How Your Beliefs Create Your Reality (The Science of Self-Fulfilling Prophecies)

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out there and you love this podcast, do me one favor, share it with one person right now. Just find an episode that you love, text it to a friend, say you gotta listen to this just so we can impact more people and hopefully change the world in a small little way. Today, we're gonna be talking about how your thoughts actually shape and change your reality around you. And I'm not gonna talk about it just in a woo-woo sense.

0:38I'm actually going to talk in a very psychological and scientific sense to give you an idea of how your brain works and how it actually changes what you see in the world. Because your mind is a extremely complex web of thoughts and beliefs and experiences and perceptions. And all of them, all of the thoughts and everything that goes through your head, the beliefs, the perceptions, all of those things influence how you interact with the world every single day. And the stories that go on in your head and what you think about yourself and the world and other people actually shape your reality. And without you realizing it, they create these self-fulfilling prophecies.

1:23And that's where your expectations and your beliefs about yourself and others in the world directly impact the outcomes. Your belief about something impacts the outcome on that thing and then what you actually see in your reality. And once you start to really get into this, you realize that it's not seeing is believing. Like we've always heard the phrase seeing is believing. That's not the truth. Believing is seeing. You will see in your reality whatever it is that you believe. You'll see it. And then as you think about it more, you'll create an irreality. When you look at the word abracadabra, most people think abracadabra is when a magician pulls a rabbit out of a hat.

2:07But abracadabra is a Hebrew word that means as I speak, I create. As I speak out of my mouth, I create my reality around me. Well, if I'm thinking something, what is that? That's speaking in my head. So shit, that means that as I think, I create as well. And so when you look at self-fulfilling prophecies, a self-fulfilling prophecy is when your expectations or beliefs about a situation or the outcome of it cause that situation or that outcome to actually occur. And so this was coined by sociologist Robert Merton. And this was back in 1948. He described it as a false definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true.

2:54And so it is, okay, I think this thing's going to happen. And because I think this thing is going to happen, it evokes a new behavior in me which makes that thing actually happen, which is why it's so important for us to really figure out what our beliefs are about ourself, about other people, about the world, because whatever we believe will change the way that we act and however we act will give us different outcomes. And so a person's perception and expectations make them create a new behavior based off of how they are filtering the world, which then makes their expectations come true. It's wild.

3:32I think if people could really understand how incredibly powerful their beliefs are and their thoughts are, they would pay more attention to both of them. Like I say to people, you know, religious or not, just think about this. And I've been thinking about this in my own head for months now, and I've been starting to say it to people. What if every thought, like if you believe that there's a higher power in some sort of way, what if every thought that you have is you just praying that thing to God? No matter what it is, good, bad, what would you think differently? if every thought was just a prayer, hey, I want this thing to happen, hey, maybe you should pay attention to what's going on inside of your head a little bit more.

4:09And so if you've heard me talk about the reticular activating system, which is inside of your head, I'll give you a quick little rundown of it if you haven't heard me talk about it before. The reticular activating system in your brain, neurologically, is a system that filters the immense amounts of information that we receive from our environment and determines what we pay attention to. And so like if I say to you right now, and you're probably not thinking about this right now, but if I say now think about the bottom of your left foot, well, now you can feel the bottom of your left foot, couldn't you?

4:42Well, it's not that you couldn't feel it before. It's just that now you're taking your actual thoughts and paying attention to it. It's not that it wasn't there before. It's that your brain was filtering it out because it wasn't something you needed to focus on. And so why does the reticular activating system exist? least, well, you know, estimates show that our sensory organs, all five of our senses, you know, sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell, take in roughly about 11 million bits of information per second. That's why if I say like, hey, pay attention to your butt on the seat right now. Oh, it was always, your brain was always feeling it, but you just were filtering it out.

5:20Now you're paying attention to it. And so 11 million bits of information per second is what they can take in, but that's not what comes through. Your reticular activating system filters 11 million bits of information to 40 bits of information per second. So almost all of the 11 million bits of information are filtered out. The reticular activating system is basically like the bouncer at the door. I'll give you an example. If there's a bouncer who's going to get fired tonight unless he lets in 200 women, he's not going to notice any of the guys walking on the street. He's only going to see the girls and he's going to try to find girls in the street and say, hey, ladies, you want to come in?

6:00Because he doesn't want to be fired. So he's not noticing the men. He's only looking at the women. That's how you're, well, if you think to yourself the same way, I'm not good enough. Well, then you're going to filter out all of the ways that you are good enough and you're only going to see the ways that you're not good enough. And so your reticular activating system, the reason why I'm bringing this up is because it plays a really big role in self-fulfilling prophecies because it filters information according to your beliefs. which then draws your attention to the things that confirm your beliefs and then ignores or downplays the information that contradicts them.

