Behaviour displays belief

n all the things I’ve read and studied as part of learning the life coaching skill set, I have been most fascinated by discovering the science of how beliefs work.

Life is not shaped by the things that happen to us, but by the meaning we place on those experiences. Once we choose a meaning for these events and conversations, we scan and re-evaluate past evidence we’ve gathered to see if our choice was the right one.

This in turn leads to feelings of certainty which means we are emotionally invested in the meaning we have chosen. Moving through these steps gives birth to a new belief.

Beliefs act like filters which process the two million bits if information available to us every second of the day. We find evidence for what we believe is true and important and everything else is filtered out. Our belief system tells our brain to delete, distort and generalise all other information.

For example if you went and bought a new red Mazda 3, driving home you would notice how many other red Mazda 3’s there are on the road. They were all there yesterday, but it wasn’t important to you then, so that information was simply deleted.

Now, out of our beliefs flow every other aspect of our life. Our behaviour, emotions and thought life all comes directly from what we believe is true.

Here is where I want us to focus today.
People think they believe certain things about life, God, people and themselves yet find themselves acting, thinking or feeling in ways that are quite different from what they say they believe. The truth is – our behaviour displays what we really believe more clearly than any other thing. For example, if you say you believe that God is good and you can trust Him with everything, yet always find yourself feeling anxious and afraid, clearly your believe something different about God.

We can clearly discover exactly what we really believe by evaluating our behaviour, thoughts or emotions. Ask yourself, “What must I believe in order to act this way?”

Once you become aware of your beliefs, then you have the chance to begin changing them. Ask ask yourself, “What would I need to believe in order to get the results I’m looking for?”

I’ve developed a new tool for evaluating your current behaviour, emotions and thinking to see what you really believe. If you’re interested, you can access it for free by signing up at www.thediscipleshipcoach.com.au