What does it even mean to “understand yourself?” Understanding yourself means you can make quick decisions, you can make sure those decisions are solid and that you won’t change your mind. It means you know how to motivate and inspire yourself, how to avoid pushing the wrong buttons. You know what to expect from yourself in certain situations without surprising yourself. You know your own skills and abilities. You know how to make yourself laugh, how to make yourself cry. It means you have your own back. Apart from the fact that this understanding gives you a strong sense of security and stability, the reason why it’s so great to have a solid understanding of yourself is because it enables you to know what you want and why, which ultimately leads to greater feelings of success and fulfilment in life.
So where do you even begin your exploration of self? Given that 97% of our brain function is unconscious, this might actually not be such a bad place to begin. There are three key factors that determine who you are, how you respond to the experiences in your life and the experiences you choose to pursue, and therefore directly impact your ultimate experience of life. They are 1. Beliefs 2. Identity and 3. Values.
Take a moment to ask yourself this – How do you define ‘belief’? How do you determine what to believe and what not to believe?
I’d like to invite you to close your eyes right now. Bring into your mind’s eye the room around you. What colour is the carpet? What colour are the walls? What about the chair you’re sitting on? Can you remember how many pictures there are on the walls? Okay, open your eyes and see how correct you were.
What’s this have to do with beliefs, you ask?
There is such a massive amount of information available to you at any one time and given there is no way we can process all of the information at once (they say 7+ or – 2 pieces of information at any one time), we have to choose which bits we take notice of and which bits we discard, we have to filter certain information in and other information out. Beliefs are one way we filter what goes in and what’s ignored.
Beliefs, essentially, are our best guesses at how reality actually is. Not only do they include the physical world, but also reality about what is possible and within our abilities. Theyare those things about life that we assume to be true. They are not set in stone and we can choose to believe in whatever we want to. Beliefs determine our behaviour, and therefore I encourage people to choose beliefs that will ensure the success of their goals. Most of our beliefs are formed through parental influence, the community and school as we grow. Often, we shift beliefs without realising it as an adult when we meet new people or learn new information. Sometimes it would do us good to change our beliefs because our old beliefs no longer suit the new situation we’re in. It is usually the ego, who fear change, that’s responsible for this stubbornness. Unfortunately, some people hang on to beliefs so strongly that it costs them success and damages relationships. You must develop a level of flexibility with your beliefs and learn to identify when a belief is appropriate and should be fought for, or whether it’s best to just let it go, replacing it with a more suitable one. Incidentally, your identityis your beliefs about yourself, your place in the world and what you’re capable of.
If you have a belief that “I’m not good enough”, you will search for (or filter in) evidence to support that belief. If on the other hand, you believe “I can do it!” you will search for evidence to support the fact that you can. Beliefs, therefore, help determine what we allow ourselves to experience and what we determine as not being possible. And it’s incredible the things we can find once we start looking. You might think “believing it won’t change what resources are available to me”. You’ll be surprised what opportunities present themselves when you shift your focus.
I had a client come to me once for weight reduction. After a few sessions, she said “it’s not working, I ate McDonald’s last night”. And I asked her, ok, how many times did you go to the gym last week. She said 3, which wasn’t as many as she’d planned to, but it was 3 more than she’d been doing. Then I asked, “what have you been having for lunch every day?” She said salads and sandwiches, rather than the usual fried food options. Then I asked her how her clothes were fitting and she said, “Well, now that you mention it, they’re feeling a bit looser”. I glared at her. She smirked and started giggling. This revealed to me that she didn’t yet believe it was possible and was therefore ready to give up. She’d been filtering in evidence of failure (the McDonald’s) rather than evidence that she was on track.
Essentially what I’m saying is, our beliefs determine the success of our desired outcome. And we get to choose whatever we want to believe! In fact, that’s what we’ve been doing all along on an unconscious level.
So, why not choose a belief that enables what we want and who we want to be?
So, if beliefs determine what we experience as being real, what are values? If emotions are that through which your subconscious experiences reality, then valuesare the emotions that you want to experience on a consistent basis, reflecting what is important to us and who we are. Essentially, values areyour goal.
Here’s a comprehensive list of values
achievement
adventure
ambition
aesthetic/beauty
authenticity
bliss
caring
challenge
charity
clarity
commitment
contribution
creativity
discipline
dignity
elegance
equality
empowerment
energy
experience
faith
family
freedom
friendship
fun
generosity/giving
gratitude
growth
harmony
health/wellness
honesty
honour
hope
humility
humour
independence
innovation
integrity
intuition
joy
justice
kindness
knowledge
leadership
learning
location
love
loyalty
mastery
nobility
nurture
order
originality
passion
peace
possibility
potential
power
productivity
recognition
relationships
resilience
respect
responsibility
results
risk-taking
romance
safety
security
self-worth
serenity
service
simplicity
sharing
spirituality
success
tradition
trust
truth
vitality/zest
wealth
wholeness
wisdom
wonder/awe
Knowing your values helps you to make decisions by keeping your desired outcome in mind. When you know what your values are, decision-making and strategy development become a whole lot easier. Making decisions based on a fleeting emotion that is incongruent with your values and desires leads to disharmony and failure to achieve goals. Having a clear idea of values ensures congruency with all elements of the strategy and outcome. For example, if I value freedom yet choose to sign a 3-year contract for a job, I’m going to be upset most of the time.
But the buck doesn’t stop here. Your values help you to determine your outcome, but your outcome can also help you determine your values. Say my desired outcome was weight loss. If my values are honesty, security, humour, family, romance, communication and wonder, I might shift a few pounds. But if I chose to value (and therefore experience often) the emotional states of passion, health/wellness, success, discipline, energy and results, I’m going to kick butt!
Don’t limit yourself. You can have general life values, emotional states you wish to experience on a regular basis. Then, once you’ve determined the goals that are going to help you experience these values, you can pick other values (emotional states) that will help you achieve the goal.
Who we choose to be, (our beliefs and values) has a massive influence on our outcome. And guess what?! We can choose whichever ones we want to! How cool is that?!
Things to give thought to this week:
· What are my values? What emotions do I wish to experience on a regular basis? Read over the list and pick a few that really resonate with you.
· What are you already doing that gives you those feelings? What could you be doing to feel them more often?
· What beliefs do you hold that no longer serve you?
· What beliefs could you develop that will help you to achieve your values more easily?