WORLD AND SELF VIEW

Your view of the world has been in the making for most of your life, from first consciousness and through your upbringing formed by your parents, schools and peers. Your experiences in life have determined your view of the world. As human beings we have created certain beliefs based on our experiences.

While some of these beliefs are beneficial and have been successful in getting you to where you are, some have actually hindered you. I have helped numerous people overcome negative beliefs that have held them back in their relationships, careers and families. To accelerate our success, it is important to examine our limiting beliefs, or our view of the world, and see if they actually do benefit us.

If you could get all of your beliefs out of your head and onto a piece of paper, you would quickly see which ones are beneficial and which ones are not. You would be able to get rid of the ones that are not. Unfortunately, most of our beliefs are hidden from our view, running in the background, and are often difficult to change even when we are aware of them.

We can change these views by first bringing to awareness then questioning ourselves when these beliefs show up. We also might be able to reveal them by working on our personal development or working with a coach. In fact, in life we are either changing our world view proactively, or it gets changed by our environment or life experiences. For example, if you often end up in bad relationships you might find the view that you can’t really trust others is working to further hinder your ability to build healthy relationships.

The world view is our view of ourselves, other people and the world around us and our place in it.

Here are some common examples of world views or beliefs that people have:

• Life is hard, and we have to struggle to survive.
• You always have to be number one to succeed.
• It’s hard to get a job.
• Only the strong survive.
• It is our responsibility to take care of the planet.
• Everyone can achieve their dreams with enough effort.
• People are fundamentally great.
• People are selfish and self-centred.
• Men are bastards.
• Women can’t be trusted.
• People can’t be trusted.
• I am the sole architect of my success.
• My life is good but limited.

Whenever you come across stressful or challenging situations, by stopping for a minute and examining your world view and your beliefs you can often gain a new perspective on life and find different ways of dealing with the problem. For example, you are struggling at work to get promoted and you can’t seem to convince your bosses and colleagues that you are worthy of a promotion. You realise you have a belief that people can’t be trusted. You’ll see that because of this belief people find it hard to relate to you. You may be a bit cold with them or falsely charming with them but there is always something ‘off’ in your relationships with people. They may like you, but they always feel there is some sort of barrier in the way which affects their confidence in you and their perception of you. They may feel that you can’t be trusted either. Realising that you have this belief and then changing it can change your career chances overnight. So here is a little spot test to catch your default beliefs.