Isaac Frett

Introduction

I used to be someone that knew what I should be doing everyday. I know I needed to exercise, read books, and take actions towards my goals. But I found myself incapable of moving myself towards those actions.

I would resort to mindless scrolling or engage in activities that took my mind elsewhere. I would say I lacked focus but what I really lacked was the right beliefs about myself.

I would think to myself often why do some people get so far ahead of others? Why can they be so focused on goals and achieve so much? And how can I get ahead too?

What I found is that people who have achieved great things in life aren’t smarter or better than anyone else. People that achieve incredible feats have a different set of beliefs about who they are.

I learned that the way we view ourselves is the greatest determining factor for how our lives will turn out.

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t—you’re right”

– Henry Ford

I’ve lived on both sides of this coin. I believed I wouldn’t be capable of achieving much and now I believe the opposite. Nothing is out of limits. The secret is that it all comes down to your beliefs about yourself.

In this article I want to dive into how to change a belief about yourself and the practices you can start right now to make lasting changes.

Why Beliefs Can Be Hard to Change (Why Their Easier Than You Think)

The Problem: Your Brain Treats Beliefs Like Facts

A lot of the beliefs we have were formed when we were children. Our conscious minds hadn’t fully developed yet and whatever beliefs dominated our early environments we naturally adapted.

We had parents, friends, teachers that all influenced us when we were younger. Those influences gave us some of our beliefs about ourselves that we still hold onto today.

I remember being really young when I had a teacher that told me I was good at math. That stuck with me as a belief and carried with me through school helping me in my math classes. That’s a positive belief to give a child.

I also remember that I had a different teacher that yelled at me in front of the class for speaking up when I knew something was wrong. That stuck with me in a harmful way, believing I wasn’t free to speak up and I needed to be more reserved.

Both situations gave me beliefs for the foreseeable future but both beliefs weren’t positive. Everyone has had situations or trauma that builds a belief for you that doesn’t support you.

The problem isn’t that we are dealt these beliefs because everyone is dealt a unique hand to play. The problem is that we continue to live with negative beliefs that hold us back, unaware of how to change them.

Our beliefs are either serving our good or limiting us. For me, having that belief that I need to be reserved when speaking led me to being a quiet person through my teenage years. It corrupted me in social situations. It wasn’t until I learned how to change this old belief that I became free from it.

The change is rather easy. The only hard part that you face in changing your beliefs is remaining consistent about adapting the new belief. The key to changing a belief about yourself is to replace it with an opposite belief that serves you.

To do this we use practices like affirmations and meditation that will link new neuron connections in your brain. In effect, we start to believe a new story about ourselves and release the old story as false.

We don’t erase the experience from our memory because it did happen. We re-frame it to see it how it truly is, an experience that gave us a belief that we no longer wish to have. We release it’s power over us and we look to a new, better belief that will make our lives better. Let’s look at how we do this.

Find the Exact Belief You Want to Change

Step 1: Get Specific About What You Actually Believe

If you’re unsure about which beliefs you should change look at your goals first. Underneath each of your goals is usually a unwanted belief. It’s the reason you set the goal in the first place.

If you have a goal to “be more confident” the underlying belief is that you are not confident enough. If your goal is “make more money” the underlying belief is that you don’t have enough money.

If we work to change our beliefs about ourselves, our goals will automatically be met. Rather they will be obsolete and make way for newer, higher purpose goals like serving others.

If you were already confident, you wouldn’t have a goal to be more confident. If you already saw your life as abundant, you wouldn’t want more money. The secret to accomplishing goals is to change the underlying belief about yourself.

To recap, find a belief you want to change by looking at your goals and what you think you’re lacking. Once you have a belief that you want to change, think on where that belief came from.

You don’t have to dive into any past experiences or trauma but just know how that belief originated. Knowing it came from something outside of your control lessens it’s power over you. And if it was in your control, you still posses the ability to change it.

If it helps you, write down this belief that isn’t serving you. Then ask what is the opposite of this belief? Is it having a relaxed confidence? Feeling abundant and wealthy? Feeling more secure in your body? Write down the belief you wish to have.

