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Your Beliefs May Be Your Stumbling Blocks To a Better Life

If you want to make life improvements, what you believe about life may be your biggest stumbling block. As a self empowered person working to build a better life you may need to adopt the saying that believing is seeing.

If you're a person who believes that seeing is believing, you may be limiting your own growth.Seeing is believing may be the test of truth for many of us, but that doesn't mean that what we see is truth. We tend to see what we expect to see based on what we believe. I may read and re-read this article five times and still not see a misspelling, extra word, or missing word. I read what I expect to see and I believe I've seen it correctly.

To foster a foundation for strong personal growth, change

that phrase to read: believing is seeing. What you and I

believe will determine what we see. Beliefs are very strong,

witness the number of terrorists willing to take their own

lives in pursuit of their beliefs. But before we examine the

link between beliefs and self empowerment, lets review our

five senses and the roles they play in our lives.

We obviously rely on our senses for safety and security,

watching for danger around us, listening for unusual sounds

around the home at night, sniffing the air for signs of

smoke, and carefully approaching the hot pan before grabbing

it.

We also tend to depend on our senses to explain the world

around us. Most of us believe that the world we experience

through our five senses is reality. The sayings, "seeing is

believing," and "I'll believe it when I see it," represent

our dependence on sight to confirm reality. Recall that most people at one time thought the world was flat; that's the way it appeared. Some few, though, saw beyond their sense of sight and believed the distant horizon was not the edge of the world; they were right and whole new vistas of reality opened because of their vision.

Recall the phrase, "a picture is worth 1000 words?" The

implication here is that a picture tells the truth, while

words can be deceiving. Now with digital photography, we've

learned that we can't really trust a picture. Even I can

easily manipulate a picture to remove or include objects. All is not as it appears.

We all know human hearing is limited. As we age, we lose high

frequency sensitivity. Many animals respond to frequencies

even youthful humans cannot hear. It is only recently that

scientists found that elephants communicate through very low

frequency sounds--sounds that travel tremendous distances in

their native habitats. We know that sounds exist that we

cannot hear.

Similarly, our senses of touch, smell, and taste are very

limited. Not only do our sensitivities to these vary, but our

interpretations vary too. Something that tastes salty to me

may be perfect for you. Pleasant odors to you may be

distasteful to me.

Scientists, with fair regularity, uncover aspects of our

world well beyond our senses. From black holes to quarks to

dimensions beyond our space-time reality, there is more to

reality than we can currently explain.

It's not only our vision that sometimes deceives us; our minds contribute, too. We see what we expect to see based on our beliefs. When you stop to think about it, that makes perfect sense. Why would I "see" something that contradicts what I believe? Most of us, most of the time, refuse to do that, albeit subconsciously. Scientists even have a term for this phenomena. It's called cognitive dissonance, cognitive for thinking and dissonance for harsh inconsistency. We prefer to see consistent with our thinking.

You've observed this before with a friend or relative who

smokes, but refuses to acknowledge that the risks of smoking apply to them. If you've just bought a new object, especially

something that you looked for carefully and made a studied

decision to purchase, you'll tend to overlook defects or

limitations that turn up because to acknowledge them

invalidates your belief that you made a wise decision.

Cognitive dissonance gives us blinders that scientists term

scotomas, blind spots we can't see because to see them would

require changing a belief.

If you have strong, long term beliefs about certain people

based on gender, age, race, or national origin, you'll have a

scotoma to characteristics that belie that belief.

Now, what does all this have to do with self-empowerment?

Well, our beliefs about ourselves and the world around us

give us scotomas, blind spots, about who we are and who we

can become. An example of this is the once broadly held

belief that women are inherently inferior to men in math and

science. The saying, "you can't teach an old dog new tricks"

captures another widely held belief about older people.

Don't get me wrong, the beliefs we hold dear aren't all bad.

In fact, our beliefs can be very helpful to us, when they are

helpful to us. The empowered person learns to use belief to

improve and to grow.

Belief about self is one of the critical components of a

person's growth. A strong self image is fundamental to the

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decision to take over responsibility for one's life. A person

with low self image very likely will not feel sufficiently

confident to take full responsibility, preferring instead to

let others determine their life direction.

Our beliefs not only impact what we see, but they affect

every aspect of our lives. As Bert Carson said, "We are more

totally confined by our old ideas than a prison inmate is

confined by the walls of his cell." Beliefs can be our prison

walls or our source of freedom. They are that strong an

influence upon us.

Here are some ways to strengthen your sense of self-

empowerment.

1. Recall your successes. Think about past

achievements and recognize the part you played in

this success. Refrain from diminishing your role. Instead, give yourself as much credit as you comfortably can.

2. Read about other people's lives, especially those

who have overcome difficult situations to achieve

their dreams. These people have the same inherent abilities you have. We're all created with the natural ability to succeed at our dreams. The primary determinants of success are attitude and perseverance.

3. Allow yourself to consider the possibility that

you can achieve whatever you dream. Daydream readily

about your successes, encouraging yourself to

visualize how it will be when (not if) you achieve

your dreams.

4. Accept that your beliefs are simply ideas you hold

about yourself and the world around you, ideas that

you've accumulated to help you understand and explain

your surroundings. Reflect on beliefs you hold that may be preventing you from the growth you desire; change beliefs that restrict you.

About the Author

Copywrite 2005, all rights reserved. Jerry Lopper is an

author, personal coach, and consultant. Find your true purpose in life at http://www.YourCoachtoSuccess.com. Review his latest book at http://jumpforjoy.yourcoachtosuccess.com.

This article first appeared at Suite101.com

If you are a peaceful person, or someone seeking peace amidst chaos, visit http://livingpeace.YourCoachtoSuccess.com.