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Ladies and gentlemen, to this episode of the Stable Living Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me. Today, we got a big subject. Listen in, man, this is going to be a good one. I think about what people want. What do you want? Why people come to me and what they're searching for.
Russell Nelson said that we have a divine yearning for constant progression. All of this seemed like we're, most of us will say, seemed like we're, we want something more. There's something we're looking for in our lifetime. I think about the people that come to me, a lot of times they feel stuck. And I felt stuck, and maybe you have too.
A lot of times people come for addiction, they feel stuck in their addiction. Sometimes people feel stuck with their money, they can't seem to break through. They're worried about money, they're worried about their job, their career. Relationship issues, people come to me. Really, what it comes down to is how people feel. People want to change how they feel at the bottom. I mean, we do everything for the way that we feel.
But all of us are looking for something. So my question is, is we're, it's getting close to the new year. And even when you're listening to this, if it's not near the new year, it doesn't matter because it's always a time. If you ask me, it's always a good time to be checking in with yourself. You know, what is your future look like?
So my question is, is what is it that you want the most right now? What's the top, what's the top thing? What are you going for? Is it money? Job? Is it your career oriented? Does it have to do with the relationship that you're trying to heal or create or maintain? Does it have to do with addiction? Does it have to do with being overwhelmed? What does it have to do with? And how do you feel about that? How does it make you feel when you think about it?
Why do you listen to this podcast? I mean, you must be here, you know, we're talking about horses and humans, so you're either interested in a little bit about horses, or at least about something about personal development. So what's driving that? What's behind it? What is it that you want to accomplish in this lifetime?
Usually, a big thing is the gap between who and where we are, and who and where we want to be, the gap between who we are and who we want to be and that gap between what we have and what we want to have. Filling those gaps causes us a lot of, I don't know, lot of angst, I guess, a lot of stress because we think we should have, we think we should be who we want to be and we think we should have what we want to have and we may not have it.
There's a gap there in that get filling that gap, the, closing the gap, getting to the things that be able to have what we want and be who we want to be seems to cause a lot of stress in people's lives.
And most of the time what we're out there looking for is we're looking for system. We need somebody to break it down so we can go through. Just tell me the steps. I'll go through the steps. I don't care what they are. Give me the steps, man. Give me the outline and I'll go ahead and do it. I just want to close this gap. Can't you see I want to close this gap? Whatever the gap is for you.
And so we're looking for a system. I have a little bit of a system, but you have to remember a lot of times why system, we haven't had a lot of successful systems is that sometimes it's a good system, but it's backfiring or self-sabotaging because at the root of all behavior is the foundation of behavior, okay?
The root and the core when you boil it all down to what's totally inside, when you really look at it, when you really go into introspection and find out what's going on, it's all going come down to the foundation of belief, which is what you believe to be true about you.
And I talk so much about it, and I talk about improving the way that we see ourselves and our self-image. The question is what I don't cover a lot is how to go about getting it done. You can think yourself, think you're amazing. Well, what if you don't?
What if you don't believe it? It's not as simple as that. It's not as simple as an affirmation or sometimes just simply changing a thought.
The beliefs that we have that we believe to be true about ourselves, about our value, our self-beliefs, are the foundation of everything that we do. Everything is coming through that lens of how we see ourselves. How we interact with people, what they say and do to us, we measure that against the way that we, what we believe about ourselves.
When we get defensive with people, it's based on how we see ourselves and how we perceive the meaning of what's coming to us. When we communicate with others, everything goes through this lens. Everything that we see, we see the world through the lens of how we see ourselves and these beliefs that we've developed over time and we haven't most of the time they just happen for us. We don't have to do it. It's an automatic process.
So let's just think about the most important the foundation of behavior.
So here's the thing, if you want to change behavior, if you want to fill the gap, if there's something that you want to there's something that you want, if you want to move forward, if you want to make progress, if you want to get your goal, the most important thing, the foundation of that is going to be your actions, and the foundation of behavior is what you believe to be true about yourself.
So, you might have the system, but it still might not work. You may lay out your perfect goal and just be working those steps and you just never get there. And the reason is, is because of this underlying belief that you have about yourself. It's been created for you most of the time, hasn't been intentionally created.
So I'm going to talk about really looking at the foundation because here's the thing, here's what I found with me and here's what I found with the people that come to me for coaching. When you address and improve and commit to improving your beliefs that you have about you, everything else falls in place.
