10 Beliefs That Will Not Serve You When You Are Older

Assumptions About Life That Will Not Be Helpful to You Years Later

As we get older, we tend to adopt beliefs based on the events in our lives and the experiences we’ve had. Those beliefs can either help or hinder us.

Have you ever changed your point of view about something, that at one time you had a different belief about it?

One belief I had was, in order to be successful in life, I needed to have the right qualifications and be highly educated. As I have gotten older, I have learned that most things are learnable and trainable.

If there is something we want to do or achieve in life, being committed to it and doing what’s required is far more important than just having some kind of qualification, which doesn’t always translate into actual results.

A number of years ago, I did some training development work for an organisation and was part of a team that had a few contractors. Within a few months of me being in that team, a member decided to move on and took up a different role within the same organisation.

I remember at that time, there was a lot of discussion whether it was a good decision or not. One member of the team said, “The pasture is not always greener on the other side.”

That statement revealed a belief that particular team member had about opportunities and how they viewed the world.

The interesting thing was the team member who had taken up a different role lost his job within four months due to an organisational restructure.

That event reaffirmed one team member’s belief that the pasture is not always greener, which really means they didn’t believe leaving something secure or stable was worth the risk.

I, on the other had, believe that it was just an event and a new and better opportunity would come that person’s way in due course.

Our beliefs shape our reality so we must be aware of which beliefs are serving us and which ones are not.

10 Beliefs to Consider Letting Go Now

Other people have to support your dreams. We can get caught believing that the closest people in our lives have to support us. The truth is if a dream is important to us, it shouldn’t matter whether someone supports us or not. We should choose to do what will make our lives better, which in turn, can help others as well.
The more things you do, the more successful you’ll be. There is a saying, “You can do things right or you can do the right things.” Success is not always dependent on how much we do. It also depends on whether we’re doing the things necessary to get the outcomes we want.
Other people know what’s best for you. We learn what’s best for us through knowledge and experiences. While other people may think they know what’s best for us, we should always trust ourselves and have the belief that things will always work out for us.
Starting over after a significant event is not a wise choice to make. Unexpected things happen in life, which can often cause us to contemplate on what’s most important to us. Examples may include the loss of a loved one, losing a job, or experiencing a major financial loss. If, as a result of a significant event, we feel we need to start all over again, then it’s something we should do once we’ve done our due diligence.
You are responsible for other people’s decisions in life. We are responsible for our decisions in life only. There has to be a certain level of intelligence applied when making decisions if those decisions affect other people. However, we cannot take it upon ourselves to be responsible for the decisions others make for the betterment of their lives.
You will miss out if you don’t take that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We often hear about “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunities, but the truth is there will always be new opportunities. Just because something is not right for us now does not mean we’ll never get another opportunity in the future. A new belief to take on is, “There is more where that came from.”
You are the way you are because of your past. We’ve all had things in our past that we’d rather forget and put behind us. That doesn’t mean we cannot look at those things from different perspectives and use them to become better at what we do or who we are. Our past does not define who we can be in the future.
You will be happy when… Almost everything we do in life is driven by our need to experience a positive emotion, which includes happiness. What we tend to do is strive to achieve in life so that we can meet certain external conditions that we’ve predetermined will make us happy. Waiting for something outside of ourselves to be realised before we can feel happy is a recipe for stress, disappointment and unhappiness. Happiness comes from within and that’s something we need to practice more.
Your current circumstances determines the future you can have. Our current reality is the outcome of our previous thinking. It doesn’t dictate what we can or cannot accomplish in the future. We can use our past experience and present circumstances to create the future we want.
You have to prove yourself to others. If we are driven by the need to prove ourselves to others, then it means we have a self-worth issue. It’s better to be driven to be the best version of ourselves and be better than who we were in the past. Trying to impress or prove ourselves to others is not a healthy strategy for satisfaction in life.

As our beliefs are so powerful, it’s valuable to question them regularly. Asking questions like, “Why do I believe that?” or “Who would I be if I did not have that belief?” is a good practice to have because if we can adopt beliefs that can get us to where we want to be, it’ll be better than hanging onto beliefs that stop or slow us down from what we want.

Action Step: Reflect on an area in your life that you’ve been struggling to achieve a certain outcome. List down the beliefs you have about your situation. Question all your beliefs and let go of those that are not serving you. Choose to adopt new, empowering beliefs instead.

Question: What is another belief that will not serve us over the long-term?

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