HOW ARE THOSE GOALS COMING ALONG? THATO CHOMA ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOALS, VALUES AND BELIEF SYSTEMS

The Beautiful Pracise
Feb 7, 2025
4 min read

Updated: Feb 9, 2025

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOALS, VALUES AND YOUR BELIEF SYSTEM

A belief system is how people have structured their experiences, values, and principles, which inform their lifestyle, choices, and how they function. These interact with each other through experiences and ultimately become the worldview of that person, therefore influencing how and why they operate. A belief system is influenced by the environment. The interpretation of events by that person is the strongest influence on a belief system.

Belief systems change over time depending on your environment, and sometimes your life stage can trigger certain changes in that belief system. They are deeply embedded and often difficult to trace back in terms of how they have been formed; however, they are impactful enough to entrench themselves into how we behave and respond to life.

FACTS VERSUS INTERPRATATION

The catch of it is that just because you believe it, it doesn’t mean it’s true, which makes it critical to ensure that your belief system has truth, facts, and interpretations that support where you want to be in life.

A doctor of mine calls a dysfunctional belief system a F.L.O.P, a Fundamental Life Operating Principle. FLOP is a system that has been consistently applied across your own life, by yourself, but doesn’t seem to work properly. It operates because you keep it alive with your thoughts and interpretations, and it flops because you either keep not meeting your goals, or what you desire doesn’t seem to transpire. The system reinforces behaviors that then become your brand, affecting what you do, how you do it, why you do it, how it looks, and ultimately how it’s received.

Here is how you can assess the strength of your belief system, and then make some changes.

TRUE OR FALSE?

For something to be true, it has to be true everywhere. Check aspects in your belief system that fulfil the following criteria for truth:

Can this be consistently applied in every setting, context and situation?
Is there logic to what you belief and data to prove it.
Is it scientific or supported by Science.

These can save you from the critical errors we make about what actually happened versus how we experienced it and what we took from it.

CHOOSE YOUR LANGUAGE

Does your language match where you want to go, who you are and the current situation. Is the language accurate to the situation? Langauage is very powerful and it is essential to be as accurate as possible about it, because the words flow from you, and out into the world. Make sure it’s nourishing, necessary and moves you in the direction to which you choose to move - forward and up.

TELL. YOURSELF A BETTER STORY

Because “What is the truth” is controversial and debatable, one needs to ask themselves, “What genuinely supports me to move forward with my life”? And this is miles better than believing something else that doesn’t fulfil the criteria at all.

VALUES MATTER

Our values build on our belief system subconciously and consiously. Values are what guides our decions and help sort through conflicting situations and the different choices we have to make. They help us set goals, priorities and shape the congruency of our personal brand (our identity). Because a FLOP is not easily detectable, one can discover through a self-introspective process that their values and belief systems are not in alignment, and instead are manifesting actions that aren’t congruent with what they say they are all about. This is also what contributes to inauthenticity, when there is no clear follow through and alignment of values and belief systems.

Defining our values is helpful because we can start to sift out the incongruence of our lives if our priorities AND beliefs don’t match up.

ITS A GOAL!

It shows through the goals we set, why we set them and whether they are achieved or not. This is further reflected in our time spend. If your goal is to become a specialist oneday, does your current time spend reflect that? And check your language. Is your language supportive of your goal, are you saying “I don’t have time to study”, or “How can I create time to study?” Your language and the truth need to move closer together.

GOALS CONNECTED TO VALUES ARE MORE SUCCESSFUL

Goals help you live out values, therefore further strengthening your personal brand, how you present yourself, utimately how you are received.

WHY GOALS HELP

It helps you focus. Multiple activities can bring miscreate a stressfilled life because multiple activities present many variables to measure, which can be difficult to keep up with. Measuring your goals supports the evaluation of our belief system because measuring is often presented in data or science, which helps you formulate language that is true and responsible.
Goals give us responsibility and a sense of purpose.
The biggest thing on goals boils down to how you spend your time. If we all have 24 hours in a day, what are you doing with it and how does it show?

If your time spend, your values, your priorities and your goals are not meeting in the middle, it often means the belief system needs to be addresed.

Questions you can ask yourself as you review your goals

What do I want by when?
Why do I want this?
What value does it align with it?
What is the goal I have been setting that I am not achieving? If yes, review your belief system.
Then move into setting a SMART goal. Be as Specific as you can about what you want and what it will take. Find a way to Measure how close you are getting to your goal. Make sure it’s Ambitious and Achievable. Make sure it’s relevant to your life stage. Make sure it has a time frame, this keeps it interesting and puts a sense of time respect for life and yourself. This also goes with understanding how much time it’s likely going to take daily, up until you reach your goal.