it is hit hard on its head with a stick. All the five frogs try it once, get hit and then stop trying. Now, one of these frogs is replaced with a new one. As soon as the new one joins, 

the other four inform it that it should not try jumping as it will be hit hard on the head. The new one does not even try. Then, in some time, one of the other four original ones is changed with a new one. The same situation repeats, the new one does not even try to get out. With time, one by one, all the original five frogs are removed and we reach a situation where there are five frogs, none of which has had the first-hand experience of being hit, but all believe that they will be hit. None of them even tries to get out. This is how beliefs are passed from one generation to the other. People carry them without understanding where they came from.”

“That makes sense!”

“You will understand more when we do the exercises. We will work on a few of your beliefs in detail and demonstrate how you have always been acting in accordance with them.”

Principle 2: Beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies

“What I will say now may sound weird. But, trust me, it is true and I hope you can appreciate it after our discussion. Whatever beliefs you hold, will prove them to be true.”

“Whatever beliefs you hold, will prove them to be true.”

“Really, can you tell me more?”

“Ron, we live our beliefs and since we always act in accordance with them, we receive the results that we expect. This is how our beliefs become our ‘facts’. This is the reason why it is difficult to make people change their beliefs. Everyone’s life turned out to be in direct correlation to their beliefs. If someone believed that they controlled their life, they would have acted consistently with this belief, making it come true. If someone believed that their life was controlled by circumstances, they used that philosophy to explain every event in their life thereby assuming a position of lack of control and reinforcing it each time.”

“Let me get into some technical details on how this happens. We have five key input channels on how we receive sensory data from the world around us.”

Figure 22: How we receive sensory data?

“It is established that every second, there are close to two million bits of sensory data around us that are trying to enter into our conscious and unconscious mind, thereby making it critical to decide what information is important and should be brought into ‘conscious’ and what can be made to disappear into the ‘unconscious’. This is where our ‘reality’ is created and is different for every individual.”

“This is where our ‘reality’ is created and is different for every individual.”

“Our Reticular Activating System (RAS) serves as the control center. It uses three brain processes or filters to go from two million bits of information per second down to five to nine chunks of information, so we can make sense of the information. These processes are: Generalization, Distortion and Deletion. Now hear this out, this is important! In order to filter-in or filter-out this information, RAS uses certain inputs:

• Our self-image – Our concept of who we are, what are our values, what we stand for, and what we are capable of doing and not doing
• Our beliefs, values and prejudices – Our concept of what is right and wrong, what we are allowed to do and what we are not, what is good for us and what not so much
• Our past experiences and memories – Our concept of what has happened in the past. But here again, remember that our self-image and beliefs played a key role as they forced us into having the outcomes that were aligned with them. Most of the memories we recorded or chose to not record from the past events as per our interpretation of them, were already colored by and consistent with our self-image and beliefs
• Our patterns – Our usual day-to-day rituals that we run
• Our survival needs – Of all the requirements, our subconscious and unconscious minds place the highest importance on survival as this is the most key function ingrained in them”

Figure 23: How we create our reality?

“Now, the only pieces of information that we allow into our inner world, that is, our reality are the ones that are aligned with our filters. Any major changes to our filters start to create new realities for us by allowing in new kind of information that has always been out there but we hardly ever perceived it. The more certainty with which we believe something, the more strongly our brains find information to prove it that way. Extending it, the more certainty with which you imagine you can do something, the more strongly your brain will find ways to get it done. Unfortunately, the same holds true otherwise as well.”

“The more certainty with which we believe something, the more strongly our brains find information to prove it that way.”

“In a way, you can say that the quality of your life is determined by the quality of your beliefs, especially the fundamental ones that determine your overall perspective. As Albert Einstein said, ‘The most important decision we make in our lives is to decide if we live in a friendly or a hostile universe’. Your approach to life will be different if you consider you live in a friendly universe where everything happens for your good, or if you are certain that the universe is out there to get you and you need to constantly safeguard yourself and your possessions. Another way to look at it is what you believe life is all about: Is it a journey, a celebration, a suffering, a trial or something else? Whatever you believe, you will act accordingly, producing corresponding results.”

“Some of our primarily beliefs that act as our anchors in life are the ones we have about the source or the higher power or the infinite intelligence or the life force or God. People use different names. The extent of faith or fear you exhibit in life is derived from these beliefs. I refer to faith and fear together as they really are opposite extremes of the same thing. Faith is guided imagination giving us strength while fear is unguided imagination taking our strength away.”

“Faith and fear are opposite extremes of the same thing. Faith is guided imagination giving us strength while fear is unguided imagination taking our strength away.”

Principle 3: We can significantly improve the quality of our lives by adopting more empowering beliefs

“Most people in their normal lives never venture into a belief assessment exercise as it can be painful. It is like questioning the core of a person. This exercise can help categorize our beliefs into the ones that empower and ones that disempower us. But the good news is that sometimes, just by recognizing a limiting belief, you can take its power away. For example, if you could adopt the following belief as your most primary belief on life, ‘Life doesn’t happen to you, life happens for you’ and consistently live in positive expectation, you will see that whatever happens, will be for your good. Your approach to life will become optimistic and your overall wellbeing will improve.”