This is our starting point. Knowing what we believe now and what we want to believe is the starting point to changing. Do this for as many goals you have, for as many beliefs you want to change. Once you have your list we can move into changing a belief about yourself and actually making it stick.

Choose Your New Belief Strategically

Step 2: Create a Bridge Belief (Not a Fantasy)

This step is optional depending on the strength of your belief you are trying to change. If a belief is deeply rooted into your identity, affirming an opposite positive belief can feel fake.

What you can do instead is to build a bridged belief between the old belief and the new one. For example, if you have the goal to “be more confident,” it can feel daunting at first. Affirming the new belief “I am confident” over and over can seem challenging.

We can bridge this gap of uncertainty. We can use a bridge belief that says “I am becoming more confident every day.” In this way our brain can support this belief as it shows progression.

We are more open to believe an affirmation when it focuses on a progression into a desired state. After repeated use of this new affirmation, we can switch to our stated affirmation, “I am confident.” Speak it consistently and confidently over 30 days.

Remember this important fact about any affirmation you create. An effective affirmation has to be spoken consistently and confidently over a long-running period of time.

In childhood our conscious mind wasn’t fully developed. We took everything in without a filter. As adults we have a conscious mind acting like a gatekeeper. It questions everything we give it.

The only way to bypass the conscious mind is to feed it the same idea repeatedly. We must give it reassurance that this idea (our affirmation) is what we believe to be true.

If you need to, write down bridge beliefs in the current tense that you can affirm to yourself. Move onto your stated beliefs when you feel ready to stretch yourself further.

Gather Evidence for Your New Belief

Step 3: Become an Evidence Collector

We should speak our affirmations for our new beliefs daily and consistently. Also, we want to build evidence for our desired beliefs. Your brain believes what it has evidence for. So you need to actively collect evidence for the new belief you want to affirm.

Using your written affirmations, also write down a serious of questions you can ask yourself daily. Questions like, “When was a time you felt extremely confident?” or “What do confident people do when they speak, act, or move?” Questions like these help us associate behaviors to feelings.

When we think about the answers to these questions we gather evidence about what a confident person feels like. And we dive into our experiences about times when we felt confident.

Other questions we can ask ourselves daily or reflecting at night are:

• What are 3 things I did today that made me feel confident?
• How does it feel to be confident?
• What do I think about when I’m confident?

As we come up with answers, we build evidence towards our new identity. In effect, we are showing ourselves that we are what we say we are. “I am confident because of _______” and fill in the blank with your evidence.

For each of your affirmations and new beliefs write a few questions for each that you can ask yourself daily. Try and make these questions illicit good emotional responses and evidence of your new belief you are working to affirm.

Another key to changing a belief about yourself is to focus on the evidence that points to your desired belief.

You will get better at this with time and practice, but that is why you should use questions daily! Questions you ask yourself will always return answers back to you. Start asking yourself framed and positive questions that can only return a positive answer.

Challenge the Old Belief When It Shows Up

During this daily process, affirm your new belief and ask yourself evidence-based questions. You’ll occasionally think about your old belief system and old thinking will try to step back in. When this happens, question the truth of it.

When we question the truth of an old negative belief, it can only give us one type of evidence. The only evidence it brings up is the experience we had, nothing more. We can ask ourselves questions to lessen it’s power, questions like:

• “Is this actually true, or just familiar?”
• “What evidence contradicts this belief?”
• “Would I accept this belief if my best friend said it about themselves?”

Remember that what appears true for us isn’t always true in actuality. Past beliefs are just a result of past experiences. Challenge old beliefs when they come back up and point your mind to your new truth, your new belief.

The only truth that matters is the truth you want to believe about yourself. Start believing it now, and reinforce it through speaking affirmations and gathering evidence.

If you’re still struggling with old thinking coming back up, remind yourself of your bridge belief. If you need a bridge belief go back and make one now. Reaffirm that this is a progression.

The signal to know when you have successfully changed a belief is that the old story will cease to exist. The old belief will disappear. You can still think of past experiences but you will think of them in their true form, just an experience.

