02.06.07
Belief
Slow Leadership has a great post that looks at what I was getting at when I talked about reinventing what you can do from a different angle. The post talks about how our beliefs and perception can either help us or hurt us and discusses the importance of re-evaluating what we believe on a regular basis.
Useful beliefs lead to positive actions, successful outcomes and an increase in the happiness and well-being of the people involved. Poor beliefs do the opposite. For example, if you believe that most people in an organization are well-intentioned; that they do the best they can and try to help each other; and that they have the good of the business at heart, it will likely cause you to behave in positive ways. Suppose you believe all bosses, by definition, are greedy, self-centered, egotistical and corrupt; everyone is seeking to rob you of what’s due to your efforts; your colleagues are idle, dishonest and whispering about you behind your back; and the business is screwing its customers and the products are badly produced and overpriced. If you believe most of that, your life at work is going to be frustrating, miserable, stressful, and probably unsuccessful as well.
…[It’s] worth taking a look at all your beliefs and asking yourself if they’re still useful to you. Facts are facts, you should not need to argue with them. But beliefs are just opinions and should be argued about constantly. After all, if they aren’t helping you, all you need do is drop them and choose some others…
Alexander at Chief Happiness Officer expands on the idea in the context of getting abundance to work for you by monitoring your outlook:
So which is it? Is the world a nice, soft, inviting, cuddly place, ready to boost you to success in whatever venture you choose? Or is it a cold, hard, dog-eat-dog competitive place, in which only the strongest and the toughest survive?
Here’s the truth: It is whatever you think it is. Your approach determines the truth.
There’s a lot more good stuff in his post, I recommend going over there to read the whole thing.
