INSIDE-OUT                                    

Beliefs are your internally accepted values and principles which manifest in everything you do. Your Belief is the difference between where you are and where you ought to be. Your Belief has the capacity to CONFINE, DEFINE or REFINE YOU; it depends on how principle-based they are. What do you believe about yourself? How has it affected the way you see life?  The possibility of realizing your Goals and fulfilling your Dreams is limited to your Belief system. WHAT you are now is what you believed YESTERDAY, and what you’ll become tomorrow is what you believe TODAY. The question is: Are you happy with what you are TODAY? If yes, congratulations! But you can be better.  If no, the answer is very simple, change your belief system.

Change is the catalyst for growth, but I’m yet to meet people who naturally enjoy the process of Change. The Truth is we endure the process but enjoy the Outcome. The paradox here, however,  is that the majority of people stumble on the need to change almost regularly, but dust it off and just walk away as If they are oblivious of it. That is an example of people who have a believe system that maintain the status-quo. Every learning person who observes Trends and believes in Principles knows that beliefs are products of:

CONDITIONING: This is a process that is similar to writing computer programming language. It is an encoding process that takes place either consciously or unconsciously in people at different stages in life. The stages we can easily relate to are.

CHILDHOOD CONDITIONING: The most vulnerable stage of every human being is between ages zero and five. These are the formative years of a child. At this stage some cultures in the world deliberately cultivate and ingrain their norms and principles into their children, so when they are grown they live out the script.

 This process lays the foundation for the future of a child, and ultimately determines their failure or success. I have meet people who find it very difficult changing their belief system, even though it’s causing them so much pain. Personally, my childhood conditioning was very bad and would have destroyed me if I didn’t avail myself for a re-conditioning process, and becoming a realistic thinker instead of remaining the Idealistic and cynical thinker that I was. To be honest with you, even as I write this article, I still struggle with a few challenges that are a product of my childhood conditioning. In my heart, I have conquered them already; I’m just walking the road to perfection.

This goes to parents; a baby might be the most dependent of all creatures, but eventually becomes the most powerful when they are grown. The best Gift you can give a child in my opinion is the principles you ingrain into them in their formative years. Unfortunately, in my part of the world where I grew up, children are usually on their own, as parents are in the RAT RACE. Now, fortunately for this generation, the revolution has started, as young parents are becoming intentionally involved in the growth process of their children. Lucky you! Young chaps.

TEENAGE CONDITIONING: research in the US has shown that 90% of children at the age of five believe they are creative. Between ages five and seven 80% drops, leaving only 10% who still believe they’re creative. By the time they are adults, only 1% believes in their ability to be creative. This statistics shows that people have a tendency to become less creation and productive if they don’t have a concrete foundation, or if they don’t continuously build on the foundation that was laid in their early years.

The teenage years of a person are a very crucial one as they evolve into independence. They tend to take things with levity and at the same time desire autonomy, feeling like the world revolves around them. This is the time they need a lot of checks and balancing.

The strategy that has been proven to work is to give them unconditional love. Create a win-win relationship with them and be very sensitive to their needs, moods and the tendencies they show.

ADULT CONDITIONING: I know this kind of sound wired, but the truth is, conditioning and re-conditioning can happen at any level for good or bad. When a person with good values suddenly changes into something else, his belief system is affected.

A re-conditioning process occurs for adults when a belief system has caused them so much pain and has brought public shame and embarrassment. This process takes many people a life time to adjust, while some find it absolutely impossible to make the adjustment, so they live with it and accept it as who they are, thereby drastically limiting there lives.    

However, one of the greatest opportunities we have to affect other people is the story of how we were able to change our destructive patterns. What most people need to change is simply to know that someone else has done it before.

No other factor has been known to help people change easily like the right information. Once a person admits that something is wrong, and begins the search on how to make the adjustment, he suddenly becomes open to the information necessary for change. In other words, whatever you don’t get access to in life is what you don’t open yourself to. Being positively vulnerable can give a lot of mileage.