The Key to Personal Development. Belief
Learning April 20th, 2009A couple weeks ago I read an interesting article by Tim at A Daring Adventure about what the key to self development is and I felt a longer response was needed to explain my perspective here.
Kindness and Self Confidence
Tim wrote that he believes the key is being kind to yourself. He mentioned how a number of actions you could do or learn or improve are then destroyed if you don’t be kind to yourself to prevent those. Well I see the advantages when you are kind to yourself and there are certainly some truths in that but I’ve experienced the key to personal development is belief.
The Key is Belief
Belief feeds change and it even feeds your self confidence and so therefore, belief also feeds how you treat yourself, or your kindness to yourself so kindness cannot possible be the key to personal development. I think it is belief. I’ve experienced it personally and seen many others advance in personal development because of belief. It has nothing to do with actions until there are actions to put in place.
Belief Is the Power to Change
Not only does belief change your thinking and attitude towards things with personal development, it directly impacts your ability to accept change, including building self confidence and being kind to yourself. Personal development is changing and improving oneself and that starts at a different point, unique to every individual depending on where they are at in their lives. This could be at a point in their life where change is desirable and being sought after like I suspect anyone working with a life coach would already be doing, yet it might also be starting with a person who is at a point with no desire, no self love and certainly not showing kindness to themselves. That kindness won’t appear on its own and that kind of person requires a significant change in beliefs to step up and even hope for some kind of personal improvement. The other thing I have seen is that a person can easily improve themselves without being kind in the process. Some people can make drastic changes by hating the things they do and capturing pain to motivate themselves. This clearly is not driven by kindness, it is driven by what they believe will change or what pleasures and pains impact their future. So, this is all based on belief.
Belief Builds on Itself
As well, the more small improvements and accomplishments that a person experiences in developing themselves, the more and more they will believe future change is possible. This allows beliefs to develop further and be strengthened for even more personal improvements. Beliefs really have a simple, yet strong foundation that is based on expected pain and pleasure. That impression and belief guides our decisions for action which includes any personal development actions.
Your Own Personal Development
All of this may be something you believe or not but I absolutely think it is worthwhile exploring and considering for your own improvements. What beliefs do you have or lack to motivate you enough for the changes you want? What are the pains and pleasures you associate with the things you’ve considered changing. What people, experiences and influences are impacting and changing your beliefs? Perhaps it’s those beliefs you need to analyze and change in order to progress with your own areas of personal development. If you are interesting in exploring your pains, pleasures and beliefs further, please have a look at my Goal Setting Step – Setting and Identifying .
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April 20th, 2009 at 6:01 AM
Pains and pleasures are key to the key of belief ;).
Agreed.
I followed the link to “Goal Setting: Setting and Identifying”. I like it how you have broken it in prescriptive steps that are easy to follow.
April 20th, 2009 at 7:41 AM
I never thought about belief as a key to personal development, but, after reading this post, I totally agree. Great post — thanks for this.
http://positivelypresent.typepad.com
April 20th, 2009 at 10:12 AM
Hi Mike,
This a very inspiring article.I think people need to realize we change everyday.We learn more,experience more, etc.
This is why restructuring your habits and life style is important.Once people get use to the idea of changing things around,we change our ways of which we place value on other things.Usually appreciating more and strengthening the feelings of what we already have.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:22 AM
One of my favorite subjects Mike!
Beliefs can be empowering or limiting. They can give us the confidence to face huge challenges or leave us feeling emotionally paralyzed and helpless. Your life experience is viewed through the filters of your beliefs. And the great part is, we can choose and change our entire belief system. So we always have a choice.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:55 PM
It’s great to hear all of your support for this idea and love how personal experiences and thoughts from an article can stir up new ideas, and reinforced ideas for others. I appreciate all your comments and support for this, beliefs is one of my favorite topics as well!
April 21st, 2009 at 8:48 AM
This is so tough to explain that I’m not even sure I can.
I agree and I disagree.
2 or 3 years ago I would have agreed 100% but the more I work with clients the more I understand it’s possible to work with a lack of belief and change those beliefs with intervention work.
The key to that sentence though is the ‘changing’ part because that has to happen at some stage for forward progress to be made. It’s a chicken and egg situation really.
A client won’t call me if they aren’t committed to change and don’t think they are worth changing (being kind to themselves). Otoh I guess there has to be a modicum of belief that it is possible otherwise unless they were instructed to hire a coach why would they bother.
Hope I haven’t muddied the waters 😉
April 21st, 2009 at 4:13 PM
Thanks Tim for adding these thoughts. I knew I was actually muddying the waters a bit with my own response so I expected one from you. I see what you are getting at and totally understand the point that there is a need to trigger that change before the belief really happens. I see it the way you mentioned there must be a modicum of belief that it can change in the first place in order to enable that.
As always, there are going to being perspectives and we’ll have to agree that we each deserve our own and can see it from a slightly different (however related) perspective. Either way, both perspectives are valuable in influencing change and quickly likely, work well together from a coaching perspective as well as for personal development. I’ll keep both in mind for influence in the future.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:32 AM
Beliefs are everything, what you believe determines your actions and your actions determine your results, change your beliefs and you change you results.
