Real-Life Server Maintenance

It’s time to upgrade your belief system.

Sometimes, I catch myself feeling uncomfortable with an idea. Something attracts me…and repels me at the same time.

I realize I’ve made a snap decision about something I think I don’t want, or can’t do. But when I pause to think about it, I can see there’s a preconceived notion in the way. That maybe I CAN, and I WANT to. But something is stopping me from even considering it.

A “limiting belief.”

I tell myself something — not just on the surface, but so deep inside that it colors my thoughts and my actions. I don’t see it, because I see THROUGH it.

I unconsciously base my life on it.

Systems and Frameworks

I’ve talked about this phenomenon before. Our belief system is like any other system that’s been programmed in our minds.

For instance, the phonetic and phonological rules in our minds tell us how to pronounce words and sentences. They say things like, “change the phoneme ‘t’ to the surface sound ‘d’ in the word ‘better’,” for example.

It’s why we have foreign accents in second languages; we continue to refer to the phonological and phonetic rules of our mother tongue.

Our belief system works exactly the same way.

We grow up with a “mother belief system.” That’s what gets passed down to us from our parents and our environment growing up. Later, as we mature, we add on to that belief framework. We build on top of it.

Server Maintenance

Some people learn a foreign language “on the surface.” They learn the words, the conjugations, sentences…

But real language learning happens when you create a new framework for your new language. A new server to store the new words…

And a new operating system to plug into that server.

That’s when you understand — at a root level — how a speaker in that language thinks. That’s when you can take a new word you’ve never heard before and make it fit, just like a native speaker would.

Sometimes, we get things wrong in that new language. Someone corrects us. So we do some “server maintenance” or perform an update and fix the problem. We use the right word next time. We refer to the proper article.

Most of us do this type of maintenance on our belief system at several points in our lives.

If we move to a new country, we might experience culture shock, and later realize that our preconceived notions weren’t “the truth” because an entire society thinks very differently.

Learning a new language can have this same effect. You discover new idioms that clue you in to other people’s way of thinking.

Sometimes, things happen that change our operating systems. We lose something important. We get badly hurt.

And in some cases?

Someone else calls us out on our nonsense. Coaches are great for this. They ask you, “Is that really true?”

Some people can perform their own system updates. But sometimes, the belief is so ingrained that only someone who isn’t YOU can see it.

So if you realize you’re basing your life on pre-conceived notions that might not be serving you…

Here’s something you can do:

Speak with someone about it

When you talk about it, you’ll inadvertently say what you’re really thinking. Your beliefs will come out to the surface.

And if you’ve chosen a good friend…

They’ll let you know about it. Call you out on it.

Take that knowledge and perform some server maintenance.

It’s time for an upgrade.