When I found the belief that had been running my relationship with money discussed in the previous article, I wasn’t in the “having enough” club.
Finding it was a relief rather than a blow. But finding it isn’t what changed anything. What changed things came a few days later, and it was a decision about what I believed. I decided I could be a member of the club.
To be honest, I did not feel particularly convincing. I didn’t wake up brimming with self-worth. I looked at the belief, recognised it as a conclusion drawn by a frightened child in a house where money was a worry, and decided I was no longer going to run my life on it.
The spreadsheet was an ordinary response, and exactly the right one. The old belief had kept me from looking at bills or balances because, underneath it all, I assumed knowing that information would make no difference and it just increased my anxiety. The new choice made looking possible.
What surprised me was how easy it was. I had tried to get on top of my money before and never lasted more than a fortnight. This time I didn’t have to make myself do it, because I was no longer doing it against a belief that said it wouldn’t make any difference.
That was my first real lesson in how change actually works.
Why Fake It till You Make It Only Sometimes Works
Most of us try it the other way round. We change the behaviour and leave the belief exactly where it is. Sometimes that’s enough. If the belief is a mild one, or you already half doubt it, then doing the thing supplies evidence and the belief quietly updates to fit. That is what fake it till you make it is really describing, and it works more often than the cynics allow.
It stops working when the belief is old, deep and unexamined. Then you are asking yourself to keep doing something that part of you still believes isn’t meant for you, and that can turn out self-defeating. The belief doesn’t argue with you. It just waits. And the first time you’re tired or disappointed, or things get hard, it collects. I know this because I did it that way once, at considerable cost.
Understanding What You Want
When I set up my own business, I thought I was stepping into a new version of myself. In reality, I was still operating from the old belief that I had something to prove. I wanted to prove to myself that I was the kind of person who could build and run a business, because that fitted the person I thought I ought to become.
What I had not stopped to ask was whether I actually wanted the life that came with it.
When the business later began to struggle, I did not fight for it in the way I expected myself to. For a while, I thought that meant I had failed or lacked resilience. Looking back, I can see something different. Once the need to prove myself began to fall away, the business itself simply did not matter enough to me. It was never really the life I wanted. It had been evidence I was trying to produce about who I was.
That is why changing behaviour on its own is not always enough. We can make a completely different choice and still be driven by the same old belief underneath it. Sustainable change comes when the behaviour and the belief begin to change together. Otherwise, we can end up building a new life around an old story.
Awareness Is Not Enough
Becoming aware of a belief is an important step, but it does not necessarily mean we will stop living by it.
I know this from experience. I have understood some of my beliefs for years and still found myself reacting in the same old ways. I could explain where they came from and recognise when they were operating, but that did not always stop me from following them.
Understanding a belief and choosing to live differently are two separate things. Awareness gives us the opportunity to make that choice, but we still have to make it. The old belief may have been operating for decades. It has become familiar, and we can continue to respond from it without even realising we are doing so. That is why we need to do more than recognise it. We need to begin considering what we would rather believe and how we want to act.
Is This Belief Really True?
Once we have recognised a belief, we can begin to question it. The purpose is not to find fault with ourselves or decide that everything we have believed was wrong. It is simply to ask whether the belief is still true, and whether it is helping us live the way we want to live.
Take a belief and write it down in your own words. Then ask yourself: Is this actually true? Sometimes the answer may be that it was understandable to believe it when you were younger. Perhaps your circumstances gave you every reason to reach that conclusion. But that does not mean it has to remain true for the rest of your life.
For example, I grew up believing that certain opportunities were not for people like me. That made sense to me at the time, given the world I knew. But as an adult, I could begin to question whether those limitations still applied.
We do not need to replace an old belief with something we cannot genuinely believe. If you are struggling financially, telling yourself you are wealthy is unlikely to help. You know your circumstances, and pretending otherwise can create more conflict. Instead, look for something you can believe. It might be, Other people from backgrounds like mine have learned to manage money and build financial security. Perhaps I can learn to do that too. That is a much more useful place to begin.
Choosing Is Smaller Than It Sounds
Choosing a different belief does not mean we have to transform our lives overnight. It means beginning to make choices that are consistent with what we now want to believe.
Start with something ordinary, rather than the most difficult belief you have ever held. Choose one that comes up regularly so you have opportunities to practise. For example, if you believe you must always keep other people happy, you might begin by saying no to something you genuinely do not want to do. If you believe you are not capable enough, you might apply for an opportunity you would normally dismiss. If you believe your needs do not matter, you might express a preference instead of automatically going along with someone else.
You do not have to get it right every time. The important thing is to begin noticing when the old belief is making the decision and allow yourself to choose differently. Each time you do that, you gain a little more experience of living from the new belief. Over time, that experience can help the new way of thinking feel more natural.
Why It Takes Practice
We touched on neuroplasticity earlier in the series. Our brains become more familiar with thoughts and behaviours we repeat, while patterns we use less often can become less automatic. The practical point is that we may have spent thirty or forty years responding in a particular way. We cannot necessarily expect a different response to feel natural after trying it a few times.
At first, acting differently may feel uncomfortable or even unlike us. We might know that we want to set a boundary, for example, but still feel guilty when we do. That does not mean the boundary is wrong. It may simply mean we are doing something unfamiliar. The more often we practise responding from a different belief, the more familiar that response can become. This is not about forcing ourselves to think positively. It is about giving ourselves repeated opportunities to experience a different way of living.
When The Old Belief Returns
We should also expect old beliefs to return from time to time. I still notice this in myself, particularly when I am tired, under pressure or dealing with something that touches an old insecurity. I can understand a belief perfectly well and still find myself reacting to it before I have had time to think. The difference now is that I am more likely to recognise what is happening.
At first, we may only notice afterwards. We might spend days worrying about something before realising that an old belief has been influencing us. With practice, we may begin to recognise it sooner, sometimes while the reaction is happening. That is progress. It does not mean we will never experience the old thought or feeling again. It means we are becoming less likely to accept it automatically as the truth. And when we do fall back into an old pattern, we can simply recognise it and choose again. There is no need to turn it into another reason to criticise ourselves.
We Don’t Need Fixing
This is an important distinction. We are not trying to repair something defective about ourselves. We are learning to understand how our beliefs developed and deciding whether we still want to live by them. Many of the conclusions we reached earlier in life were understandable. They may have helped us cope with the circumstances we were in. Some of them also gave us qualities we value and want to keep.
But we are no longer limited to the understanding we had when those beliefs first developed. We can recognise what we learned, appreciate what helped us and begin to choose differently where it no longer serves us. That is what makes change possible. We do not have to reject who we have been. We can simply become more conscious of who we want to be now.
The important thing is to begin noticing when the old belief is making the decision and allow yourself to choose differently
Try This: One Belief, One Step
Choose one belief you have begun to recognise in yourself. It does not need to be a major one. Something that comes up in ordinary life is a good place to start.
Write the belief down in the words you would naturally use.
Ask yourself whether it is true now, or whether it is something you learned from earlier experiences.
Think of a different belief that feels both helpful and believable to you.
Ask yourself what one small thing you might do differently this week if you were living from that new belief.
Then, when the opportunity arises, try doing that one thing.
You do not have to change everything at once. The purpose is to begin experiencing what it is like to choose from a different understanding of yourself.
Knowing your own mind is one thing. What changes next is how you see everybody else, and that is where we turn to Unity Consciousness.
Articles in Self-Awareness