11 Disempowering Beliefs That Have Been Sold to Us In Life!

Our lives are run by our beliefs, most of which we inherit from our families, society, peers, and social media.

Have you ever wondered what would happen if these beliefs were a lie?

A few months back I was speaking to my sister and enquired about my nephew who had just taken his 12th standard exams. He is a bright student, but like any other parents don't think so.

I asked her what are his future plans. She told me that he has been watching lots of motivational videos on youtube and told her mother, "What is the use of going to college when one can become a billionaire without going to college?"

Very genuine and frightening question for any parent. But it was not his fault, this is what our media is glorifying these days. So as a gullible kid he fell for it.

Not only this, there are other myths that we have been made to believe as truth. Here is the list of a few lies that have been sold to us:

  

1. Happiness is the Purpose of Life

Emerson says: 

"The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."

If you ask someone, "What is the purpose of life?" Most of us would say, "The purpose of life is to be happy."

I guess this one of the myths most of us are living with. A person who is on drugs, or an alcoholic, or a criminal or corrupt people, is also also happy with their life. Does that mean they are living a good life, which you could emulate?

I also long believed that the real purpose of life is to be happy until I heard a Ted talk. It made me think about the false belief I have had for a long.

The real purpose of life is to make an impact on the people around you, serve them, make other people happy and help them to achieve their dreams. When you do this happiness would come to you as a byproduct.

 

2. Motivation is Important to Succeed

A few days back my daughter asked me," Dad I don't feel motivated to study. What should I do?"

We all face this dilemma. We have tricked ourselves to believe that we must feel motivated to do something. And if we don't feel motivated, we must not do it.

We have got this motivation thing all wrong. If we keep waiting for motivation to start any task, we may have to wait till eternity.

Motivation or no motivation, successful people do what needs to be done, and when it needs to be done.

3. Hard Work is the Key to Success

Hard work alone does not guarantee success. Your thoughts, ideas, you are working on matters. Look around you, you shall see there are so many people who may be working very hard than the successful people but are still living a wretched life.

You would be familiar with the Pareto principle or 80-20 rule. If you are working hard on 80% of tasks that produce only 20 % result then your hard work will not get you desired level of success. But if you work on 20% of tasks which will produce 80% result, you will have massive success.

Your hard work will not be worth it if it does not produce enough value to you or the business or the organization you work for.

 

4. You Don't Need College Education to Become Successful

What is the common thread between Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, etc, all of them are college dropouts?

Social media etc has gloried this fact so much that there are many young students, who use this as an excuse not to study further. They feel that they can make big in life without going to college.

We need to understand that these guys were outliers. They are the exception, not the rule. They might have dropped out of college, but they never stopped their education. They learned about their chosen field of work more than anyone else and became an authority in it.

Also, we are not presented with the full facts when the media talks about these college dropout billionaires.

Below is the excerpt from Malcolm Gladwell's book- Outliers about Bill Gates:

Bill Gates was born into a wealthy family, went to one of the few colleges that offered coding programs, and (better yet) was able to code for free. Because of these advantages, by the time he was in college he had hit the 10,000-hour mark.

 

5. Multitasking is a Boon

Contrary to popular belief multitasking is a bane rather than a boon. The human mind can not concentrate on two tasks simultaneously. It will juggle between the tasks alternatively, but can not work on it concurrently.

When you multitask quality of your work suffers and you also get stressed out juggling between the two tasks.

6. You Have to be Reasonable

Since childhood, we have been told to be reasonable or balanced, or practical. This belief has resulted in producing mediocre people.

All the people who have changed the world in any way were un-reasonable, or rebels, mavericks, and went against the grain.

You can imagine what the world would be if they had also followed the advice of being reasonable like everyone else.

 

7. You should be Ready Before You Start Anything New

Every person has a dream to write a book or start a business or start a blog/podcast/youtube channel. But very few dare to start it.

What stops most of us from starting on our dreams? It is the belief that: we must be 100% prepared before we can start.

You shall never be 100% prepared to do anything. Get the basic knowledge and start off, and don't get stressed out about perfection.

Work on starting, rather than perfection. Once you have started off, you can build on it and make it perfect later.

8. Social Media is evil

I am not a very big social media fan. I go to Facebook once or twice a week only.

I keep reading and hearing about how evil social media is. And also had the same belief until I heard people like Gary Vaynerchuk, Dean Graziosi who are crushing social media like anything and making millions by using various social media platforms to their advantage.

I like what Dean Says," Instead of social media using you, use social media."

9. Knowledge is Power

"Knowledge is the new currency", "Knowledge is power" we have been bombarded with similar phrases. As a result, we are happy to accumulate as much knowledge as we can.

But nobody ever told us that " Knowledge is potential power". The knowledge which is in the books or in our mind has no value unless we take action on it.

That is why so many people complain that even after reading books or attending seminars their life is still the same. They have knowledge but they don't take action on their knowledge.

 

10. Money attracts Money

Another false belief thrown around is" Money attracts Money". If that be the truth, then why do people who win lottery tickets or get windfall money, lose it all after a few years.

To generate the money you need a money mindset, an idea which you can execute to generate money.

Most of the billionaires alive or dead were not born rich. They earned every penny of it.

 

11. Sales Skill is Only for People engaged in Selling

I would drop any book or a video which would talk about teaching sales. I had two excuses a) I am not selling any product or service then why should I read or learn about sales b) salespeople are ruthless, manipulative ( thanks to movies, etc)

When I entered the corporate world, and more I progressed through the ladder, I realized that I may not be selling some product, but I have to sell myself, my ideas, my team, etc all the time.

I find myself handicapped because I never learned the art of selling. So it is a myth that sales skill are only for people selling products or services.