Psychology 101 for Change Agents: Identifying and Examining Your Key Beliefs

Chances are you believe some things that aren't true--and you're not alone. 

That's the case for all of us.  We all live in a complicated world and we can't possibly process everything coming at us and form accurate well-founded beliefs about everything going on around us and inside our own heads.   Having some mistaken beliefs just comes with the territory of being human. 

But what about the beliefs that matter most to your own flourishing and to your impact as a change agent? 

Can you identify those key beliefs and take steps to make them even stronger and more powerful?  That's the focus of this session in our Psychology 101 for Change Agents series.

The Backstory on Your Beliefs

Why do your beliefs matter so much? Because they are connected to so many other aspects of your psychological system—and when you get focused on your beliefs you get leverage to better support your joy and your impact across all the areas of your life.

Beliefs are a key component of our psychological system that accumulate over time based on our experiences. The same is true for our operating rules for “doing” our feelings—which we looked at in the previous session in this Psychology 101 for Change Agents series.  And just like our operating rules for our feelings, our key beliefs are not necessarily grounded in a strong and logical evidence base.  By taking the time to surface your most important beliefs and examine them more closely you will likely see that you are acting as if some things are universally true all the time, when in fact you don’t really have sound evidence to support such a strongly held belief.   This gives you the opportunity to take the next step and deliberately engage your System 2 brain—your higher faculties of reasoning and planning--to go out and find the sound supporting evidence that would serve you better in a more realistic, healthy and well-grounded belief.  

Don't Let Your Fight or Flight Brain Hardwire Your Beliefs

As a purpose driven change agent you do not want System 1’s fight or flight instincts driving your bus. Chances are System 1 is going to drive you to a place you don't want to go on the basis of beliefs that are not truly sound. So check out the video and  download the  worksheet that goes with it to help you begin applying your System 2 brain--your highest and best self--to assert greater agency over what you believe and why.

And stay tuned for  the next session in this series when we'll be looking at  how you identify and overcome negative, limiting beliefs.