How Subconscious Beliefs Can Affect Your Life

What are beliefs?

In a psychology and coaching setting we talk about beliefs as the subconscious assumptions we have about ourselves and the world. The interesting part is our brains are wired to filter the information we take in through our experiences to support the current belief we have.

For example if you had a belief that rich people are mean and money-grabbing, your brain would focus on evidence to uphold that belief, while for the most part ignoring evidence to the contrary. Your mind would store the one person you met this week who is wealthy and unpleasant, while completely forgetting the other five rich people you spent time with who we lovely and generous.

How do our beliefs affect our lives?

Our responses and behaviours are guided by our subconscious beliefs. We see time and time again people who believe they are not worthy of abundance having a huge influx of cash, such as a lottery win, and then losing it all very quickly. In this example their response and subsequent behaviour lead to the money being spent rapidly because they don’t believe they are a wealthy person, so they go back to struggle. This holds the same for relationships, our health, physical appearance, and so on.

How do we uncover our beliefs if they are subconscious?

This is a very good question, and it’s not always easy. A very good indicator of an area in which you may have a belief that is not supporting your desire is where you feel intense frustration, often about a situation that has been repeated. For example if you are wanting your soul mate relationship, but you keep falling into relationships with commitment phobes, there is a good chance you have an underlying belief around relationships that is guiding your actions in choosing unavailable partners.

Can we change our beliefs?

Yes! This is the good news – we all have subconscious beliefs that were set up at some point in our lives. Often those beliefs served a purpose at that time, but are now outdated and are limiting your growth rather than supporting it. Once we identify the belief we can absolutely set about changing it. The steps are outlined below with examples:

1. Identify a limiting belief you hold
For example, I don’t deserve a loving, committed relationship.

2. Question what purpose this belief may have served at some point in your life
Perhaps this belief was set up in your youth when you were rejected by potential partners, so it serves the purpose to protect you from the pain of that rejection happening again.

3. Start to question the validity of this belief and look for evidence to the contraryIs it true you don’t deserve a loving, committed relationship? What would your friends and family say if you were to ask them? What are the good qualities you bring to your other relationships? What have previous partners appreciated about you?

4. Create a new, supportive belief using a positive affirmation and repeat regularly

I do deserve a loving, committed relationship because I am a generous, kind person who has so much to give.

The process of changing subconscious beliefs often takes time and consistent effort, however it is 100% worth it. It really can make the difference between reaching your goals and having your desires, or not.

Written by Gemma Ford