Written by: James Marlin, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Our beliefs shape every aspect of our lives, from how we view the world to the most minute daily decisions. But have you wondered how or when those beliefs are formed?
I’m no stranger to the struggle with negative and limiting beliefs. For years, I battled addiction, my business almost failed, and my marriage was on the rocks. I was trapped in self-doubt and hopelessness, convinced that no one could understand or help me. Through my journey of self-discovery and recovery, I learned to harness the incredible power of challenging and changing my beliefs to create a more fulfilling and positive life.
Let’s take a deep dive into the fascinating process of belief formation, exploring everything from the power of repetition to the influence of emotional attachment and confirmation bias.
The Danger of Limiting Our Beliefs
“I need this alcohol” was my limiting belief and, at that time, my reality. I thought I was going to drink myself to death. The shakes would start after only a few hours without a drink, and I ensured I never went that long. I was deep in the rabbit hole of limiting beliefs, and it felt like there was no way out. Every mistake, every setback, every time I screwed up, the same thought echoed: “I screwed up again.”
The road to changing those beliefs was long and hard and I knew I would never get out if I continued down that path. I decided to change my beliefs, and it wasn’t easy, but it was achievable. I’m over five years sober now, and my life is completely different. My relationship with my wife is better than ever, my business is thriving, and I have a deeper connection with my son. But most importantly, I realized I was in charge of my thoughts and became intimately familiar with how our beliefs work, and how they can affect every aspect of our lives.
Addiction isn’t just about drugs and alcohol. It’s about being addicted to thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that work against us. That’s why I started studying the science of our brains, emotions, and subconscious. I learned how we create our own reality, and how we can change it.
Now, I have beliefs that serve me and propel me forward. I believe that I can learn anything and accomplish anything I set my mind to. I believe I am capable and that I am a beautiful human being. And you can have these beliefs too. It’s possible to come back from the brink and create the life you want. It starts with changing your beliefs.
Make That Change
Ernest Hemingway once said, “There is nothing noble in being better than your fellow man. True nobility lies in being better than your former self.”
We often think of beliefs as big, obvious things like “everyone is created equal.” But in reality, many smaller beliefs are at work in our minds, shaping how we approach our day-to-day lives, and many don’t realize how much our beliefs can hold us back.
Take coffee, for example. You may believe you need a coffee in the morning to get going. But what happens when you don’t get your coffee? Suddenly, your day is derailed, all because of a simple belief. Suddenly the cup of coffee is less vital for your success than the faith you put in it. Now imagine all the stronger beliefs you hold about yourself: “I’m not good enough,” “I have no control over my life,” “I’ll never be able to do that.”
As Henry Ford famously said, “Whether you believe you can or believe you can’t... you’re right.”
If you’re convinced that you can’t do something, you won’t even try. And when you don’t try, you’re cutting off a whole realm of possibilities before you even get started.
The good news is that you can change your beliefs. It’s not easy, and it takes time and effort, but the rewards are immense. When you challenge and replace your limiting beliefs with empowering ones, you open up a whole new world of opportunities. You start to believe that you can accomplish anything you set your mind to. You begin to see yourself as capable, strong, and resilient.
Are your beliefs helping you or holding you back? If they’re not serving you, it’s time to make a change.
Your Beliefs, Your Reality
Beliefs are like a tree, starting as a thought that acts as a simple seed. But as we repeat these thoughts, they take hold and sprout roots that anchor them in place. Then we attach emotions to these thoughts, creating a sturdy trunk for our beliefs that shape our reality.
If you constantly tell yourself that you’re not good enough, that thought eventually becomes a belief you hold onto. You may become emotionally attached to that belief, making it difficult to let go, even if it’s causing you harm. You really start to feel like you aren’t good enough. However, the memories and imaginations we use to create these beliefs aren’t always rooted in reality, they may even be born of fear.
