Beliefs, Attitudes and Behaviours
I am frequently asked by people why their life is so tough, why they don't have enough money and why do things never seem to get any better for them. The piece below may shed some light on that.
If you look at what is showing up in your life and you are not altogether happy with it, it may be worth doing some reverse engineering to find out where it came from in the first place. If you are behaving in a self destructive way (in terms of your health, money, relationships or work) or you are finding yourself in negative situations, then you are looking at the results of a chain of activity that essentially composes of 3 links.
The first link in the chain is what is happening at the level of your beliefs. I have written about beliefs before and how powerful they are in terms of determining your reality. We all operate with beliefs about ourselves, our world and how we relate to that world. Do I believe that I am winner in the world or am I always hard done by? Do I believe that the world is a tough place or a fertile learning ground? Do I believe that I have to work my butt off to make a modest living or do wealth making opportunities present themselves to me easily? When we stack up our core beliefs we arrive at the next link in the chain, our attitude.
We may possess empowering beliefs about certain things and limiting beliefs about others. It is the averaging-out of these beliefs or the composite reflection of our beliefs that gives us our attitudes. Some people always seem to be happy. They will greet you with a smile and a joke and are fond of laughing. Their positive attitude allows them to move through the difficulties that come their way. Behind this attitude you can bet that there are lots of reinforcing empowering beliefs. For others, their prevailing attitude is negative and cynical and most of what comes their way will be viewed negatively or cynically. Such people often miss out on great opportunities for they will think that they are too good to be true.
The final link in the chain is our behaviour. By now you will have guessed that those people with a positive attitude will act in positive ways for themselves and those around them. They will take on new challenges and will not be deterred by their 'mistakes' - these people study mistakes for learnings and step up to try again. They attract situations that reinforce their empowering beliefs for this is what makes most sense in their version of the world. Conversely negative attitudes will attract negative situations because that is what makes most sense to the negative person. They will make poor choices in their lives and then they will say - 'You see, I told you this job wouldn't last long' or 'I knew it wouldn't be long before I'd be broke again'. So if you don't like what is showing up for you in your life, do some back tracking on your attitude and your beliefs and you will start to see why. Change your beliefs and you change your attitude. Change your attitude and you change your behaviours. Change your behaviours and you change your life.
This article was written by Noel Clerkin, a Life and Executive Coach.
