I’m gonna start by saying that I know a lot of the stuff I write about is kind of cliche. But you know what, it works (or at least it has for me). There is a reason that you constantly hear that things like exercising or eating well are good for you–because they are!
But I know what it feels like to be resistant to things that everyone tells you you should do. One thing I failed to mention in my post “Move your body” is that Steve actually joined the gym before I did, and had been telling me for months that I should join too. And even though I knew it would help with my mental health, I kept making up excuses (it’s too expensive, I won’t stick with it) or just avoiding it.
Our minds are funny. As anyone who’s ever engaged in an online debate (which, let’s be honest, is probably like 95% of us in the past couple years) can tell you, it’s pretty much impossible to change people’s minds with facts alone. The short explanation for this is because our beliefs and our opinions are part of our identity. While our identity definitely can shift over time, it doesn’t take kindly to some outside person telling it it’s wrong, and as a result generally digs it’s heels in and insists that, oh, say, the world is flat or that climate change isn’t real.
At the same time, our identity is a result of our social groups. We are both influenced by those that surround us and seek out like-minded people to surround ourselves with. The result being that our social groups, either literally or figuratively, act as hype men to support our beliefs and make them even harder to change (one reason why I recommend having several social groups in this post).
So, if you identify as someone who doesn’t stick to new things, or as an independent person who is above what “sheeple” like, or, let’s get real, someone not worthy of being healthy, then you’re probably going to be resistant to positive changes even–especially, in some cases–if everyone tells you to do them. The same is true for your impact on the greater world. If you tell yourself that things are always going to be terrible in the world and there’s nothing you can do about it, then you’re going to be resistant to making the very changes that would make the world better.
But, there’s good news! When it comes to shifting your beliefs, you’re (mostly) in control. I say mostly because I don’t think we’re ever totally in control of anything, but as far as shifting your beliefs, it’s pretty much all on you. You have to convince yourself to change your mind. Others can help by pushing you to examine your beliefs and question why you believe certain things, or expanding your worldview by sharing their experiences. But you have to be open to that, and you have to do the examination and questioning necessary to make the shift.
I’m not going to tell you what to believe, but I will say that if you’re generally unhappy with your life or the world and feel completely powerless to do anything about it, then you probably have some beliefs that need to be examined. That’s not to say that you have to be happy 100% of the time or ignore terrible things in the world, but rather that you’ll have a better life if you can acknowledge the bad while still acknowledging and working toward the good.
But, like all change, changing beliefs is hard. Here are a few things that can help:
- Meditation. I’ll talk more about meditation in another post because it has a bunch of benefits. In terms of changing your beliefs though, mindfulness meditation is useful for helping you recognize your thought patterns so you can figure out if they’re really in line with the life you want to live or what you want to see in the world.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. The ideas and mechanisms behind cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) are actually pretty similar to the ones behind mindfulness meditation. However, it can be really useful to have an outside perspective to push you to question things, and cognitive behavioral therapists are trained to notice detrimental thought patterns. Just like a personal trainer or coach can greatly improve your exercise routine and help you reach your goals faster, having a therapist can greatly improve your efforts to shift to more beneficial beliefs.
- Try new things, meet new people. Yeah, it can be scary or uncomfortable. But our experiences and relationships are how we develop opinions about life and the world, and having a broad set of experiences and relationships to draw from can both expand our worldview and help us challenge our beliefs and clarify what we actually believe.
- Be open. It’s not enough to just try new things or meet new people. You can tell yourself you’re going to hate something new and then refuse to admit that you enjoyed it just to prove yourself right. You have to be open: to the idea of proving yourself wrong, to getting along with people you never thought you had anything in common with, to changing your mind. Getting back to the link between belief and identity, changing your mind about something changes who you are, and that can be scary. It can seem like losing a part of yourself, and even if it’s a part of yourself you don’t really like, it’s still you, and we’re wired to protect ourselves. You have to be willing to lose parts of yourself in order to replace them with better parts and create a better self (I didn’t expect this to get so deep, but here we are).
And, yes, even these tips are cliche. But if you’re resistant to cliches, ask yourself why.
Flourishing 