“Let’s do the exercises to assess your beliefs about the world and life. This principle will become clearer then.”

Exercise 1: Baseline your beliefs: Make a list of your key beliefs and assess how they have impacted you all these years i.e. categorize them into empowering or limiting beliefs 

“Since this is the first time you are doing this exercise, it will be kind of baselining for us. Let us look at your existing beliefs and classify them into empowering, neutral and limiting beliefs. Our overall objective is to take most of your limiting beliefs and replace them with empowering ones.”

Ron starts to think and comes up with three of his key beliefs. He also writes how he feels about them these days.

1. There has to be some meaning to life – I have still not found out mine
2. Just keep doing good from your side and good things will happen to you – This doesn’t seem to work for me anymore now
3. To be more successful rather than just having good things, luck needs to play a key role in a person’s life – This is seeming to be more true by the day

“Fair enough Ron. Let us look at each of your beliefs closely and see how it has been impacting you.”

“There has to be some meaning to life – This belief sounds worse than an assumption. Here you have passed a verdict that there absolutely is a meaning and you are troubled since you have not found yours. A lot of pain that you have been experiencing in the past months is because of this belief as it triggered the questioning and you started feeling unanchored in life. If we can replace this belief with something that gives you a stronger anchor to live your life with, you will immediately feel more sorted out.”

“Ron, life is imperfect. The moment we accept this, our view on life changes dramatically. I don’t mean imperfect in a negative sense. What I mean is that there is always something missing. That’s how we can know ‘perfection’. I do not encourage comparing with other people as no matter how much you see, you will never have enough information about how their life truly is. You will really be comparing their highlights to your behind-the-scenes’.

“If you compare your life with others, you will really be comparing their highlights to your behind-the-scenes.”

“If you have more information than you currently have, you will find that though it might seem like there are people who have everything going right for them, when you look closer, there will be some things missing. If they strive to get those things, some other things will slip away. It is this quest for perfection that makes the human spirit grow. There is always an option to give up on some things and be content with average results in some areas, rationalizing that you were not destined to have good results there. Most people around have done that and are living with their compromises. An alternate approach is to continue striving. Things will slip away and you will have to come back to them, but your level of the game across all life areas will keep improving.”

“It is this quest for perfection that makes the human spirit grow.”

Figure 24: Raising level of the game

“Life is a process, Ron. It is a verb and it is happening. As Albert Einstein said, ‘Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving’. You can never assume that life has gotten perfect and that you can choose to stop moving. It is like doing the Rubik’s cube. Once you think you have a few faces done and try to do others, the ones you did go away. And in fact, if you don’t act on life, life has its own way of acting on you. What feels like minutes, turn into hours, days, weeks, months, and years. Before you realize what happened, life can be gone leaving you regretful on how you should have lived more than you did.”

“Life is a process, Ron. It is a verb. It is happening. If you don’t act on life, life has its own way of acting on you.”

“Once you accept imperfection, you will begin to see perfection in the imperfection, and how the whole thing might just have been designed for growth of the human spirit. Spiritual wisdom, through the ages, suggests that the purpose behind some events will always remain beyond our understanding. It is the ultimate test of our faith that we accept these unconditionally without even fully understanding them.”

“Once you accept imperfection, you will begin to see perfection in the imperfection.”

“Seasons change. There cannot be sunshine all the time but we can ensure that we take our sunshine with us wherever we go. If life was perfect, there would be no scope to seek perfection in ourselves. Only when life is imperfect, humans get to grow and understand their powers. Ron, remember that enlightenment does not happen despite this world, it happens because of it.”

“That makes sense Ron+. I agree with you!”

“Let’s move to your second belief now.”

“Just keep doing good from your side and good things will happen to you

– This seems a good belief to have. It establishes causality. I am disheartened to hear that you are losing faith in it. Let’s look at why it is happening. Tell me why specifically do you think this is not working anymore?”

“Despite all the good that I am doing, I am not getting excellent opportunities!”

“Ron, I don’t mean to be harsh and you might not like what I will say next. I will still say it, as I know it will help you once you get over the immediate pain that it will cause. As I said before, most people choose to remain average throughout their lifetime as all self-development starts with being honest with one which takes massive amount of courage.”

Most people choose to remain average throughout their lifetime as all self-development starts with being honest with one which takes massive amount of courage.”

“Ron, we live in a mediocrity culture where ‘average’ is the acceptable standard. To keep their peer group, people end up choosing inefficient and unhealthy habits. At work, especially in the first few years, people significantly compromise on their own learning simply because they do not want the bosses to get credit for their work. Are they not selling themselves short? People do not invest in their development if their company does not send them to conferences or industry events. What we do not realize here is that companies can give us jobs, but it is us who need to be really taking responsibility for our careers.”

“We celebrate individuals who break the false ceiling of mediocrity and are able to fly high into the realms of excellence. I am using standard metaphors that the world uses to make you understand what I mean. But what is really happening with these individuals is not that they are going physically higher into the world. They are actually going deeper within themselves to find what is there that can be used to make a difference to the world and people around them.”