It doesn't automatically happen on the blink of a damn eye, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is it happened for me and it happens for other people. I was able to quit an alcohol addiction, was able to quit a tobacco addiction, was able to lose weight, I was able to make more money, I was able to do all the things.
And I'm still, it's not a done deal, it's an ongoing process for my lifetime, and I'm still working on my goals. And every day I'm still working on my beliefs, because it's not a thing that you get done and then it's over and you go to the next thing.
This is a thing that if you commit to paying attention to and continuing to improve the beliefs that you have about yourself over time, all of your results are going to improve and it will be easier to get your goals and it will be some of the things that have been holding you back and the things that you want are going to come. You're going to take away the roadblocks is what's going to happen.
So that's all hunky-damn-dory, Shane. Well, how the hell do you go exactly about that?
You got this belief you don't even know about it, let's just talk about again how beliefs are created. You know what happens for us and it's a magical process. It's a good thing in some ways and sometimes it's not. It's not a good thing that it happens automatically for us.
So, you know, as we go throughout life, we take in information into our brain continually. Right now you're taking in information, you're making meaning out of all of it. And what happens is, is that when these meanings are repeated over time, we look for evidence that were true. They're repeated again and again and again, and these thoughts that are in our minds become our beliefs. They become our belief system, and that becomes the foundation for our behavior. We operate on our beliefs.
Now we have thousands and thousands and thousands of beliefs. I believe that this is a shade of brown and this is a brown or a saddle colored hat I have on and I believe this is a Coke Zero. So what I'm talking about specifically today is your self beliefs.
What I'm saying is what you believe to be true about yourself and specifically not more importantly today is your value. Okay? I'll talk more about that.
So, I'm going to do a short series on belief creation and creating intentional beliefs. Rather than just going with the default.
Here's the thing with the default. Okay? All this happens in the background. Most people, a lot of people, we won't say most, lot of people live and die without putting a lot of thought into or intentionally going about changing or creating their own beliefs.
We just are born, these beliefs are created by our brain, we operate through the lens of them and then we die. Those beliefs a lot of times can hold us back from the greatness that's inside of us. Because some of those beliefs may not be serving, they might not be helping us get the things we want. They might not be helping other people around us either.
Because here's the thing, the default leans towards a negative self-image. Don't ask me why. I can't give you the answer why. I just think that it's our challenge as human beings.
Here's the thing. You talk to a therapist. Talk to… One of the things that really opened my eyes was hearing Brooke Castillo, a life coach for over 20 years that has coached thousands and thousands and thousands of people say that every single issue that she dealt with, with thousands of people over 20 years came down to their own personal worthiness. All of them.
Like I said, talk to a therapist. Look at the research that is done on self-esteem and our relationship with ourself and our self-value and so on and so forth.
I am here to tell you this is not for people that have a problem with this. This is a challenge of the human experience. All of us, to some degree, have a belief inside of us that in some way, to some degree, that we are a little bit less than. We're a little bit inferior somehow, that we don't quite measure up in this or that or part of this or something.
It's going on and it's something that if we become aware of, that's first step, it's the big step that I'm going talk about today, but it's something that doesn't have to be a permanent situation. It's not just the way it is.
It might be the way it is right now, but understanding the process and how beliefs are created and how we can create our own intentional beliefs and we can override the default that's going to tell us somehow that we're just a little bit defective. That's the way it is.
Like I said, this is for everybody. I'm going to just go with me on this. Just follow me through this.
You're not going to need therapy. Maybe you will, but most of time you don't need therapy to be able to change your beliefs. If some big time hard trauma has been involved in, in your life, I'm not saying that you don't ever need therapy, I'm just saying that basic belief change and a lot of the time you don't need therapy and you don't need years, okay?
You do need consistency. It's not something that's gonna happen in the blink of an eye.
Little thoughts, you can change little thoughts and a lot of times they'll happen immediately, but beliefs, okay, beliefs are thoughts that have been repeated and your brain has evidence that it's true because it is proved to yourself, your brain has proved to you, to its own self, by showing you evidence that this belief or this thought, this thought is true again and again and again until well, we just accept it as a fact.
We accept this thought that our brain has repeated and shown us evidence of. We look out into the world and our brain shows us evidence of this belief that we have and it does it repeatedly until it just becomes an assumption of a fact. It's just the way it is.
