Beliefs, Labels and Writing the Stories of Your Life

Brain Graphic 300x199 - Beliefs, Labels and Writing the Stories of Your Life

The great poet Milton said, “The mind is its own place and it can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.”  What a powerful statement and how true it is.  The mind is its own place, but it’s important that you understand that your thoughts both emanate from your mind and influence future thoughts that it generates.  Those very thoughts eventually create the beliefs you have about a particular something. And those very beliefs are the determining factors that make a “heaven of hell” or a “hell of heaven” in your life. Didn’t think you were that powerful, did you?

Many of us hold on to the questionable truth that our belief system was influenced or even forced upon us when we were young by our parents, teachers, religious leaders, or whomever, and that we never really had a choice in the matter.

The fact is, unless you’ve been literally brainwashed, even if your beliefs were forced upon you by other people, they were still registered into your own mind by way of your own thought process.  So, ultimately, now that you’re an adult, on the most practical of levels, the original source is pretty inconsequential.

The point is that the beliefs you have about anything in your life are created by your constant thoughts.  Imagine that your mind is a big cave, filled with different caverns.  Your beliefs are truths that have been formed by a constant trickle of thoughts, depositing their positive, negative and indifferent impressions, like stalactites and stalagmites, in your head.  In one cavern, your beliefs about love, sex, marriage, children and family.  In another about politics, religion and the opinions you have of others.  Like the unbelievable hairpiece your boss wears.

Scattered throughout the cave are myriad formations that make up the positive, negative, and everything-in-between beliefs you have acquired, each being built from the slow, steady drip of your thoughts. Over time some beliefs seem set in stone, and have become so huge that they are practically indestructible.  Some are thin around the base, and can crumble easily.

This mind-cave is a crude metaphor, but it illustrates how a constant trend in your thoughts can grow into beliefs. Sometimes that’s a good thing.  If your beliefs are shaped by positive streams of thought, you’ll be left with positive beliefs that allow you to overcome, achieve and succeed.  If you brain is consistently bombarded by a barrage of toxic thoughts, a negative, self-limiting belief system is created and you can be crippled.

Now let’s take this a step further. Your beliefs, whether good or bad, create the labels you wear.  Your labels are the key factors that write the story of your life. Now ask yourself, “What kind of story am I writing?”

 

Please feel free to share your thoughts and insights. I welcome all comments.

 

Steve Rizzo is the Attitude Adjuster.  You can’t attend one of his keynote speeches, seminars, or read his books and leave with the same attitude.  He’s a personal development expert, motivational business speaker, corporate-comedian and best-selling author. It’s no surprise that Steve is also a Hall Of Fame Speaker Inductee. An honor bestowed upon on fewer than 200 speakers worldwide since 1977.

 

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