4 Of The Most Effective Ways To Change Your Beliefs
“Change your beliefs, change your life” Yeah, but how?
If you want to change your life, you have to change your beliefs about yourself and what’s possible.
That isn’t news, you already know that.
But the problem many people run into is a common one:
“How do I actually change my beliefs?”
We all want practical means of accomplishment, and so do I, which is why I wrote this article for you.
4 Of The Most Effective (And Practical) Ways To Change Your Belief System
1. Creative Visualization
Creative visualization is the act of closing your eyes and consciously using your imagination to generate mental images.
We generate pictures in our minds all of the time, the only problem is we do it unconsciously.
The conscious mind has the ability to think through language, however, the subconscious mind communicates through images and feelings.
Therefore every word we speak and think creates an image, and our minds are designed to materialize every picture held in it.
Like a machine programmed to accomplish a certain task: our minds are programmed to accomplish the task we give it with our own ideas.
Through the power of visualization, we can deliberately create pictures in our minds and give our minds new tasks to work towards and achieve.
We just need to choose to consciously focus on new ideas.
The word idea comes from the word “Idein” — which means “to see” or “to picture.”
So if you create new mental pictures reality will reorganize itself to reflect that picture.
Visualization helps you do this by consciously creating and focusing on new images.
Close your eyes, get relaxed, and picture a mental screen in front of you.
Then when you have the screen in front of you, begin picturing a desired future event or goal on the screen.
Get more and more involved with the pictures, including all of your senses, and make them feel real.
Click here to read my blog, “Creative Visualization: A Scientific Approach To Accomplishing Your Goals.” to learn more about how to visualize successfully.
Overtime, the picture you are focusing on will be accepted by the subconscious mind where it will then immediately be carried out and acted upon.
2. Conscious Auto-Suggestion
If words create pictures, and pictures influence our reality, then it only makes sense that our own words can effectively change our beliefs — or ideas — about reality.
By repeatedly giving yourself a certain suggestion, like “I am stupid,” you program your subconscious to then take the idea, act out on it and then materialize it in the physical world as feedback, but instead of seeing it as feedback, we see it as “proof” that our ideas are true.
So the act of consciously suggesting desired thoughts and pictures in your mind repeatedly does have the power to change what you believe to be true.
Repeating affirmations, writing your goals down, and asking yourself lofty questions can all reprogram your mind by giving it new suggestions.
Since we’re on the topic of suggestion, let me tell you something important to remember: all ideas about reality are merely suggestions, they are not ultimate realities.
Therefore if someone says “You aren’t good enough” then remember that is merely an idea, a suggestion that you can consciously reject.
All suggestions are auto-suggestions because you are the one who permits and denies any suggestions.
3. Inner Child Work
Another very effective, yet underutilized tool when it comes to changing your beliefs is the use of self-facilitated inner child work.
As children we grow up and do our best to understand and interpret the data our senses are receiving: in doing so we come to many conclusions, or create beliefs, that limit us in more ways than we think.
I once had a client who was experiencing fear around selling, asking for more money, collecting accounts receivable and putting her foot down with clients.
This was getting in the way of her growing her business so she decided to reach out to me to see if hypnosis would help her with the challenge.
During our session I decided it was necessary to do timeliness regression: where she goes back to memories to discover where limiting beliefs and patterns may have been picked up.
During this part of the session she went back to a memory where she was five years old. She was the last kid to get picked up at school that day.
She suddenly felt really sad. I asked her, “Why are you sad?” and she answered, “Because my mom forgot about me.”
“And you are making that mean what?” I asked her.
She replied, “My needs don’t matter. I’m not important.”
Do you see how believing that could prevent her from being more confident, stern and sure of herself?
She didn’t express her needs because she didn’t feel like she was important.
During this memory she was able to tend to that five year old and give her “inner-child” an entire new perspective, a correct one.
Her mom didn’t forget about her, she just had to work late one day and pick her daughter up late without communicating why she was late.
This led the five-year-old to come to her own conclusion, a faulty one that said, “I’m not important.”
Inner child work (not hypnosis) helps you address these parts of yourself so you can reframe your childhood perspectives — or change your undesired beliefs about reality that were likely made growing up.
I created a free guided inner child healing process that you can access inside of our Self Hypnosis Library, download it by clicking here.
4. The Three-Pronged Approach
Believe it or not, one of the most powerful ways to shift your beliefs is by using your conscious mind the way it was designed to be used — to see clearly.
When you are experiencing a negative emotion, the first step to do is become aware of the emotion in your body. Feel it.
When you do, you can then determine what emotion it is, and find the belief or thoughts you are having in that moment.
If you are feeling sad, and you stop to pay attention to your stream of conscious thought — you will notice certain thoughts like, “I’m worthless,” “I can’t be happy,” “I’m ruined” or anything like that.
Notice that these are beliefs that 100% can be changed.
Now, onto Step 2 — Flip the emotion by pivoting your attention through recalling a positive memory.
Once you know what the emotion is, you can flip it by pivoting your attention and focusing on a picture that stirs up a new emotion.
For example, earlier this morning while I was reading I was feeling somewhat anxious — so I closed my eyes and brought up a memory of an entire audience standing on their feet and clapping after a talk I delivered.
In that moment I felt like I was on top of the world, so when I recall that picture, the feeling of that day comes with it. And all of a sudden I’m in an entirely new and better emotional place.
We all have positive memories.
Just recall a time when you felt happy, confident, brave, strong, accomplished or even giggly — it doesn’t matter how long ago it was or what actually happened.
The only thing that matters is the positive emotional charge that comes with that memory.
Stir that positive feeling up.
Step 3 — Replace it with a new suggestion and let go of the old one.
Following our example, if you found yourself thinking “I am worthless” then you can (while feeling positive from the previous step — this is important) give yourself a new suggestion.
“I am worth all I desire and more,” for example.
Stating a new and desired belief — or suggestion — while you are feeling positive will allow the subconscious to accept the suggestion and materialize it, successfully removing the other one.
Once you’ve repeated the suggestion once (or more), repeat:
“(Old belief) is just an idea about reality, but it is not reality. (New suggestion)”
In this example, “‘I am worthless’ is just an idea about reality, but it is not reality, and it is not my reality. I am worthy.”
In Conclusion:
Changing your beliefs is extremely important when it comes to creating your life, and the endeavor of doing so is a worthy one that is a wonderful investment of your time.
I encourage you to make a decision today to challenge every limiting belief you have about yourself and reality.
You’re a creator — act like it.