Understanding how beliefs are formed can shift our thoughts and emotions towards more positive beliefs that serve us better. The next time you catch yourself holding onto a limiting belief, remember that it all starts with a simple thought and that you have the power to change it. As a belief takes root in our minds, growing stronger with a trunk of emotion, it next sprouts branches of faith and certainty. We start to accept it as true and become convinced of its validity.
Beliefs don't deal in true or false, right or wrong. They simply exist, and it’s up to us to decide whether they serve us or not. But once we’ve accepted a belief, we start looking for evidence to support it. This is where confirmation bias comes in. We focus on information that supports our belief while ignoring evidence to the contrary. Now our branches of certainty are sprouting leaves of evidence.
Our Reticular Activating System (RAS) is the part of our brain that filters information from our subconscious and decides what’s important enough to send to our conscious awareness. It’s also responsible for confirmation bias. You know how, when you’re looking to buy a new car, now when you’re out, you see them everywhere? Do more of those cars exist now that you’ve thought of them? No, you're RAS will ensure that you’re noticing them more than you did before.
That tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values is fine when shopping for a car, but when it comes to yourself and your own personal beliefs, it gets tricky, and we want to make sure we have the capacity to recognize it. Another example: if we believe all politicians are corrupt, our RAS will highlight news stories that support this belief while downplaying positive examples of politicians doing good work.
Our beliefs are nothing more than thoughts we continue to think, feel, and find evidence to support. So, if you want to change a belief, start by changing the thoughts you have and the emotions you attach to them. With time and repetition, you can grow a new belief that better serves you.
Gotta’ Have Faith
What role does faith play in our beliefs? Well, it’s what drives us to take action on them. When we have faith, we’re willing to put ourselves out “on a limb” and go after what we want. And the results we get are the fruits of our beliefs.
When you believe you can get a job, you’ll apply for it confidently. And more often than not, you’ll end up with that job. But if you don’t believe you can get it, you may come across as timid or uninterested. Some won’t even try, and you’ll miss out on the opportunity all together. It’s fascinating to peel back the layers of belief and see how they start as small thoughts that can grow into something incredible.
As a therapist and best-selling author Marissa Peer says, everything can be traced back to a thought, and that’s powerful because…we can change our thoughts!
This brings us to the incredible power of the subconscious mind. Did you know that our brains have the capacity to process 11 million bits of information per second, but our conscious minds can only handle 40-50 bits? That means our subconscious actually controls the vast majority of our brain function and our bodily functions, including our breathing, heartbeat, blood flow, and digestion, as well as our ability to heal. In fact, many scientists estimate that the subconscious performs at least 95% of all brain functions.
Your conscious and subconscious minds are like an ant driving an elephant. The ant is quick and agile, scurrying around to get things done, and can carry fifty times its weight, tiny and powerful. But the elephant calls the shots, ultimately deciding where they will go. No matter how hard the ant tries to steer, the elephant’s decisions cannot be changed. That’s why overturning a limiting belief through conscious effort often leads to little success.
When someone asks you what you believe, is it hard to come up with an answer? That’s because you’re asking the least informed part of your brain to give you an answer about how your unconscious processes are structured.
Beliefs are not something you can carry in your pocket. They exist within you—in your heart and mind. If you want to change them, you must do the internal work. Physical actions can help, but they are not enough on their own. As Gary van Warmerdam says, “Controlling the external world offers no defense against the unhappiness we create in our mind.”
Speak Up
The language we use when speaking to ourselves plays a crucial role in our thought process. In fact, we think in the language we speak, which means the quality of our thoughts is directly proportional to the words we use for self-talk. It’s a straightforward equation. If your words to yourself are negative, your thoughts will be negative.
When battling addiction, I realized my self-talk was a big problem. My thoughts were contaminated, and my beliefs were rotten. But now, I have a different outlook. I am not afraid of failure or success, and I believe I deserve happiness. I believe that my family deserves the best version of me, and I am confident that peace and contentment are mine to have.
