What are the origins of our core beliefs ?

As I mentioned in my earlier blog “Core Beliefs” are a person’s central ideas, and assumptions about themselves, others, and the world. Core beliefs are filters through which every situation and life experience is seen. We internalize a lot from our immediate environment daily. Limiting beliefs however put boundaries and limitations on us and our growth.

A few examples of core beliefs are –

• I am not good enough
• There is something wrong with me
• I cannot do it right
• People are selfish
• Life is not fair
• People are not trustworthy

Where do these beliefs originate from? Our parents and family members taught us a set of beliefs and values and we start developing our core beliefs based on what we learn from our caregivers – whether they transmit these beliefs knowingly or unknowingly for e.g., a father might emphasize Godliness and responsibility in a way that – childhood mistakes are made to look huge; a mother might push her children to work hard to succeed in a white collar job as a key to a better life. More times than not these beliefs were their own that they passed on to you. The kind of beliefs our parents instill in us would also reflect different parenting styles and the culture that parents come from.

The next source would be teachers’, classmates, and friends. If the person teaching in, your school was someone you admired and had a lot of respect for – you are more inclined to believe everything they say. Early childhood experiences, cultural origins, and your innate temperament (as a child) all influenced the development of your core beliefs. Life experiences especially those that ended negatively would cause you to draw conclusions that lead to limiting beliefs. Becoming clear on the original source of your existing beliefs and how they direct your life is critical before you can unpack your existing limiting beliefs or create new empowering beliefs.

Limiting beliefs are founded on the premise of scarcity and unworthiness. Although you may have many positive beliefs about yourself, limiting beliefs tend to be more dominating. When you take the time to do an honest review of your beliefs, it is quite common to recognize that for most of your life – the beliefs you had about yourself can be traced back to what your parents, teachers and authority figures expected of you. We need to transition out of any limiting beliefs that says life happens to you and instead, understand that life happens for you. This transition is necessary because you are in control of what new empowering beliefs you adopt and which limiting beliefs you let go. Deep down we know we are here to make it big and shine but the stories we tell ourselves using limiting beliefs means we hold back; we play it safe. This is where inner conflicts come in, we blame external events and other people when our limiting beliefs are the cause. Remember we make our beliefs, and our beliefs make us, and this is a endless cycle.

The nature of children also plays a role in how each one of us developed our core beliefs. Understanding the different aspects of being a child and examining our own temperaments and personality styles will give us clues on how and why we developed the limiting beliefs that we live by today. The good news is we can transition out of limiting beliefs more on that in my next blog.