April 24th, 2009 at 9:24 PM
Beliefs is an instrument of life.I like this wisdom.It creats what we wants
April 25th, 2009 at 8:00 AM
Dominant thoughts –> Beliefs –> Feelings –> Actions. Beliefs are a critical foundation. They come from your thoughts. You can control your thoughts and thus your beliefs.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:05 PM
I would say that belief is a unit that is required. There is a quote from a song that says “A man without a hope, his life could drive him insane.” Most seem to believe in a certain cause or interest, but some have their interest squashed by others who are more in tune with their beliefs. Some people let you know very quickly, through their actions, that they don’t really believe in what they are currently doing. Taking the time to write a paragraph about the hope you have for your own success makes it that much more believable, or pursuit-worthy.
April 25th, 2009 at 6:40 PM
‘Agree on all points. I needed this advice. Will be a reader of your blog. ‘Will also refer to your posts in the future in my own blog. THANK YOU.
April 26th, 2009 at 6:42 AM
Belief is the major component in life. It’s interesting how the mind works. It’s almost as if it’s magical. Whatever you think of will eventually manifest. Toxic thoughts must be disregarded and replaced with positive thoughts and beliefs.
April 26th, 2009 at 6:58 AM
@ Omar – “Whatever you think of will eventually manifest”
Really? How do you explain my mom spending all her life worrying about bankruptcy only for her to die independently wealthy? Or all those American Idol contestants that genuinely think they’ll win with zero talent? Or what about the millions of people that constantly think about winning the lottery?
Positive thinking is very cool and worthwhile, but that argument has such a big hole in it I could drive a cruise ship through it and still be leaning out of the window waving to people without risking banging my head on the side.
April 26th, 2009 at 3:44 PM
Cody and Stephen – I think you are getting at the same idea that you obviously set your beliefs by your thinking. So true, as that is where it starts. However, that is just a start, it isn’t enough on its own even though it can guide a lot more after wards.
@Dicki, thanks and I’m glad to see you here consistently, its much appreciated!
@Armen – Excellent point, Hope is a big factor that highly relates to beliefs and they definitely fit together when it comes to desired change and future thoughts and plans. Thanks for your thoughts on that.
@Mr. Chow – I’m glad you’ve found LearnThis and know you’ll enjoy more articles on these subjects if you’ve like this one. Thanks for the comment!
@Omar – I certainly don’t regard thinking to be THAT powerful as it’s unrealistic, coincidental and actually quite limiting if you think everything you think will be manifested. There are larger forces at work (it’s God’s Universe) so one mind is not enough to manifest anything. The beliefs behind this however, are very powerful to lead a person in a direction that enables then to change their life and make the things they desire come true. That is the difference I see, that it guides you to then DO something to MAKE it come true.
@Tim – these are certainly good examples that counter the whole thinking is manifesting theory and I do agree with you on the positive aspect and hope my points above to Omar are a little more discussion based, rather than this single sided response. Beliefs won’t change without understanding after all.
April 28th, 2009 at 7:28 AM
I used to have a strong belief in a certain health product that even if it is hard to find in the stores, I still find ways to look for it. Belief is similar to faith and hope and is needed for people to go on with life…
April 29th, 2009 at 4:59 PM
@Start Blogging. Very true, they are related. I’ve been thinking of writing some articles that branch into those topics as well as I feel they are as you put it, needed in life.
April 30th, 2009 at 2:21 AM
Hi Mike, faith is our main asset to do something. If we are faithful, no matter how many barriers we are facing, we will succeed.
Nice topic Mike, thanks for sharing.
April 30th, 2009 at 3:56 PM
Hi Mike,
Great topic and great discussions!
We absolutely agree that Belief is the key to personal development. The “growing” doesn’t begin and can’t begin unless we believe in ourselves and the changes we want to make. Being kind to oneself is very important in the growing process. But, one has to believe they are deserving of positive change before it can happen.
Truly enjoyed this post and everyone’s feedback! 🙂
Many Blessings….
Roxanne and Hugo ~ Believe Achieve
May 1st, 2009 at 1:18 AM
yes, i agree with you. belief is the key to personal development and confidence. belief can play a huge role in changing one’s behavior and shape one’s personality.
peace
May 5th, 2009 at 10:20 PM
I like the way people discuss the problem here.Absolutely all the aspects of it are touched upon .
May 6th, 2009 at 8:15 PM
Thanks Dicki, I could agree more! The fact that so many people add to articles and comment with their own thoughts is exactly what makes blogger cool and especially the community of folks here! I appreciate you all being engaged in these discussions and you Dicki, for noticing and pointing that out! Kudos!
May 17th, 2009 at 9:19 PM
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October 4th, 2011 at 11:47 PM
There’s always going to be critics and haters for everything and everyone. I mean, look at how many “God bashers” there are. You can even find people saying water is a bad thing, go figure.