Taking 100% responsibility for your self-talk is essential because it shapes your beliefs, whether empowering or limiting. You have the power to control two things: the thoughts you think and the words you use. Remember, you choose to believe your thoughts so you can choose to change them. Sure, we all have some beliefs installed in us during childhood, but now that we are older and more experienced, we are no longer victims of ignorance. This train of thought will make you more aware of your beliefs and help you take responsibility for them; and you’ll never be a victim again.
Own Your Beliefs
When we’re young, we learn from the people around us, like our parents, guardians, and people in positions of power. We take on their instructions, opinions, emotions, ideas, values, and beliefs. Even if our parents were good or bad by our standards, we mostly accepted what they said, which became our beliefs. We lacked the awareness and discernment to decide what to believe or not believe. This is what I mean by being a victim of ignorance. We also lack the awareness to question what others think and say about us. We believe that we are good or bad, pretty or ugly, and so on.
It’s important to remember that we continue to create beliefs throughout our lives. We not only carry the beliefs of our childhood but also the ones we form throughout our experiences. Therefore, it’s crucial to become aware of our beliefs and where they come from, so we can take responsibility for them and change them if necessary.
Now That I’ve Got Your Attention
Attention is the ability to focus on a selected stimulus while ignoring other factors in our vast field of perception; it determines our dominant experience in each moment and plays a significant role in shaping our beliefs. We can change our beliefs by gaining control of our attention. Beliefs form when we focus on a certain interpretation of an event, attach an emotion to this interpretation and then agree that it’s true. Unquestioned beliefs generate thoughts and demand our attention, so it’s crucial to become aware of our thoughts and the emotions we attach to them and to be skeptical of the ones we want to change.
These subtle shifts can make a huge difference in changing your beliefs. Don’t overlook them just because they’re subtle. Mindfulness meditation is the easiest and most effective method, I have found, to sharpen your ability to control your attention.
The Power of Perspective
Is this glass half-full or half-empty? Does it matter? You can argue either way, but the water level remains the same. The difference lies in your perspective. If you focus on lack, you will see more lack. If you focus on abundance, you will move forward with that perspective. This subtle power also applies to other situations. Is that person on the street a drain on society or a survivor? Are you beaten down or resilient? It all depends on your perspective, which ultimately defines you. Remember, there is no right or wrong, only different perspectives.
Start looking at your negative beliefs in a different light. They aren’t inherently right or wrong, but they may not lead you in the direction you want. So far, these beliefs have worked for you, by getting you where you assume you should be. If you think you lack abundance, you likely do. You probably won’t do something if you believe you can’t do it. Even so, here’s a cause for celebration because it means that beliefs work!
By acknowledging that your beliefs have been directing your life, you can now have faith that when you install empowering beliefs, they will work just as well as the negative ones. You can shift from victimhood to the driver’s seat and take responsibility for your beliefs. By changing your perspective, you can understand that your beliefs don’t just reflect your reality, they help create it. This shift in perspective changes everything, without changing anything, because it determines what happens next.
Your beliefs will always be filtered BY your attention and THROUGH your perspective. Throughout the different areas of your belief tree, it’s important to ask yourself: Where is my attention? What is my perspective? Remember, your beliefs are powerful tools that can guide you toward the life you want to create.
James Marlin, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
James Marlin is a professional questioner, storyteller, dad, and husband with a passion for investigating. He works to distill complex findings into actionable and relatable information through his written articles and keynote talks. Having battled and overcome addiction, James firmly believes in the power of change. In the last five years, James has dedicated himself to investigating our beliefs, emotions, the conscious and subconscious minds, addiction, ADHD, mental illness, and the impact of technology on society. James is enrolled in a Modern Journalism course with NYU in partnership with Rolling Stone Magazine. Alongside his studies, he works as an investigator in the city of New York.
