Understanding Negative Beliefs
Date: December 16. 2024
Written by: Michael & Marc
We all grew up on planet Earth, and as we did so, we had all kinds of things happen to us. Hopefully, we had experiences of love and compassion along the way. But in all likelihood, we also had moments where we observed grownups arguing about money or safety or moving or food. We saw friends and bullies at school and felt judged by both groups for a variety of reasons.
When we grow up, take a job, and enter a meeting room, we are thus primed to see things as supports or threats. Depending on our childhood, our formative years, our education, and our experiences with others in our lives, we might for example step into a discussion about budgets within the company as a threat since our parents argued about money all the time. Or, we could hear a discussion about how to assign the next exciting project to someone, and see a colleague as a rival because we used to compete with our brother or sister over who got the "better" chores at home.
Simply put, we step into every situation at work with a background that will give us strong emotional reactions to situations that others in the room don't feel and vice versa. For example, a discussion about a celebration at the office might be embraced by some but angrily opposed by others for any number of reasons likely arising from the environment they grew up in.
Too often, we let these bad experiences control us, and, without realizing it, we start conforming to these limiting beliefs that hold us back unnecessarily and can also contribute to a toxic work environment.
Breaking free from negativity
It all starts with actually recognizing the habits and patterns of your own negative behaviors – We can call this reflexive thinking. Maybe this feels difficult. In that case, you can turn to someone that knows you well and you trust and ask them to provide you with valuable feedback about some of your behaviors.
When you have a list of behaviors, you can then start asking why. Why is it that it’s so hard for you to deal with discussing budgets within the company, and why is it that your budgeting skills are lackluster? You may finally realize that the aforementioned problems with money and subsequent arguments at home when you were a child were a significant contributor. You acquired a belief that people who talk about personal or finance are out to get you. No one ever sat down with you to actually discuss in a civil way how to make a private budget for household expenses and adhere to that budget instead of overspending on groceries or niceties and later having problem paying rent.
After you have found out the what and the why, you can then move on to finding solutions. Maybe you need to find a financial planner to help you manage budgets. Or maybe you have clinical levels of anxiety, so seeking out a mental health professional is the next logical step. That way, you can learn how to feel calm when budgets are being discussed within a company.
By following the steps above, you can learn about your negative behaviors, understand your personal experiences and subsequent beliefs and finally create healthy new habits! You can even harness limiting beliefs to make the upside of each one into a superpower.