How to Think Outside the Box
Your beliefs will determine how you recognize and pursue opportunity, friends, and colleagues. Get-It-Done Guy helps you think outside the box about how the world works, and the people within it.
We learned at age 2 that one box is fun, but many boxes make a cool fort! As we get older, we build more and more boxes in our minds. We call these “beliefs.” Some of the boxes work well for us! But some of those boxes can turn our fort into an asylum, complete with straitjackets.
In my episode on how to overcome limiting beliefs, I shared The Work of Byron Katie, one way to learn to think outside the box of your beliefs. I suggested you explore your beliefs about what is and isn’t possible for you to achieve. Today, we’ll learn about other boxes we use to build forts. Some of these boxes may be worth thinking outside of. Make sure you’ve listened to the overcoming limiting beliefs episode, since today’s episode assumes you know the technique of exploring outside your beliefs.
SPONSOR: This podcast is brought to you by MarketingProfs. MarketingProfs is a one-stop shop for marketing know-how. Join a community of more than 500,000 entrepreneurs, small-business owners, and professional marketers to get practical advice on marketing tips. Sign up for your free, basic membership today at https://mprofs.com/getitdone
Explore Beliefs About Cause and Effect
Some of the most powerful beliefs are beliefs about what causes what. If you believe that dancing around with a lampshade on your head waving a rubber chicken will cause people to like you, you’ll do that. You’ll do that at every available opportunity. We’ve all known someone like that. Heck, we’ve all been someone like that. And some of us figured out really quickly that it doesn’t work too well. Others have never challenged that belief.
In business, if you believe punishment gets people to work hardest, you’ll punish poor performers. If you believe that rewards get people to work hardest, you’ll offer incentives. If you believe that a good work environment makes people work hard, you’ll put efforts into creating a good work environment. Your beliefs about what causes what determine what you do to try to affect the world.
Breakthroughs happen when someone challenges beliefs about what causes what. Doctors used to believe an imbalance of bodily humors caused sickness. Then germ theory was invented, and as people began to believe germs caused sickness, medicine was revolutionized.
So how do we challenge our beliefs to create these personal breakthroughs? Here are two options:
Tip #1: Re-examine Your Understanding of Causality
Grab a piece of paper and think about a project you’re working on. Write a few paragraphs describing how you believe the project will play out. “We will hire Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan to give a parenting workshop, which will attract parents from surrounding communities. We will hire a marketing firm to design scratch-and-sniff invitations, because people always respond to cute small stuff. Parents will then buy hundreds of our new playpens for their small children.”
Your paragraph will be full of beliefs about what causes what. Go through those beliefs one by one and explore them thoroughly. It’s possible that they may be wrong, and you want to know that while it’s still possible to change the plan.
Get-It-Done Guy Insider Tip: Your beliefs about cause and effect when it comes to human behavior are probably among the most misguided beliefs you have. The human condition seems to be that we are much better at understanding the world than we are at understanding each other. It can be worth using this exercise to examine a personal project like, “Get my incompetent boss fired so I can take their place and become Grand Poohbah.”
Beliefs About People May Drive Your Behavior
In fact, that’s the second big category of driving beliefs: Beliefs about human nature. Some of the most powerful beliefs are about the motivations of other people.
Breakthroughs happen when someone challenges beliefs about what causes what.
Â
In high school, I hated this arrogant jerk Tom. And I knew he hated me, too. One day I called his house for a school project. His mother answered. I introduced myself and she said, “He talks about you all the time! He admires you so much! I want to meet you!” Tom became one of my best friends, his mother became my first business mentor, and that was my first lesson that our beliefs about people can be very, very wrong.
Wrong, yes. But our beliefs about people also become self-fulfilling. This is called the Rosenthal Effect, after researcher Robert Rosenthal, who first documented it. He took kids of equal ability and told teachers that half were slow and half were gifted. Two years later, the kids had performed according to the teachers’ beliefs, not according to their pre-existing abilities. The beliefs affected the teachers’ behavior in thousands of tiny ways and the kids responded by performing differently.
Examine your beliefs about people because your beliefs may determine their behavior much more than their behavior determines your beliefs!
Tip 2: Think Outside the Box About People
Think of someone at work you really despise. Label a sheet of paper “I despise so-and-so because…” List all the reasons. Then write, “That’s because he/she is…” and list all the personal qualities, habits of thought, that make this person the most vile cretin on the planet.
Now go through and investigate those thoughts using the exploration outlined in the episode on exploring beliefs. You’ll probably find that some of your perceptions and assumptions are subject to question. And a conversation or two with the horrible perpetrator might reveal a friend.
Your beliefs determine your world. Learn to challenge and explore them, so they become a launching pad, not a prison. Your beliefs about what causes what will determine what you do and don’t try. Your beliefs about other people will determine how they behave and whether you’ll make them friend or foe. If you want to get more done, you owe it to yourself to have beliefs that don’t just work, but that work for you!
This is Stever Robbins, super genius! I can help! Especially if you’re a CEO or entrepreneur who wants to make a huge difference in the world. If you want to know more, visit https://www.SteverRobbins.com.