Sigh, been busy with so many stuff. Hopefully can settle everything this week and focus on the coming exams.

Anyway, my assignment that took me quite a while to write... Should have spent more time writing/expressing myself when I was young to build up the skills for that. Haha~

Below is the article I did for my 2nd assignment

One may ask: “What is self-limiting beliefs?” Before we embark on the question, we will discuss how beliefs are formed.

According to many sources, it can be said that beliefs are formed through our experiences that we had accumulated over the years. When we are young, parents, society and/or other significant figures impart some of their beliefs to us through their teachings, conversations and actions which we observe in their daily life

As we grow up, some of the basic beliefs that were formed are internalized through limited experience and build upon in later years. Once the basic set of beliefs is formed, new information from the environment are selected and produces new beliefs that are generally consistent with the old basic set, be it rational or irrational, since they are seen as the “truth” by the believer.

The believer is then guided by the set of beliefs and performs actions that are in line with them. Whether the results are productive or unproductive (to the individual or his society), it is seen as the correct decision that he has made.

The powerful effects of beliefs can be seen from several real life examples
1.) The Pygmalion effect or otherwise known as the self-fulfilling prophecy. In 1957 Prof Robert Merton of Columbia University (Sociology) conducted an experiment where a teacher was told that she will be teaching a class of gifted students where in fact, the students are tested and found to be of low IQ. The teacher believing in what she is told, did her best and treated them as gifted and taught in all ways possible to get them interested in class. At the end of the test period, the students have improved their academic grades dramatically and on average, gained 25 points on their IQ tests. This experiment results shows that useful beliefs will led to productive actions and hence achieve what one used to think as unachievable.

2.) The placebo effect, a term commonly known among physicians, has been heatedly discussed and studies for past decades. It involves the effect that the mind is actually capable of willing the body well. Although studies are yet conclusive, but there is no doubt that the mind is capable to do so from the fact that we human used less than 3% of the mind’s capacity over our entire life.

3.) People with very strong and firm beliefs are also noted for their undying will and determination, for example
Mr Lee Kwan Yew – had he not changed his belief that it is possible for Singapore, an island without much natural resources, to survive without Malaysia, he would have given up all hopes and Singapore would have long been erased from history books instead of being an advanced and modern city nation that we knew of today.
Sylvester Stallone, who acted in “Rocky”, suffered from paralyzed facial nerve since young, yet, he had a great dream of becoming an inspiring actor. After rejections for acting roles again and again, he final got a chance and went on to become one of Hollywood greatest stars ever.

4.) Another interesting example of the power of belief is the running of sub four minute mile accomplished by Sir Roger Bannister. Before he achieved the feat of breaking the records, no one is able to do it, yet within a year after he did it, 37 other runners also did it and in the following year, another 300 did the same. This proved that once the limiting belief was destroyed, things became possible.

From the above examples, we can see how strong the power of beliefs is. Towards the opposite end, there are also many examples of how beliefs can stop us from achieving our goals or worse, hurt our body and even others during the process – these are especially evident in mental patients suffering from depression, obsessive compulsive disorder or terrorists who held beliefs that killing or hurting people are the only way to reach their goals. Even normal people like you and me also have some limiting beliefs that stop us from achieving our full potential, typical examples of these are “I’m poor in this subject” or “I’m a poor leader” or “I’ll never be slim”. These limiting beliefs stop us from making an effort to change and suffer from the consequences of them.

Knowing that beliefs are so powerful a tool, we should decide what we should believe in rather than letting others deciding what we should be believing in. Author Robertson Davies described this situation very aptly in his book 'The Deptford Trilogy ' (p477), saying:
"Be sure to choose what you believe and know why you believe it, because if you don't choose your beliefs, you may be certain that some belief, and probably not a very creditable one, will choose you."

In order to eliminate existing limiting beliefs, one method that we can use is the “A to F model” Basically, the six steps involved looking for a particular event that triggers a limiting belief and disputing it to establish new beliefs and emotional response.
(A)ctivity
Self-limiting (B)eliefs
(C)onsequences
(D)isputing beliefs
(E)ffecting new beliefs
Evoking new (F)eelings

After unreasonable beliefs are broke down, we can then apply the method of monitoring self-talk to prevent unreasonable beliefs to form roots in our mind. Since we talk to ourselves most of the day (at least I do), we actually have the most influence on what we are thinking or saying to ourselves. By monitoring our self-thoughts, we are able to stop negative thoughts. We can also affirming our strengths in our self-talk and implant new reasonable and more useful beliefs that enable us to perform more productive actions.

Through the effective understanding of how our beliefs works, monitoring the way we are talking to ourselves and the methods that we could use to evoke new change of behavior, we will be one step closer to be the person that we want to be.


Sources:
http://www.vision.net.au/%7Eapaterson/esoteric/belief_systems.htm
http://www.csicop.org/si/9505/belief.html
GP13 Readings
Brammer L.M. (1991) : How to cope with life transitions
Adam Khoo / Stuart Tan (2004) : Mastering your mind, designing your destiny