Beliefs As Self-fulfilling Prophecies: Warrior Mind Podcast #479

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In this episode of the Warrior Mind Podcast I’m going to be talking about how our beliefs can affect our actions and create self-fulfilling prophecies.

Beliefs, Performance and Self-fulfilling Prophecies

A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that causes itself to be true due to the behavior (including the act of predicting it) of the believer. Self-fulling, here, means “brought about as a result of being foretold or talked about,” while prophecy refers to the prediction.

There is a direct correlation between human behavior and the beliefs held by individuals such that human experiences confirm our suspicions about them. These are self-fulfilling prophecies that have considerable influence on social capability. They make individuals believe what they see and their perception and interpretation as valid. Based on what you believe, there can either be positive growth or depreciation of your performance capacity. Individuals holding retrogressive beliefs fail to do their best as they are not usually well informed. Some of the worst assumptions that harm individual performance as well as hint on how to work your way out of the maze follow in the succeeding paragraphs.

1. What are your perceptions of good and evil in people, events, and days?

Getting messy with your wife as you get ready for work could make you believe that the day may not augur well for you. What if, for so long, someone embodied your role model and then at some point you realize you can no longer believe anything about them? How do you take your everyday little failures? Do you give up and think you can never be better just because you did not seem to perform better on a particular day? Unfortunately, these beliefs turn into self-fulfilling prophecies in the long run. Generally, there is so much evidence out there that gives credence to what we believe about other people and life circumstances every day.

If you are experiencing bad times and nothing seems to work out for you, then it may be tough for you to get through the day. Your lousy perception of the role model you no longer trust may hinder you from learning something valuable from them. Human capability is related to beliefs we hold about the performance of particular tasks. After all, we tend to think that it’s not very worthy of losing time trying. However, the detrimental effects beliefs have on your performance are not inherent and could be altered. Identifying and combating them helps in managing your performance in a positive sense. Prove your beliefs wrong by fighting them head-on.

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2. How do you perceive what you have and what you don’t have?

Human perception of what they are capable of and what they are not capable of as a product of their genome deters the prospects of mastering and improving their performance. People always tend to think that some people are naturally born with particular talents that enable them to perform excellently. On the contrary, it could be true that you are not born with the ability, but with hard work and determination, the best performance is also achievable. The bad thing is that not unless you start believing that it’s possible, born with or without the talent, you become discouraged from all efforts of making things better. So you think you would rather not lose the time, and the self-fulfilling prophecy becomes true. Countering the negative aspect of this belief involves gaining more focus on working hard as well as checking on specific behaviors. Small achievable goals are essential to monitoring the growth you wish to realize.

3. Allow fate to take control of your destiny

Letting fate judge the outcome of your life events and circumstances is a strategy most people choose over trying to make things happen. The lack of control could be devastating due to the inability to alter performance and make a change. Beliefs not subjected to reason such as believing in fate deters one from gaining full control over what happens in one’s life, making them think there is not much they can do to change the situation. This could prevent you from unleashing your full potential. It is important to note that how well you display your abilities can influence whether you succeed or not.

Bottom line

Developing a particular belief about other people, events, and the days of your life usually takes a long time. Over the years, what is seen, and the outcomes of particular activities engrave a specific belief in the human mind. They become like conditioned reflexes upon our thought process. They take the same long time to get rid of and demand much effort to succeed in overcoming them, and realizing when such beliefs take effect and their impact on your performance is critical to overcoming them. Find out the missing ingredients in developing your full potential. Friends with a better perception of life, who depend more on reason rather than mere beliefs may be quite helpful in challenging your beliefs positively.

For a more in-depth discussion about this topic request your Introductory Consultation.

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