6:34And so the reticular activating system essentially works behind the scenes. You're not paying attention to it, but it works behind the scenes to help you selectively notice the things that you already expected to see. And so this selective focus helps explain why self-fulfilling prophecies end up happening. and it explains why so many people like one of the things I hear from a lot of people is that it's hard to take compliments and the reason why is because somebody will say something nice to you that doesn't line up with what you think of yourself because you don't think something nice of yourself and it's causing this cognitive dissonance where it's like I'm not letting that in I can't let that in it's so hard for so many people because it's just the exact opposite of what they believe about themselves and so I'll give you a couple of examples of how the self-fulfilling prophecies happened based off of your beliefs, based off of your reticular activating system, and how that actually creates your reality.

7:25So let's say that there's a man and he falls in love with this woman. And he's so in love with her and he's never felt so much love his entire life. And she ends up cheating on him and he gets heartbroken. And it's just the worst pain he's ever felt in his entire life. And so because he doesn't want to ever feel that pain And again, he starts to unconsciously or maybe consciously think that he can't trust women. So he's like, I don't know if I can trust women. I might get screwed over again. So maybe he gets into another relationship and he starts to like her. And then maybe he gets too overbearing because he wants to make sure she doesn't cheat on him because he's been hurt before.

8:03He doesn't want to be hurt again. And so he's so overbearing that even though she likes him, she ends up leaving him because she's like, I can't take this. and it breaks his heart again because he didn't trust her. And so he created the thing that he was most afraid of. And so he created the heartbreak again because of his beliefs based off of past results, which then create the same circumstance again, which is why people tend to date the same people. People tend to get stuck in the exact same loops in their life and their fears and their limiting beliefs is because of their beliefs that are running in the background.

8:36That is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Another example you could take is like, for instance, let's say there's a student who believes that they're bad at math. They will unconsciously focus more on all of the challenges and difficulties that they face in math class than the things that aren't as hard for them. And so the reticular activating system highlights every mistake, every single struggle, which then reinforces the belief that math is difficult for them. and then if they get a decent grade, let's say they get a B, they'll be like, well, I must have gotten lucky or it must have been an easy exam.

9:12Everybody probably got a great grade. And so they basically just disregard the data that proves that they are not bad at math because it doesn't line up what they think about themselves. And so when they constantly focus on the failures and the struggles, it causes them to approach math with hesitation or anxiety in some sort of way. And so maybe because of that, They get into math and they don't study as hard in math because it makes them feel anxious and they already know I'm bad at math, so why would I study? And then they don't study and they're like, what's the point? And then they end up taking the test and it causes them to perform badly and then reinforce the initial belief.

9:55It's just a self-fulfilling prophecy and the self-fulfilling prophecies, if we don't interrupt them and interrupt our beliefs, end up creating these patterns where we feel like we're stuck in these loops. You know, on the other side of that, like if you're a student who thinks that you're good in math, like I think I'm good in math. I remember many times throughout my, you know, high school years and elementary school years and all this where I was really good in math. So if on the other side, you have a student who believes that they're good in math, their reticular activating system will attune to the signs of improvement or progress and success and ways that they had good math exams.

10:29And that will reinforce their belief. and then if that reinforces their belief, they're more likely to excel in math. And so over time, the positive feedback loop helps them perform better, proving their initial belief right. Your beliefs and thoughts that are going through your head of what you think of yourself and the world and other people will always manifest in reality because you're the one that's creating your reality. You know, I'll give you one more example, right? Let's go to social interactions. Let's say that there's somebody who thinks that they are socially awkward. Well, then they have to enter a room.

11:07Let's say it's a friend's wedding. They have to go to the friend's wedding. It's their best friend. So they might enter the wedding and they focus on other people's body language or reactions to them. And they're like, oh, that person, I must be, they must think something of me. They must think that I'm awkward or they're kind of looking away. So they must be disinterested or they're, you know, they're not really comfortable around me. and the reticular activating system will zero in on every awkward situation or awkward pause or failed joke or thing that they said that could have been taken out of context and it will reinforce the belief that they're not good in social situations.

11:45On the opposite side of that, someone who views himself as confident or someone who feels like they're outgoing, the reticular activating system will focus on signs of positive engagement and positive reactions from other people. And when they said that one joke and everybody laughed. And that, once again, creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where they perceive themselves as likable and confident and outgoing, and they receive social validation, which reinforces that belief. The reticular activating system ensures that your attention is consistently drawn to evidence that supports your self-image.

12:19So whatever you think about yourself, this is why I always say like your identity is the most important thing that you can tackle. Because whatever you think about yourself, your reticular activating system will ensure that your attention is consistently drawn to prove your identity true. So you create what you think you are and what you think that the world is as well. And this is why analyzing your beliefs is so important and why I just go hard, I like harp on analyzing your beliefs. And this is the reason why is because you're going to create that reality. You know, the perception is reality.