And that's the way we think it is and a lot of times we don't even think to question it and then our life's over.
I'm telling you right here right now this year you can improve your life if you follow these steps. I'm just telling you, stay with me through this little exercise over the next few episodes of this belief creation because this is where it's at. This is where the magic happens.
You've been looking for the system, you want to make a significant change in your life?
This is it, okay, we're down at the bottom floor here, we're creating the foundation.
So like I said, it does take an amount of time because not only do we have to question that belief, we have to prove to our brain that our new belief is true. And a lot of times the things that we want to believe, we can't accept as truth. It's just too far of a stretch so we have to take it a piece at a time.
And even each piece of the time that we take, we have to look out into the world and prove that it's true. We have to hold that new thought in our mind and then we have to continue to prove it to be true to ourselves until it becomes that belief.
Now, it sounds like a lot but it's not all that much and it doesn't take all that long. What it takes is, it takes focus and takes attention.
Really the people that work with me on this, guess how much time they spend? 15 minutes a day. You can turn your life upside down, can get your goal, you can fundamentally change what you believe to be true about yourself in 15 minutes a day and depending on how deep seated that belief is it doesn't take all that long. It takes weeks to months to usually not a year.
So step one is awareness. All this is, if this all happened in for me Shane, how am I supposed to find out what's secretly happening inside my head?
Well, we're going to override the default. The default is less than.
And our beliefs, here's how we're going to uncover. Okay, here's how we're going to find out what's going on with you. Okay, because our beliefs have been derived from three things.
Okay. And that's where our thoughts come from, that we make meaning about our value. Okay, we make meaning about our own value based on three things.
Number one is, now remember, I'm gonna come back and say we have thousands and thousands and thousands of beliefs, but today we are talking about self beliefs and we're talking about what we believe would be true about ourselves and what we believe to be relevant as far as our values as human beings, our capabilities and our values. That's what we're talking about, our self beliefs.
Three places that we give information, that our brain gives us information to have thoughts about our self beliefs.
Again, I want to just emphasize that this isn't for people with low self-esteem. This isn't if you have no self-confidence. This isn't for if you hate yourself and you think you suck as a human being. This is for you and all that, but it's for everyone.
Because like I said, to some degree, all of us in our default, because it's one of the challenges of being a person, being alive and being a human being, is going to be that we're going to be we're going to be given these beliefs that we can challenge and overcome if we know how to go about it.
This is for everybody. Because if you look, no matter who you are, no matter how far of progress you are down the line, if you really take an honest look at yourself, you're going to find some things that you believe that you can improve on.
That you can change those beliefs to have them that you can improve those beliefs and guess what that's going to do? When you change those beliefs, it's going to change your results. That's the deal. You're going see the world through a whole new lens. Things that you didn't think were possible are going to become possible.
Okay, so number one, our beliefs come from three places. If you want to change your results, here's how we're going to go about it.
Number one is things that we've done. First place that our brain looks, one of the three places that our brain looks to get evidence about the kind of a human being, the value or deserve in this, worthiness, we deserve in this lifetime, right? How much we're worth, okay?
Comparatively, sometimes our brain's comparin' to people and things all around us. So the first place is that our brain works is for things that we've done.
So let's talk a little bit about that.
The main things that we're going to talk about are the things as far as this goes is that the things that we've done that we wish we would not. So we've all done things that we wish we would not. And we all have done things that we have that we feel guilty of. We all have things that we regret. We all have done things that we are ashamed of.
The question is what… I want you must think about this. You must just take the time and really go back and say, we've all done some things. I've done so many things. We're not going to talk about all of them right now. We're not going to talk about all the ugly ones.
But I have done some things in my life that caused me, when I looked at them, I knew it was just blatant right there in front of me. I took what I did as a meaning about the value of my worth as a soul, as a human being, and said that I would just you pretty pathetic and pretty low and I was disgusted and ashamed and I valued myself super low for things that I had done. Okay?
Now, you may be thinking, “Well, hell, Shane, you did those terrible things and why wouldn't you? Doesn't that mean you're not all that good of a human being?” I guess as a, we're going to say that you automatically believe that and I'm going to ask you to accept that the idea, if you can, that regardless of what you've done, it doesn't affect your value as a human being.