“Ron, you worked hard in your early years to get to where you are today, but look at yourself now. You are extraordinarily average, you know that and that is scaring you deep down.”

“You are extraordinarily average and that is scaring you deep down.”

“Maybe you are right. I feel I am losing the edge!”

“So just change it. It is really that simple!”

“The truth is that you stopped investing in yourself over the past years and began to cash out on your situation. If you start investing again to go from average to extraordinary, you will see that your belief still works.”

“To be more successful rather than just having good things, luck needs to play a key role in a person’s life – I do not believe this to be fully true. Even if it was, I do not see how keeping this belief can be of use to anyone. It takes the power away from people. Our minds are brilliant at rationalizing the events around us. The challenge is that the rationalization always happens within our current frame of reference and so keeps us confined within our current understanding of the world without letting us grow. In your case, as your mind started to get convinced of the causality belief not working anymore, there was a need for rationalization and thus a belief that would provide your mind with the comfort that it is possible to not have full control over things. Bringing in the ‘luck’ factor through this belief seemed like a good solution.”

“Even if it was true, I do not see how keeping this belief can be of use to anyone. It takes the power away from people.”

“I do not agree with this belief. I am yet to see a person who applied all the success principles consistently, who was well-prepared and decided not to stop until they achieved what they wanted and the only thing that stopped them from achieving their goals was luck. In fact, if you ask them, they would know what exactly did not work. Successful people always quote luck to equal preparation and opportunity. A certain level of preparation is necessary to even identify something as an opportunity. For example, if I do not have much knowledge of the financial services industry, I do not keep myself up to date with latest trends through reading about them, and I do not network with people from that industry, how can I expect to know if something is an opportunity in that industry? There is no scarcity of opportunities Ron. What is scarce is adequately prepared people to spot them and have the courage to take the plunge to pursue them.” 

“There is no scarcity of opportunities. What is scarce is adequately prepared people to spot them and have the courage to take the plunge to pursue them.”

“I apologize if I hurt you with anything I said here. As I already said, challenging peoples’ beliefs is a tricky exercise as they have been true for them and people have no reason to believe that they were not true. In any belief discussion, the point is not to check if the belief is true or not, but to check if the belief is serving them well or not.”

“Although here we did it for just three of your key beliefs, this exercise can be done for any number of beliefs and is quite powerful in helping one see the causality between the results one produces and the beliefs one holds. With this, let’s go into our next exercise.”

Exercise 2: Design the leap to next level: Discard disempowering beliefs and replace them with empowering ones

“Once your beliefs have been critically analyzed, it is time to discard disempowering ones and adopt a new set of empowering beliefs to replace them. I have indicated my view on what you can do with your three beliefs that we discussed.

1.  There has to be some meaning to life – You can consider replacing this with ‘The meaning of life is to see the perfection within the imperfection by accepting it fully’ or to make it more personal, ‘The meaning of my life is to become the best version of myself, so I can live an enriched life while contributing back.’
2.  Just keep doing good from your side and good things will happen to you – As we discussed, once you increase the input in your life, your output will correspondingly increase, restoring your faith in this belief
3.  To be more successful rather than just having good things, luck needs to play a key role in a person’s life – You can consider discarding this belief as this takes the power away from you. If you want to replace it with a more positive one or to build positive expectancy, you can say, ‘To be more successful rather than just having good things, one needs to go beyond and give more than just good’”

“Ron, please understand that you do not have to do exactly as I am saying here, you are free to repeat the exercise on your own. The objective is to choose beliefs that empower you rather than disempower you. To give you another example, I have a friend who has a core belief that there is no justice in the world. I really respect him for who he is and the way he leads his life, but we can all see that he is selling himself short. He is capable of putting in an effort of 100%, but he puts in only 20% as he is convinced that even if he gives 100%, it will not be reciprocated.”

“Choose beliefs that empower you rather than disempower you.”

“The disturbing thing is that this belief acts like the anchor that keeps a boat stuck on the shore. This belief keeps him from starting. If he is able to change this belief, he will give in 100% which will trigger two things (i) he will experience the joy and satisfaction that comes from giving one’s 100%, and (ii) the world around him, including his job, family and social circle, will benefit from this 100% which will get rewarded with both tangibles and intangibles. We are talking of one person. Imagine if there are only one million people in the world who hold this belief. What a loss to the world that this one belief is causing!”

Exercise 3: Take the leap to next level

“Ron, once you identify your new beliefs, it is time to internalize them. Two effective ways to do this are: 

1.  Write down and stick them at a place you can easily see them
2.  Make affirmations out of them and say them out loud. As already indicated, saying out loud is more effective as it engages the physiology and senses rather than just repeating them in the mind”

Exercise 4: Once this iteration becomes natural, start all over again

“On an ongoing basis, as we live our lives, we continue to come across new ideas and people. As discussed, average people continue to discard new information that is inconsistent with their existing beliefs, but not you. You will be open to change your beliefs in order to grow and reach your highest self. Agree?”

“Yes, sure, I will do that!”