In an experiment, researchers Rosenthal and Jacobsen focused on an elementary school where students took intelligence pre-tests. The researchers then informed the teachers of the names of 20% of students in the school who were showing “unusual potential for intellectual growth” and would bloom academically within one year. Unknown to the teachers, these students were selected randomly with no relation to the initial test. When Rosenthal and Jacobson tested the students eight months later, they discovered that the randomly selected students who teachers thought would bloom scored significantly higher.

This was termed the “Pygmalion Effect,” a psychological phenomenon wherein high expectations lead to improved performance in a given area. Rosenthal later explained, “when we expect certain behaviors of others, we are likely to act in ways that make the expected behavior more likely to occur.”

In this experiment, the key was teachers’ belief for select 20% of students that they have “unusual potential of intellectual growth.” This changed their attitude towards these bloomers, compared to the rest of the 80% students. They became more encouraging for these students despite the hiccups. Eventually, this positive environment reinforced a belief in these students that they can improve their performance, and so they did. You see, how a positive belief got projected from teachers to these students?

But adoption of beliefs in this manner is something all of us experience and understanding this is key to controlling the direction of our lives.

The Classroom that Shapes Us

It all starts during the formative years of childhood, especially in schools, where our performance decides the behavior of peers and elders towards us. To make it worse, sub-par performance can even get us the definitive label of “failed.” Slowly, the beliefs of others around us start rubbing off on us. We start believing things like “low marks make us a failure” or “only dumb people ask too many questions.”

As every action comes with such heavy judgements, our focus shifts from learning to evaluating: Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I look smart or dumb? And no one wants to be evaluated as negative, rejected, or dumb. So, to prove ourselves becomes an all-consuming goal.

As the desire to look smart and deserving takes over, we chase things that make us look our best all the time. We start avoiding challenges, give up way before a failure happens, and even start feeling threatened by other people’s success. To make it worse, we start ignoring negative feedback, taking it as an attack on our “smart” or “worthy” identity.

And guess what happens to a person who tries to appear right all the time, rather than learning from mistakes? They limit their growth. This mindset is called fixed mindset, a deterministic view of the world where you accept your personality and intelligence as a pair of hands you are dealt in poker, which you cannot do anything about, but just bluff as if you have a royal flush, even if you are really scared about them being a weak hand.

But the picture is not all gloomy. If limiting beliefs can lead to a fixed mindset then positive beliefs can lead to its polar opposite, a growth mindset.

When a child is encouraged to ask questions, taught to look at mistakes as lessons, and appreciated for their efforts, not results, a growth mindset is inculcated. This mindset is based on the belief that your basic qualities can be cultivated through your efforts. You do not seek external validation anymore. Why waste time proving yourself when you could be learning a new skill? Why seek friends who pump your self-esteem with lies when you could be with those who challenge you to grow?

The defining trait of people with a growth mindset is that they are willing to seek challenges in life as a way to stretch themselves, always pushing boundaries of what is possible. Naturally, a person with a growth mindset is bound to achieve higher levels of success than someone with a fixed mindset.

But if success seems so straightforward, then why is it still a rare thing?

The Real Deal

Self-help is an evergreen category of literature. For generations, people have been addicted to motivational content, often stories of how someone made the seemingly impossible happen, and how everyone else can do it too. These books, often with titles like You are limitless, even give a blueprint to success. But do all their readers succeed in achieving their dreams?

Remember: BELIEFS > MINDSET > ACTIONS > RESULTS.

While self-help and biographical accounts provide momentary motivation, the momentum dies soon and most people fall back to their old ways of life. That’s because reading something does not change the mental wiring set by years of conditioning since childhood. These stories surely strike a spark in the reader, but the boundaries set by beliefs hold them as prisoners.

Changing what we believe is a war against our old self. It is to kill our existing identity and adopt a new one, and that is probably one of the most important and toughest tasks you will ever do.

As such, a belief is an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. For example, one could have a belief that the earth is flat. But our beliefs easily turn into a bias, mostly due to years of repetition and emotional investment. A person operating under “belief bias” assumes ahead of time that they know what the outcome of a situation will be and uses that belief to distort the results unconsciously. For example, the same person with belief in flat earth could go to any length to prove their belief correct, like denying the contrary evidence by blaming scientists as messengers of the devil.

Similarly, when people with limiting beliefs like “wealthy people are evil,” or “natural talent is needed to be successful,” read an inspirational story, even though they feel motivated, they sabotage themselves to justify their beliefs. Their beliefs act as Resistance (more on this in the Tree of Life – Level 3) by blaming society, rationalizing the dream as silly, or inducing fear for negative outcomes. Eventually, the beliefs win, and the dreams die.

And this brings us to the purpose of this mission: to challenge and change the frame of your reality.

The Eye of the Beholder

Start with a clean slate, a Kosmik perspective: Reality is neutral, neither good nor bad.

Even though people often say things like “good things happen to good people,” history tells us that even “good” people can die in accidents, get assassinated, betrayed, or lose all their wealth. At the same time, even the cruelest of people can have great lives.

Reality is neutral. The universe does not care about your deeds (but you should).

This can seem non-sensical and demotivating to some, but at the same time, it is one of the most liberating things. Hear us out. We see reality filtered by the lens of our beliefs and thoughts. As a puppy is born, so is a slug. Life flows. It is our perception that makes one appear good and another bad. Where one sees a glass-half-full, another sees a glass-half-empty.

It is primarily due to the human curiosity and desire to understand everything that we came up with concepts like “good” and “evil,” but nature does not really care. When a lion kills a deer, is it subject to God’s punishment? No. If you are the sole breadwinner of your family but sacrifice your life protecting a stranger, does it guarantee that God will provide for your family? No.

In the words of Seneca, “Religion is regarded by the common people as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful.” God is a belief. We can neither prove nor deny God’s existence. And so is the case with every other belief. Its power lies in its utility. If a belief in God keeps the society progressive and civilized, then all the power to God.

Similarly, if your beliefs like “good things happen to good people” help you overcome the challenges in this random life, all the power to it. But by the same token, you should look for the weeds of your mind, the limiting beliefs which turn you against your own growth, and get rid of them or replace them with something that empowers you.

The moment you adopt this neutral perspective, you gain the power to transform reality. You realize the power of your thoughts and actions: reality is whatever you make out of it.

Indeed, beauty is in the eye of the beholder.