If old stories that you’ve told yourself keep coming back up, the work still needs to be done. Just know that with enough time, affirmation, and evidence collecting you can change any belief no matter what it is.

Build momentum with this. At first it can be uncomfortable and that’s normal. You are after all challenging yourself. Growth is never comfortable but it’s always worth it.

Reinforce Through Identity and Action

Step 5: Modeling (Acting As If)

We have spoken affirmations, bridged beliefs, and evidence collecting in our tool belt. Let’s add one more. This will be our actions and specifically modeling. If you heard of “Acting as if” this is along the same thought process.

Acting as if something is true can often feel fake or not being true to yourself. Modeling, however, is a psychology practice that is similar to “acting as if” but it feels much more genuine.

With modeling we can identify with someone that already is that which we want to be. Instead of acting as if we are confident, we model the behavior of someone who is confident.

Have you ever had role models? This is the same idea. Choose someone that you can model after who has the belief that you want to affirm in yourself. In the case of confidence you can choose a public speaker you resonate with.

Take note of this person’s behaviors. Ask yourself questions from watching them and make notes of everything they do. Some questions to ask and answer are:

• How do they talk? What’s their tone? Their speaking cadence?
• Do they talk quietly or with some power?
• Where are their eyes going? Where are they looking?
• What do they do with their hands? Are they making gestures?
• What’s their body language? What’s their posture?

All of these are good starting questions to ask yourself and make note of about your model figure.

When I was a kid I used to model my basketball shot like Steph Curry’s shot. He’s one of the greatest 3-point shooters of all time. I would watch his highlights, watch his form, his release, his body position, etc. I would then practice all these insights and sure enough my shooting got significantly better.

The power of modeling can be applied to any area of life, academics, athletics, speaking, writing, parenting, anything. Find models that share your desired beliefs and learn as much as you can about them.

Take the same actions as your models. Use these new actions for your evidence collection. It becomes a cycle of reinforcing these new beliefs.

Timeline and Expectations

How Long Does This Actually Take?

This isn’t a weekend project. Realistically this whole process can take anywhere from 3-12 weeks. It’s a wide range because every person is different, every belief is different. Some people are more stubborn with changing then others, but then again this is just a belief!

Again the reason for this timeline is our conscious minds. They act as gatekeepers to our subconscious mind, protecting them from unwanted beliefs. The only problem is that we can carry unwanted beliefs to start with.

To undo unwanted conditioning we need to bypass the conscious mind with consistency and repetitions. It’s like breaking down a wall, one swing won’t do the job. We need to repeatedly hit the wall to bring it down. This happens daily in our practice and over many days.

This process will look like this:

• Weeks 1-2: Feels mechanical and unnatural, old belief still dominant
• Weeks 3-6: New belief feels more natural and evident, old one loses power
• Months 2-3: New belief becomes default, old belief disappears

Remember every belief and person is different. These are just general timelines to help you understand the consistency needed.

It’s important to do this every day and not miss a day. Backtracking does happen to the best of us. If you miss a day just keep continuing. Know that the above timelines will be extended for every day you do miss.

Pro Tip

To accelerate this process add to your list a new belief that makes it easy to adopt to new beliefs. “It’s easy for me to change my beliefs” or “I am open-minded to new beliefs that benefit me.” Building this foundation can help you change beliefs in less time.

Conclusion

Recap

Changing a belief requires specificity, creating bridge beliefs, collecting evidence, questioning old stories, and acting from the new belief with modeling. Performing all these steps will be the best way to accelerate your change.

If it helps, keep a journal through this process to see how your thoughts are changing over time.

Encouragement

The beliefs you carry aren’t permanent—they’re just patterns, and patterns can change. We all were dealt a unique hand with our childhood environments and experiences. No two experiences are the same in this way.

Growth can take time. After reading this, I hope you feel empowered. Go and take your future into your own hands. You have the tools now to change any belief you want to.

Next Steps

You should have a working list of new beliefs if you’ve followed so far. If you have a long list pick the three most important to work on first. If you start working with too many it will be overwhelming for your mind to handle. Even three can be too much at times, if you find this to be true just do one.

Thanks for reading to the end!