Hi, Debi Silber here.

Is there a difference between a belief and a fact?

There’s a huge distinction between the two.

The good news here is also that if your beliefs don’t serve you, you change them for something that does.

A belief is a repetition of an idea from someone you trust. That’s it. The repetition of an idea from someone you trust. All that means is someone you trusted such as a parent, a teacher, someone in a religious capacity, etc.  said something to you enough times. By doing that, it became your belief. That doesn’t make it good or bad, it doesn’t make it right or wrong, it doesn’t make it true…but it makes it yours.

A fact can’t be dismantled. Take gravity for example. If you throw something up, it’s coming down. What we so often do is we look at our beliefs as if they’re facts.

Maybe you have a belief such as: “I’ll never get out of debt.” “I’ll never lose this weight”. “I won’t ever be in a healthy relationship.” Whatever the belief is, we look at them as if they are facts.

I invite you to question, “Is it true? Can it be dismantled?” Maybe it’s just true for you because you’ve said it to yourself so many times that this is all you’ve been making your reality.

This is something I do with my clients and I hope this helps you.

One of the ways to find what is at the root of your belief is to question things and to ask yourself these three prompts, “I’m so…” “I can’t…” “I’ll never…” Then, when you have some time and when you have some space, take a pen to paper and see shows up. You’re going to find your limiting beliefs at the end of those prompts. Once you see them written out, then at that point you can question yourself and ask: “Is this really true?” “Is this a fact or is it just a belief?”

If it’s a belief, it can be changed for something that serves you so much better.

So I invite you to find out what your beliefs are because they are at the root of your habits, your behaviors, your actions, your personality, and the way life shows up for you.  Or, are they facts? We have so much power to change a belief that doesn’t serve us but the first step is finding out if it’s something we can control (a belief) or something we can’t (a fact). Hope that helps.

Have you discovered a beliefs that’s been holding you back? What did you do to change it?

Dr. Debi
PBTInstitute.com