I mean, that's a lot right there. That's a lot to accept. Actually be able to, we hear this, to separate our, separate your behavior, things that you've done from your value as a soul, as a person. Just knowing that it's possible to be able to have 100% perfect value and nothing can change that. Just the fact that you were born gives you that.
Now you can do some stupid stuff. You can make some mistakes. You can do some stuff on purpose that was wrong. You're going to do some things you regret. Some things that you feel guilty for. Some things you're ashamed of. That's part of being a human being.
The question is, is what meaning are you going to accept about those things? How much are you going let that change your value as a human being?
Because that's what we do. Our brain assigns meaning to us that says, we are deficient. We are defective. We are not as good at. We are less than. Something is seriously wrong here. We don't deserve this. We're not good enough because of those things that we've done.
I need you just to think about it. Think about all the things. Think about the things, think about the things that you've done in your lifetime.
Now we've also done things that our brain said, “Hey that was awesome Shane, you did a great job, you're good at that.” Hold on to those, you need to remember those too.
Right now we're talking about beliefs that are going to come on the negative side. So we're focusing right now on uncovering beliefs that you may have about things that you've done.
So if you take the time and actually go back through your history, start at your childhood, maybe it just comes to you right now, maybe it's pretty close to the surface and you can draw it right up and you can know what it is, write it down. Think about it.
And I want you to think about how you feel about it and really think about what the fact that you did that thing means about you.
Right now just do that, just become aware of it, just think about what you're making it mean about yourself and how it makes you feel.
Now, that's going take a little bit of time, which we don't have right now, so I need you to actually spend time to do this.
We're moving on to the second thing.
The second thing is that our brain makes meaning and gives us these beliefs about things that we have not done. Things that we have not done. And our brain thinks that we should have done, but we didn't do.
So things that we haven't done. And usually we have guilt and shame and regret for things that we didn't do. We didn't do this. We missed that opportunity.
For me, I wasn't there for my kids the way I wanted to be because I was drunk every day. That's a big thing that I didn't do. I didn't show up as a parent the way that I needed to be for my kids. I just didn't do it. It's gone. It's over.
So what am I? The question for me is, what do I make that mean about me?
Now maybe your thing isn't that big, maybe it's bigger, it doesn't even matter what it is. The question is, what have you not done and what are you making that mean about you in this lifetime? And how much have you thought about it?
A lot of times it just takes some time and some introspection. I'm asking you that if you want to make significant change and get away the barriers that seem to keep blocking you and making you feel stuck, to take the time to think about these things.
And really uncover them, them down. Write down what really go back and go in and say, what does that mean about me? What do I think that means about me?
And then just think for a minute about how that makes you feel, okay?
The last thing is what has been done to us. The third thing that we make meaning about ourselves is the things that have been done to us, what we've experienced in the world.
Now this can be anything from an awful traumatic experience that we had and things of abuse and such, or it can be smaller things.
Benjamin Hardy in his book, Personality Isn't Permanent, tells a story about an 80 some odd year-old lady that he met in a class who told him that she wanted to draw children's books or be an illustrator I think for children's books if I have this right.
She wanted to be an artist. But when she was in her 20s or early 30s, okay, excuse me, 50 years ago, 50 years prior, she was in her first art class, or maybe it was in college, I don't know what it was. It was at some time in the past.
She was in an art class and her teacher had told her that she didn't have, looked at, pulled up one of her drawings and looked at it in front of the class and told her in front of the class that she didn't have the ability to do this project that they were doing. She didn't have the native ability to be able to be a good artist.
It seemed I'm not really telling the story perfectly accurately because I got my different, interrupted by my phone there, but what she said was basically the teacher was critiquing one specific work of, you know, an assignment that she did and she took this meaning that because this one assignment he wasn't happy with or he didn't think it was great job that she didn't have the ability to be an artist the thing that she had wanted to do and for 50 years she wished that she could have done it because it was a life dream. It's what she wanted to do in her lifetime.
She never could according to her because of what happened in this class.
I have one more example. I personally, I know somebody very closely and maybe these kind of stories can relate to you too if you think about it, but this person that I know very closely, let's say it was in third grade or something like that and they were choir and the teacher told them not to sing but to mouth the words.
Now you tell that to a third grader and this person that I know is in their mid-50s and will not sing ever. So just think what the world missed out on in that person because they took a meaning that they were terrible singers, had a terrible voice and for a good part of their lifetime didn't sing.