12:55It's because what you think you will see and you will create the reality that you see. And so self-fulfilling prophecies can be good, but self-fulfilling prophecies can also be bad. It's based off of what you think inside of your own head. And the crazy part about it is it doesn't just affect you, it affects other people as well. And so when you look at self-fulfilling prophecies, you also have self-fulfilling prophecies for other people's selves. So there's a thing that I've talked about in podcast episodes before called the Pygmalion effect. And it happens when one person's expectations for another person actually changes that other person's behavior and makes that become a reality.

13:31And so there's a study that's really famous that's around this that's done in 1968 by Rosenthal and Jacobson where they took students and they went to certain teachers and they were like, hey, these students, first day of school, these students are what we are going to call growth spurters. We think based off of their IQ tests, they're going to have the biggest jump in their IQs over the next year. And the problem with that, though, is that they were just random students. They didn't look at their IQs. They didn't do anything. And they just said, hey, these seven kids in your class. But the teacher didn't know that.

14:05The teacher thought, these students are going to be my best students. And so they did this with many teachers. And then after a year, those students that they said were going to be the quote unquote growth spurters showed significant increase in performance over the academic year compared to the other children. And it didn't come from their innate capabilities. It came because of the teacher's expectations and beliefs in them. This is wild if you really think about it. Teachers were told that this group of kids were smarter. The teachers treated them as such. They put more time into them. They challenged them more.

14:41And those kids had more significant jumps in their scores than the rest of the children. That had nothing to do with who the kids were because they're just random children, but because of the teacher's expectations of just them. That is a self-fulfilling prophecy. So then you're like, oh shit, what do I think about everybody else around me? Because I'm also creating their lives based off of what I think about them. And so when you see this, how do we actually start to overcome and unravel all of this? You know, when you understand how the reticular activating system influences and creates self-fulfilling prophecies, it gives you a kind of like a roadmap for overcoming negative thought patterns and then creating new outcomes in your life.

15:20So step one is this. You need to become more self-aware. Self-awareness is the key to overcoming negative beliefs. You cannot change something that you're not aware of. And so you have to think about the thoughts and find the beliefs, unravel the beliefs that dominate your mind. This is why you need to be silent more. Well, you need to listen to what's going on in your head. You need to pay attention to what's going on in your head. You need to get curious about what you think about. The more you can recognize these beliefs that your reticular activating system is filtering for, the more you can consciously change it.

15:49So the first thing is you've got to become aware of them. The second thing is you've got to challenge negative beliefs. If you have a belief that says, I'm not good in business or the opposite sex is not attracted to me or I'll always be ugly or I'll always be poor, you have to identify those negative beliefs and then once you identify them you need to challenge them with logic and evidence like okay if you think you'll always be poor are you telling me that when you were born into this world the very first day that you hear that it was written into the fabric of the universe that you were always going to be poor no so is that absolute truth or is that just what you think is true well it's not absolute truth because it wasn't written into the fabric of the universe so you're always going to be poor okay well then where does that belief live in your head.

16:35It doesn't live in reality because your reticular activating system will continue to filter for things that align with your dominant beliefs. And so you've got to actively seek out evidence that contradicts your limiting beliefs about yourself to shift focus. If you want to free yourself, like if you really want to free yourself, you've got to stop trying to prove your beliefs right and you've got to start trying to prove your beliefs wrong about everything in your world. Because a belief is basically a prison that your mind is stuck in. And if you can prove that it is wrong, you can start to free yourself from it.

17:13But most people in this world are not interested in proving their beliefs wrong. They want to prove themselves right. They want to, we all have in psychology something called a confirmation bias. Our confirmation bias wants us to prove ourselves right. The people who want to free themselves need to prove themselves wrong. Any way that you're holding yourself back, any thought or limiting belief or fear that is holding you back, you need to be able to find evidence to prove it wrong. It seems counterintuitive to try to prove yourself wrong, but your beliefs are what are keeping you trapped. And so that's the second thing.

17:44And then the third thing is this, is you need to set your internal GPS every day. You need to get clear on what you wanna think, what you wanna believe, and how you want to feel. You need to sit in silence or journal about it or meditate about it or do breath work and think about how you want to think today, what you want to believe today, what you want to feel today. And repeat affirmations, mantras, statements of what you want to believe about yourself in the world. Because what you have to understand is that your old beliefs are basically you unconsciously brainwashing yourself to believe something.

18:17Well, now that you're aware, why don't we consciously, not we, why don't you consciously brainwash yourself? Not anybody else, not your parents, not your teachers from childhood. You're an adult. It's time for you to brainwash what you want to believe about yourself. And if you start to brainwash yourself to believe something different, guess what's going to happen in your reality? It's going to change and it's going to shift. Why? Because of the self-fulfilling prophecies. And if you change your beliefs, your reality has to shift as well. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you enjoyed this episode, please text us to someone that you know and someone that you love.

18:54say, hey, I think you love this episode. You can share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you want to learn more about coaching with me outside of just this podcast, you can go to coachwithrob.com. Once again, coachwithrob.com. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.