Escape the Tyranny of Mistaken Ideas

How to overcome dead-end beliefs and habits

All of us are held hostage by something. Many of us ignore our underlying feelings, beliefs, or habits. They influence our behavior. But without awareness, they keep us hostage, constricting our freedom of thought and action.

For example, I am held hostage by my fear of strangers, adverse reaction to disapproval, and lack of assertiveness.

Hard to Change Inner Blocks

These are ideas or tendencies that I keep returning to repeatedly. But I cannot change them, hence the feeling that I am held hostage by them.

Perhaps you, too, have these beliefs, feelings, or habits that you find hard to change despite your earnest efforts to do so.

You may have addictions you can’t change or ideas about yourself or your future that remain unchanged. Hence you feel imprisoned by them unable to do what is necessary to bring about their transformation.

How to Accommodate

There are five ways we cope with these static elements. (See Bernard Golden, Ph.D. on these coping styles in another context. )

· Avoidance: “I can’t deal with this now.” Neither resolving the issue nor giving up the habit, idea, or trait. The goal is to delay consideration or resolution. It defers the need to confront a problem, so the pain goes unsolved and worsens.

· Accommodation: “Whatever I am doing, or thinking is ok with me.” The issue is not important enough to try and change. There are other things you must tend to in your life or are too lazy to bother. Your attitude is ‘live and let live.’

· Competition: “It’s my way or the highway.” The issue is important, but you will continue as before unless forced to change. The goal is to move forward expeditiously. But what you want to change lacks urgency.

· Resignation: It’s too tough to change, so you won’t even try.

· Surrender episodically: We give in to not changing a habit, for example, only to keep trying; failure brings things to a halt, but then we keep trying as there is an unknown part of ourselves that wants the change.

All these coping methods come up from time to time, but in the end, we remain frustrated and unable to fulfill our intentions. We are held hostage by an unknown adversary.

Our capacity to choose how we wish to live depends on our ability to consider our deficits without feeling dominated by them. This capacity to reflect on our thoughts and feelings makes us uniquely human.

And it is this capacity that allows us to see when we are stuck. But there are also times when we can find a way to break the bonds that tie us.

The Break-Through Technique: Self-Reflection

Labeling who or what is holding us back helps us create psychological distance from them, a capacity to stand back, observe, and not be overwhelmed by them.

Self-reflection then becomes the key to sorting out the underlying factor that is holding us back. Sometimes the belief or habit is held in place because it serves some purpose of which we are unaware.

In other words, it continues because of a benefit or side effect that serves some vital function.

For example, when I lost weight, I kept hitting plateaus even though I was exercising like a tiger and my diet was meager. Only later did I realize that these plateaus enabled me to feel a sense of pride and virtue that I was striving for a positive goal.

The lack of progress gave me the satisfaction of knowing that I was not giving up; knowing that I kept trying without positive results permitted the belief that I was being virtuous and persistent to a high degree.

My persistence validated my identity as a conscientious striver in the face of failure to progress. And, of course, the results I sought eventually came into view with continued effort.

Self-reflection of this kind is vital because it helps you uncover what supports your ideas or habits that no longer serve. That knowledge helps pull the plug on underperforming ideas.

“Self-reflection is the school of wisdom.”– Baltasar Gracian

Self-reflection helps you question your behaviors and helps you become more responsible for your actions. In this context, it can help you spot a belief, thought, or habit holding you hostage and when it is safe to break the bonds.

No one wants to be held back by forces they cannot identify. Self-reflection, practiced with care and persistence, can help with that identification. If successful, you can gain new freedom of action and, with unwavering effort, attain your goals.

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