The Healthy Management of Reality - Stanford University

Beliefs and ConsequencesThe third level of work in modifying your internal (mental) reality isidentifying and questioning your own beliefs. Beliefs can be helpful to you.Beliefs can also be harmful. Beliefs that are helpful and do not hurt you or othersare probably worth keeping. Beliefs that are harmful to you or others are probablyworth questioning.Given that many people have beliefs that contradict each other, I have overthe years given less importance to whether a belief is true or not, and moreimportance to the consequence of the belief. This is especially true in regard tobeliefs that are evaluative in nature, such as “I am a good _______ (parent, friend,worker, athlete, cook, and so on).” In most cases, it would be very hard to come toa unanimous decision about how good someone “really” is. There is a lot ofjudgment and personal preference involved in such statements. Yet, many peoplesuffer from believing that they are (and will always be) inadequate at somethingthey find important. In most cases, we are relatively good in some areas, and notas good in other areas. One does not have to be perfect to be good.HMOR.July2005.Muñoz.doc 78