Are you aware that you believe that?

Read time: 3-4 minutes (This is the first in a mini-series of posts about Beliefs and Fears.)

We all believe
You don’t have to be religious to believe in something; we all do it as a natural extension of our humanity. I don’t jump off skyscrapers because I believe in gravity and the consequences of coming to a quick stop at the end of a fall. I’m going to guess that many of you belong to that same belief system.

But I’m curious how many of us know what we truly believe.

There are three faces of belief:

Public Beliefs

These are the things that you profess to believe. They may be things that you hold as actual core beliefs or they may only be things you confess to fit in with your crowd of choice.

Private Beliefs

These are the things that you think you believe; those things that you tell yourself you hold to be true. Unlike public beliefs, these are much harder to identify as to whether or not they line up with your actual core beliefs. These are the things that you are convinced you believe.

Core Beliefs

This is the real meat. This is what you actually believe whether you know it and confess it or not. These are the things that are so ingrained in you that you naturally live according to them. In fact it’s possible that they are so ingrained in you that you aren’t even aware of them…even to the point of confessing a belief in something entirely different. These beliefs dictate how you live your life.

The question is this: do you know what your core beliefs are?

What do your actions show?
If you want to truly know what your core beliefs are, look at your actions.

You always live out your core beliefs. Always. Without a doubt. In fact, you can’t even help it. Everything you do is a direct result of a core belief that you have, whether you realize it or not.

Many times we are quick to confess publicly that we believe in something. If you’ve made it this far in the article, it’s possible that you have confessed belief in at least one of these areas:

• The importance of getting out of debt? You betcha!
• Spending time with your family and doing the things you love? Why, you’d have to be a fool to not agree with how important this is!
• “Lifestyle Design”? Sure, I believe in that.
• Leaving the “template life”? Of course!

So, we join little communities all around the internet and in ‘real life’ to be with others that confess to believe the same things. We start up groups and tribes and build up our social networks with other believers.

All of these are examples of our public beliefs.

“But, I’m not just someone who confesses to believe, I ACTUALLY believe!” we say. “I know these things are important. Every day I drive to work thinking about how amazing these things are. I fall asleep dreaming of what my life would be like to be out of my corporate world job and the template lifestyle. I do more than just confess belief, I actually believe!”

Those conversations and thoughts are examples of our private beliefs.

What do you think your actions show?
Let’s pretend for a moment you didn’t have your words to use in trying to convince me of your beliefs. Let’s imagine that all you have is the way you are living your life.

What would someone think you believe? Look at your average day and identify what ‘doctrine’ you are living our based on your actions. I’m not interested in what you profess with your mouth or what you tell yourself, tell me what your actions are actually showing.

The next post will dig into this more, but today look at your life and start identifying your core beliefs.

What do your actions show that you truly believe? And speaking of actions, I’d love for you to act on this post and leave some of your self observations in the comments below! (See what I did there, nice huh!)