You Can Make a New Decision

Today's practice: read today's message and reflect upon it as you go about your day.

I've changed my mind about plenty of things over the years.

I've taken jobs I thought would be perfect for me, only to discover they weren't. I've made plans that seemed like a great idea at the time, and I've had relationships with people I thought would be in my life forever.

And as I gained more experience and learned a little more about myself and the world, I made different decisions.

That's just part of life.

But what's interesting is that I've been much less willing to reconsider some of the decisions I've made about myself.

At some point, I decided I wasn't good enough. Or that I wasn't particularly good at certain things. Or that if I wanted something done right, I had to do it myself.

And the funny thing is, I probably didn't even realize I was making those decisions.

Maybe someone criticized something I did when I was young, and I decided I wasn't capable. Maybe I trusted someone who let me down, and I decided I couldn't rely on other people.

Whatever the experience was, I gave it a meaning. And then, without even realizing it, I started looking at everything else that happened through the lens of that decision.

If I made a mistake, it was proof that I didn't know what I was doing. If someone disappointed me, it confirmed that people couldn't be trusted. And each time something happened that seemed to support my original conclusion, that belief became a little more convincing.

After enough years, I wasn't even questioning it anymore. It was just the way things were.

And for a long time, when I became aware of one of these beliefs, I thought I needed to figure out how to change it. How to stop believing something I'd been telling myself for twenty or thirty years.

That seemed like a pretty big undertaking.

But then I came to understand something that completely changed the way I looked at personal growth.

Beliefs are decisions.

And while I might not know how to suddenly believe something different, I certainly know how to make a new decision. I've been doing that my entire life.

I can decide that I'm capable of learning something new, even if I've struggled with it before. I can decide that there are people I can trust and rely on, even if some people have disappointed me. I can decide that I have something valuable to contribute, even if I've spent years questioning whether I'm good enough.

And I don't have to force myself to feel completely convinced the moment I make that decision.

I can start looking for evidence.

I can remember the things I've learned that once seemed impossible, the people who have shown up for me, and the times I've made a difference in someone's life.

The more I give those experiences my attention, the more I begin to recognize that my old belief was never the whole story.

What I love about this distinction is that it gives me permission to reconsider conclusions I may have reached a long time ago, when I had far less experience and understanding than I do today.

I don't have to keep making the same decision about myself that I made when I was seven years old.

That decision may have made sense to me once.

It doesn't have to make sense to me forever.