Mindset is the lens through which everyone interprets the world. It shapes thoughts, emotions, and behaviours, influencing everything from personal relationships to professional success. The core belief influences the mindset. A core belief may be defined as a belief held by an individual towards something. A psychologist, Aaron Beck, explains how the core belief can affect one’s thinking, feelings (emotions) and behaviour. When one’s core belief is negative, it influences an individual to think negatively. This negative thinking influences an individual to develop negative emotions. As a result of negative emotions, one’s behaviour is also tuned to negativity. When one’s core belief is positive, it influences an individual to think positively. Positive thinking influences the individual to have positive emotions. When an individual has positive emotions, then an individual behaves positively.
For example, an individual with a negative belief in life will likely develop negative thinking about life. Therefore, this negative thinking leads to negative emotions, which may make an individual behave negatively. Individuals with negative beliefs about work environments (employer-employee dynamics), education (teacher-student), or leadership may continuously have negative thoughts. These negative thoughts may continually arouse in him or her negative emotions such as anger, disappointments, mood swings, rudeness, and many others. These negative emotions may affect his or her behaviour negatively. For example, withdrawal tendencies, insecurities, fear of expressing their feelings or thoughts, resistance, persistent complaining, resilience, dissatisfaction and many others.
The same applies to those in charge, for example, who may as well have a negative belief towards others. This may be expressed in how one thinks negatively towards an individual, such as through negative judgment and not seeing something good in a person. This may cause someone in authority to develop negative emotions such as biases, jealousy, and fear of being challenged. The negative behaviour may result from these emotions, such as withdrawal from the former, less readiness to listen, being dictated and many others. One may ask how the behaviour can become positive.
The change may happen when the negative core belief is uprooted or replaced with the positive one. The change to positive may start through self-awareness and identification of those negative core beliefs. Thereafter, through counseling, psycho-education, cognitive restructuring and affirmation, one may regain back the positive mindset. For example, someone in a work setting who struggles with self-doubt could learn to reframe their thinking to see challenges as opportunities for growth.
Concerning a positive core belief, for example, an individual who has a positive core belief towards certain thing, environment or another person may be able to respond with positive thinking. This includes the conviction that work, environment and many others can transform him or her and make a better living. This line of thinking often leads one to develop positive feelings like happiness, joy, peace and consolation. The behaviours that may result from these feelings are mainly positive. One becomes a flexible person, a self-driven person, a good listener, a good community person, a hardworking person and a successful person. The same applies to those in charge. His or her thinking may change, make the proper judgment without bias, and become more accommodative. All the above applies in all walks/kinds of life, such as leadership management, marriage, work, studies, teachers/students, etc.
Conclusively, in every walk of life, whether in work, education, or personal relationships; a shift from negative to positive core beliefs can lead to transformative change. The question one should ask is: What negative core beliefs are holding him or her back, and how can one change them?
By Gabriel Simon Lulu, MA Student,
Counselling Psychology,
Uganda Martyrs University.
Picture courtesy of Joshua Earle
