How Beliefs are Formed

The beliefs you hold about life, yourself, and people are responsible for who you are, how you behave, and who you will become.

Throughout my articles, I have been talking about false beliefs and limiting human potential by preventing a person from achieving what he can already achieve.

On the other hand, positive beliefs can help you trust your abilities, achieve your dreams, and reach the success you ever wanted to achieve.

Because of the extreme importance of beliefs and the significant impact they have on our lives, it makes a lot of sense to learn how beliefs are formed so that you can prevent false ones from being formed and support the formation of positive ones.

The Seed

The belief formation process starts when a seed is implemented in the person’s mind. This seed could be a small remark made by an authoritative person, advice given by a close friend, or even a phrase you heard from a stranger.

“Sam is really arrogant.”
“You don’t know how hard it was to pass that exam.”
“The economy is getting tougher.”

These are perfect examples of seeds. Once you bump into a seed, it will settle into your mind whether you want it or not. The belief is not formed yet, but as you experience different situations that water the seed, it will grow and become a solid belief.

Watering the seeds until they become solid beliefs

Contrary to common beliefs, seeds don’t grow when real-life evidence supports them, but instead, people keep collecting biased evidence for the sake of watering the seeds they already carry!!

For example, the next time Sam doesn’t say hi appropriately, the only explanation that will be given to his actions is that he is arrogant!! People feel bad about themselves because they keep collecting false evidence that supports their false beliefs, not knowing that the evidence collection process is biased towards their own beliefs!!

The more clues the person collects, the stronger the belief becomes until it reaches a point where the person believes that it’s a fact that can’t be changed.

Many people now believe that they are uninteresting, incompetent, worthless, or inadequate because of seeds that were implemented into their minds years ago by their parents or friends.

Implementing a seed about someone’s reputation can grow into a solid belief!! A bystander who hears you saying that Sarah is mean might keep collecting biased evidence right after he hears you and ends up believing that she is really mean!!

How to prevent the formation of false beliefs

To make sure your belief system stays clean, you must learn how to recognize seeds early enough then challenge them before they become stronger.

Keep monitoring the words and phrases that are delivered to your mind by the people around you, and as soon as you find a seed being implemented, start challenging it.

Challenging a seed involves becoming conscious of it, not taking it into account before solid evidence is provided, and making sure you are not collecting biased clues.

You can use the same process to challenge beliefs that were already formed, but it’s much easier to challenge a seed before it turns into a solid belief than to challenge a belief that solidified long ago.