Beliefs create reality

Beliefs are our brain’s way of making sense of and explaining the world around us. They originate from our environment and the events we live through, but at the end of the day, every belief originates with a choice.

Our life is shaped by our mind, for we become what we think.

As Nobel Prize–winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman and decision expert Gary Klein explain, intuitions are only trustworthy when people build up experience making judgments in a predictable environment.

Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Suffering follows an evil thought as the wheels of a cart follow the oxen that draws it.
Our life is shaped by our mind; we become what we think. Joy follows a pure thought like a shadow that never leaves.

What are our beliefs designed for? They’re the guiding force to tell us what will lead to pain and what will lead to pleasure.

A belief is a lever that, once pulled, moves almost everything in a person’s life. Are you a scientist? A liberal? A racist? These are merely species of belief in action. Your beliefs define your vision of the world; they dictate your behavior; they determine your emotional responses to other human beings. If you doubt this, consider how your experience would suddenly change if you came to believe one of the following propositions:

1. You have only two weeks to live.
2. You've just won the lottery prize of one hundred million dollars.
3. Aliens have implanted a receiver in your skull and are manipulating your thoughts.

These are mere words- until you believe them. once believed, they become part of the very apparatus of your mind, determining your desires, fears, expectations, and subsequent behavior.

In adaptive terms, belief has been extraordinarily useful. It is, after all, by believing various propositions about the world that we predict events and consider the likely consequences of our actions. Beliefs are principles of action: whatever they may be at the level of the brain, they are processes by which our understanding (and misunderstanding) of the world is represented and made available to guide our behavior.

Much of our life is guided by the beliefs we develop over the course of time; the story we create about what life’s about, how we’re supposed to be, what we’re supposed to do or give.

It's not the events of our lives that shape us, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.

We are shaped by our shaping of the world.

The social psychologist Tom Gilovich studies the cognitive mechanisms of strange beliefs. His simple formulation is that when we want to believe something, we ask ourselves, “Can I believe it?”28 Then (as Kuhn and Perkins found), we search for supporting evidence, and if we find even a single piece of pseudo-evidence, we can stop thinking. We now have permission to believe. We have a justification, in case anyone asks. In contrast, when we don’t want to believe something, we ask ourselves, “Must I believe it?” Then we search for contrary evidence, and if we find a single reason to doubt the claim, we can dismiss it.

Reality is created by the mind. We can change our reality by changing our mind.

Your thinking, more than anything else, shapes the way you live. It’s really true that if you change your thinking, you can change your life.