“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.”
What affects our decisions to use an external belief system versus our own internal beliefs?
Is it easier to simply use an external belief system and not have to think about what we truly believe? Why reinvent the wheel when someone has already thought about what to believe and we can just use that? Is it too much effort to question beliefs and arrive at your own beliefs?
Now that you have a GPS for your belief journey, from being a Vessel for external beliefs, through the Crossroads, and finally finding your own inner voice, do you have the courage to listen to and follow your inner voice?
When reflecting upon where we are on our belief journey, a Belief GPS Map might be a handy visual. If you imagined a GPS Map for your belief journey, would it look something like the Map below, with the three belief milestones along the top?
Vessel or external belief systems
Crossroads when beliefs collide
Self-Authorship of an internal belief system where you learn to analyze and assess different perspectives to reach your own beliefs
And the three dimensions of beliefs listed down the left side of the Map:
Self View, how you view yourself
Relationship View, how you construct relationships with others
World View, how you view the world
GPS MAP BELIEF JOURNEY
Belief Journey GPS Map
REFLECTION
Select where you believe you are now on the above GPS Map of beliefs journey. Check or mark ”I am here” for each of the three dimensions of self view, relationship view and world view.
Reflect back to the day when you selected Start Here to being your belief journey. Do you recall your beliefs on that day? Your conception of how you formed your beliefs? Did it seem they just magically appeared? Where were you on the GPS Map when you started?
Now, reflect upon where you are today with your beliefs? Reflect upon what you have learned about your own beliefs on this journey. How has this new information about beliefs changed how you view your own beliefs? How you view the beliefs of others?