Stagnant? Try disobeying your beliefs I spent a lot of time this week working with a friend of mine who is a corporate leader. My assignment was to take this leader through a mental reconfiguration so as to align the person’s thinking with purpose. What I thought would be a simple and interesting exercise has turned out to be one of my most difficult assignments yet. I have reached unprecedented heights of frustration and I have been tempted give up the task. The irony is that I have a very willing student, who is excited about changing and experiencing this mental reconfiguration. The student is also very attentive and quite brilliant, and has a track record of being a very quick learner. What then is the problem? Well, I have experienced first-hand what has been in the good book for thousands of years, that we should take heed how we hear. How we hear gives meaning to what we hear. There are many people like my student who can sit attentively and hear the right thing, but what will determine what they get out of it is how they hear it. The difference arises from the fact that often, we hear through the prism of our belief systems. Some people hear what they already believe in, while others believe in what they hear. In essence, some people only hear the things that are consistent with their established belief system and nothing new. As such, no matter how attentive they are, no matter how intelligent they are, and no matter how willing they are to change, they find it difficult to do so. They hear only the things that reinforce their established positions on issues. This is what is responsible for the containment of many people in their present form. They desire a new level for themselves. They know that they can be more than what they are. They spend thousands in training and development programmes, but they never see the changes they want. The problem is in how they are hearing. We are products of our thoughts. We cannot get to the next level of our lives with the thinking that got us to the present level of our lives. We cannot change our thinking if we approach every knowledge through our belief systems. This requires a total shift of attitude, and that entails allowing for a margin of error concerning our belief systems. We must be ready to let go of some of the things that we once held strongly. Some of our belief systems came from teachers, parents, religious teachings and environments that we hold as infallible. Our perceived infallibility of the source of our belief systems is what determines how strongly we hold on to their views. I write a lot about my mother because she was a very strong influence in my life growing up. However, as I grew older and wiser, I had to come to terms with the difficult reality that my mother was not always right. She taught me things like, slow and steady wins the race. But as I grew up being slow and steady, I was not winning. I discovered for myself that fast, focused and consistent won me more races. As difficult as it was to let go of what I considered an infallible source, I realised that I had a destiny to fulfil. I am so sure that my mother will be smiling down at me from heaven today, grateful that I had the courage to rebel against some elements of my very conservative upbringing. Every person has a choice to shape history or to be shaped by history. We shape history by bold actions in the present. We are shaped by history by justifying our inaction in the present, based on our belief systems.
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:44:58 +0000
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