Many people are not aware of how important it is to know these things. They are the major drivers for our actions and most people do not either know them, understanding how they interact, or how they are created and changed. It is important to know them because our actions or lack of actions is a direct correlation between their alignment or misalignment with each other (barring mental health conditions).
First let’s start with a definition of each. Major beliefs are beliefs we feel are universal to everyone. They are beliefs like “Everything happens for a reason,” “God has a plan for everyone,” “When we die, our essence continues into another life,” and/or “When we die, that is the end of our existence completely.” These beliefs we believe exist for ALL humanity and life.
Next we have minor beliefs. These beliefs are ideas about ourselves and our own lives. These beliefs can be “I am capable of doing anything I set my mind to,” “I am completely responsible for my life,” and/or “I can’t do anything right / I am a failure.” These minor beliefs are ideas we carry specifically for ourselves.
Lastly, we have values. These values are the things/areas of life that we want/treasure/desire. They can be values like independence, health, relationships, success, family. They are the cause of our happiness, sadness, frustration and other emotions we experience. When we get something we value, we are usually happy. When we don’t get the things we value or our value of something is dishonored/disrespected, we become upset or angry. Our values usually stem from our beliefs.
So why is this so so so important? I work with many clients who say they want to have/experience something but fail to take action on them or find themselves inconsistently taking action on them. Other times, my clients find themselves doing something repeatedly and don’t know how to stop. For some people who are very disciplined, they can use that muscle/tool to develop better actions and habits. However, most people do not have that tool or struggle to use that tool consistently. The reason is because their major, minor, and values are in conflict.
Major beliefs influence Minor beliefs which create our Values which causes us to think and feel which then causes us to act.
Here’s an example. A person wants to start their own business. They want to start their own business because they want the freedom to create their own schedule and live on their own terms. They may be very clear on the value of this and have all the reasons in the world to why this is the right thing for them to do. However, they continually find themselves not working on this goal after work, during lunch, before work, etc. After continued dedication and rededication to this goal, they finally give up and self determine that they are just too lazy to do it.
However, if we look deeper into the situation, we can uncover that the root of the inaction can lie in some misalignment of one or multiple of these facets. From a value perspective, there can be conflicting values. They may value freedom but they also value comfort and at the end of the work day, their value of comfort is stronger than their value for future freedom. On the minor belief side, they may believe that they are “not a capable person,” and therefore even though they want something, they don’t believe they can actually achieve it so they don’t bother to start in the first place. On the major belief side, it could be a belief that “everything happens for a reason,” so they think it will happen if the time is right and if it was meant for them. Therefore why “force” themselves to figure it out and/or take action to do it. With misaligned beliefs and values, we will struggle to consistently work towards obtaining our goals, desires, and values.
So what to do about this? First it’s important to uncover one’s major and minor beliefs and values. This is no small task and will be a topic for another post. The second thing to do is to learn how to let go and rewrite beliefs and narratives. If we can clearly see our major and minor beliefs and our values, we can start to put them into alignment and then more easily take actions towards our goals.
Take the time to invest in building your self-awareness
We all want to achieve, experience, and feel life to the fullest. It can be difficult to do if our major, minor, and beliefs are not in alignment. Our continued inaction or counter productive action can seem like an unsolvable problem or mystery but it’s not. It’s simply this misalignment of one or more of these areas. Align these and watch life begin to become much easier and find yourself more effortlessly pursuing your goals and dreams.