In an earlier post, I talked about this notion of being extreme. A question was raised by a friend of mine asking the following:
‘Can you teach/show/motivate someone that is OK with good enough to be extreme?’
I partially engaged on the question at the time, and promised a follow up on the topic. This post is at least a more thorough follow up, and the first of a few on the topic. It is an incredibly awesome question that I have wrestled with for many years. The original post was a succinct post full of assumptions that only invited more questions…so now I’ve got a few posts to hammer out to truly attempt a worthy answer to this incredible question.
Before I go into why I’m so excited about this question – it is an incredibly portable one that can be applied to your life as a grown adult, as a parent, as a partner, as a sibling, as an individual contributor at work, as an executive, and as a first responder involved in an emergent situation. This notion of transformation is a useful one in many dimensions of life.
Really, the question behind this is a very broad-based question that can be summarized as this:
‘How do I get someone to do/be something that they are not able to do/be today?’
This ‘someone’ could be yourself or another individual. Keep this in mind as you come with me down this page.
So let’s break this down a bit more here. This idea of teaching/showing/motivating someone is really about getting another individual to open up to a possibility of something being different, possibly radically different, than their current sets of beliefs. This can be applied to any belief held by the individual.
Now I’m going to grind the hell out of this concept of beliefs.
Can you define what a belief is?
It is a simple question that you likely have not examined recently. I have not recently in the past month, and I have been doing some research on mental models as of late…
Here’s a definition that I like –
A belief defines and idea or or principle we judge to be true.
Judgement is many times the source of much stress in our lives. There’s a post down the line on judgement and stress…
True and truth are many times believed/judged to be immutable, which leads many to take these things called beliefs as unexamined constructs to be wielded as necessary on themselves and on others in their lives.
Here are some beliefs that I have on beliefs:
- Beliefs can be limiting in nature.
- Beliefs can be expansive in nature.
- Beliefs can be unexamined.
- Beliefs can be deliberate.
- Beliefs are always learned.
More on the learning of beliefs in a moment.
So as we develop our beliefs there are some cognitive operations that play out as you build up your beliefs. In reviewing some psychological literature – there are at least two goals we pursue cognitively with our beliefs:
There are two goals you cognitively attempt to achieve with each belief you possess:
- Accuracy of belief
- This is where we attempt to build truth to support the belief that we have.
- Our beliefs are in many ways our truths that we operate from.
- Validation of Preexisting beliefs
- This is where we have bias come into play – there are flavors of this too.
- Confirmation bias – we gravitate towards evidence that plays to our currently held beliefs and tend to ignore evidence that works against our existing set of beliefs.
- Disconfirmation bias – spending an inordinate amount of energy on disproving ideas that are at odds with our current belief set.
So changing beliefs is tough given our need to have our beliefs be truthful in nature, and we have a few different bias avenues that tend to keep our current world view locked in. Locked in being a deliberate phrase here.
Unexamined convictions – prisons that many occupy today.
So learning beliefs is really a process that plays out under two main goals in our brains – ensuring accuracy and marrying it up with existing belief sets as default patterns in our brains.
Learning is another way of saying creating. Creating can be done with templates provided by others, and this approach to creation can be called a type of learning.
So our beliefs are created in support of our cognitive goals, and over time we learn to create more aligned beliefs – by default.
So tying this back to the question originally posed – the first challenge is to help someone understand that the belief that they have is worth examining as a first step. Smashing someone in the face with a logic-based haymaker is unlikely to enlist the person in examining the belief. The belief may or may not be true, let’s leave that as a follow on activity.
There are many ways to crack open a belief for examination, and some of the best (judgy!) leaders and coaches in my life – provided me an opportunity to examine a belief that was in need of examination. Once the door is opened to examination, then the opportunity to revisit the nature of truthfulness of that belief becomes possible.
A few simple questions can prompt the examination of whatever type of belief we hold:
- Where did this belief originally come from? (source of belief can be used as a second question)
- Have you considered this truth to be up for a refresh? (softly opening up the possibility)
- What if the opposite of this belief were also true? (this can be a radical approach and many times requires a high level of rapport)
- Who else believes this to be true and why? (broadens the believer or disbeliever base)
Once the examination is made possible, now you can begin to envision the veracity of the truth as held by the believer.
The notion of changing a belief is something that warrants a post unto itself. Tomorrow, I’ll get into the ‘veracity of truth exams…’
Changing beliefs is a radical act.
Creating beliefs is a radical act.
The best we can hope for is to help those closest to us to open up to the possibility of creation, intentional creation of these things we call beliefs.
I can tell you this – ‘belief management’ is not something to be ‘done’ on another. Hell, even when it comes to changing your own personal beliefs – you really need to be considerate of this.