Ever.
Maybe alone in their car, maybe. But even that, they say, is a tough thing because they believe, they firmly believe that.
So these are things that, like, and then let's come back to, so there's an example. Let's come back to the really traumatic cases of trauma and abuse. It's very easy for, our brains are just going to take on meaning about what that means about us. And it's not going to be the kind of meaning that we want to have.
People do evil acts against one another and the victims believe it. Their brains give them ideas about why that happened, about their own value. Okay, because this happened to me, because this abuse happened to me, it means that I am ‘blank.’ Okay, deficient, defective in some way.
Okay, those are, those are what the automatic meetings that we get to try to make sense out of this. Okay?
And we can keep and hold on to those things for our whole lives and they affect everything, they affect all of our results.
Now, trauma, we may have talked about this, but dealing with trauma is basically rewriting the past. It's changing the meaning of what that happened, what we make that meaning event mean about us. It's changing the meaning. That is the process of healing trauma.
And we can do that, it's a belief shift. Now, it's changing what we believe about what happened and that's exactly the same thing we're doing right here.
Some trauma, I refer out to therapy if it seems appropriate, but I would say for most people, for most of us, most of the things that we encounter in our lifetime are things that we can, if we understand the process.
And we start with this one, which is the most important, which is the awareness. And we go through the steps that I'm going to outline in this next few episodes here on this series in belief, intentional belief creation, that we can change, we can override that meaning that was made for us into what we want into an intentional belief.
So what we, we've made those things mean that we're defective in some way in those cases of abuse and what about the, you I took a meaning out of that that I am a terrible singer. I took a meaning out of that that I don't have the ability, I don't have the capability, I don't have the talent inside of me and I can't develop it to be able, able to draw and make a children's book.
Okay? And these are from things that happened to us now. Were they intended to be that way? Who knows?
You know what saying? This is just what happens is it's an unexamined belief that we have been, that our brain has made meaning out of.
Let's go back to the music teacher idea. The music teacher tells this kid to don't sing to Mel. The brain of this little kid goes, “I must have a terrible voice. I must sound awful. Everybody else sounds good. My voice is defective. I can't sing. I don't sound good.”
And then over time they look for proof, they sing and then they hear themselves sing and they don't think it sounds good. Even if it sounded great, their brain's looking for proof of this meaning that it's making.
And over time they hold up to this belief and it's easy for a kid. That's stuff that we pick up as kids because we're looking at this great big adult up here, right? It's five times our size and seems to know everything, they've been around for ten times longer and they're giving us information and we're making meaning out of it.
They may not have even intended that. But we think, the perception is, that since it's coming from adult, it's supposed to be so much more than what we think.
And so we take on these meanings and we hold onto them for our lifetimes and they limit us. They limit our progress and they limit the things that keep us from closing the gap of the things that we want to accomplish.
So, think about, take the time, just take 10 minutes a day for the next few days. 10 minutes of uninterrupted time and think about the things that you have done that you have yet guilt and shame for and what they mean about you.
The things that you haven't done that you feel guilt or shame that you didn't do, that you haven't done.
And the things that have been done to you, okay, that you're making mean something about you and just things that things that have been done to you that make you feel defective in some way.
Okay, just think about anything maybe it could just be what somebody said to you one day or one experience where somebody said something and you're making it mean a certain thing.
Now I'm asking you to question your thoughts rather than just take it, well they said that and so I mean that's the way it is because the thing of it is that's the way your brain operates.
In overriding it we're going to start to question that belief, but the first thing is to think about what it is.
Really uncover it. Really go into the things that people have done to you and that you have done and that you haven't done and think about those disturbing things and what they mean.
Those things that don't feel good. I said disturbing, but it can be anything that doesn't feel good when you think it.
I want you to think about how they feel. Write them down, think about how they feel.
It's the most important step, and I'm here to tell you it's going to be time to say goodbye to those thoughts. Don't get too attached to those beliefs.
Because if you stay with me, they're hitting the road before long.
I mean permanently, okay, and we're going to replace them and we're going to maintain the new ones and it's going to propel us forward to greatness because you, my friends, are destined for greatness.
I appreciate you being with me. Remember you cannot fail as you as long as you Don't Ever Stop Chasin’ It.
