Beliefs can make us or break us, heal us or destroy us, determine whether we go on to be confident functioning people or just give up at the first hurdle.
These are some examples of negative beliefs:
- I have to succeed
- The world is an unfriendly place
- I can never do anything right
- People don’t like me
- I am a failure
- Nobody loves me
- I am not attractive
- I should be thinner
- I am not very clever
- There is something wrong with me
- I’m such a shit if I fail
Negative beliefs are associated with extreme anger, high anxiety, depression and chronic procrastination. So it’s extremely important to build a flexible, adaptive and realistic belief system that will help you to be happier, more successful, and have more loving relationships.
Cognitive Behaviour Hypnotherapy strongly motivates individuals to get rid of any belief of self-depreciation and have instead beliefs of self-acceptance and an increased self-esteem which will, ultimately, enhance their drive for and achievement of success.
First, I help my clients minimize the effects of irrational beliefs—depression, despair, etcetera—then, we go back to the activating event, to the origin of those beliefs and we discover how to change them to be more successful.
During therapy, the clients consciously or unconsciously make their rational beliefs stronger as well as dispute their irrational beliefs. Obviously, our first instinct on hearing information that disputes or disproves one of our own deeply held beliefs is to rally our defences against the new information, often disregarding the new viewpoint. Hence the reason it’s so important to engage our subconscious where those deeply held beliefs are stored.
It’s especially important to examine these subconscious beliefs when people are young as their life will be shaped according to those beliefs; as the saying affirms “A stitch in time saves nine.”
We can teach young children the rational belief “It’s okay to make mistakes when learning something new. You don’t have to be perfect.”
I’ve noticed that when young people use rational self-talk, they seem to have more motivation and because they have more energy, they seem to accomplish more and function at a higher level. Simply teaching people to recognize that they can think more positively about something has an immediate benefit in the way that they view life; and they’re more energized and they’re more confident.
Many of our beliefs were formed when we were children, for example, a child who was abused/bullied at school later as an adult’s continues to hold those limiting negative beliefs about themselves as they have absorbed those beliefs that were conditioned through fearful emotional conditioning.
To change this I help people to reframe their perception, to start to see reality in wider ranges or context, and to start to see the wood from the trees. There are two main rational beliefs that will help them to be successful; one is High Frustration Tolerance, the other, internal locus of control.
Obviously the clients will recognise what beliefs are helping them and therefore they want to keep and what beliefs are so damaging to the person holding them that are actually trapping, stifling or holding them back from functioning fully.
By assessing your limiting beliefs and shifting your pattern of thought, you are learning naturally how to gain confidence. If you find yourself asking negative, limiting questions when it’s time to be confident, stop yourself. Think something positive about yourself instead, and begin focusing on all the reasons you’ll succeed instead of why you’ll fail.
You are in charge of your emotions and can use them to shape your life however you choose.
Decide today that you’re going to do whatever it takes to be a more positive version of yourself, and you’ll have no other option than to succeed.
Christian Larson
