BELIEF

as the basis of
Creative
Expression
PRESENTATIONS !

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 Personal Values

Personal Values are “broad desirable goals that motivate

people’s actions and serve as guiding principles in their
lives".
Everyone has values, but each person has a different value
set. These differences are affected by an individual's culture,
personal upbringing, life experiences, and a range of other
influences.
Personal values are desirable to an individual and represent
what is important to someone. The same value in different
people can elicit different behaviours, eg if someone values
success one person may work very hard to gain success in
10 motivationally distinct types of values
as listed below: e.g freedom, creativity
1.Self-direction
2.Stimulation e.g. exciting life, daring
3.Hedonism e.g. pleasure, self-indulgent
4.Achievement e.g. ambitious, successful
5.Power e.g. wealth, authority
6.Security e.g. social order, family security, cleanliness
7.Conformity e.g. politeness, self-discipline, respect
8.Tradition e.g. respect for traditions, modest, humble, devout
9.Benevolence e.g. loyal, responsible, helpful, forgiving
10.Universalism e.g. equality, wisdom, world of peace, social
justice, protecting the environment

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 Personal
Beliefs

“Core beliefs are defined as fundamental, inflexible,

absolute, and generalised beliefs that people hold about
themselves, others, the world, and/or the future” .We
use beliefs to help us understand the world around us. A
person’s beliefs will guide them in their decision making
and response to situations. Beliefs are usually formed in
childhood or any other significant formative experience.
 Sources of
Beliefs

• Evidence – logical and rational formation of belief based on

evidence that proves causation
• Tradition - family and societal traditions
• Authority - normally developed from a parent but could also
be a religious leader, teacher or any other person in authority
• Association - beliefs can be formed through people or groups
we associate with
• Revelation - beliefs that are formed through ‘divine
intervention” a hunch, inkling or sixth sense

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Types of Beliefs – Enabling and
Limiting
Beliefs can be seen as enabling (positive) or limiting (negative).
Enabling beliefs are ones that are optimistic and show good self-efficacy or the belief in
yourself that you can achieve something.
Examples of enabling/ positive beliefs
•I am intelligent
•I am worthy
•I always try my best
•I am hardworking

Negative beliefs are thought as limiting and they often hold one back in life. Limiting
beliefs are often seen in absolutes and are often inaccurate and unhelpful. People with
limiting beliefs can often be judgmental of oneself or of others.
Examples of limiting/ negative beliefs
•I am weak
•I am boring
•I am stupid
•I always fail
•I am worthless
Beliefs, positive or negative, are not always true and this can lead a person to make
poor decisions based on inaccurate beliefs. Research shows that people with
inaccurate negative beliefs about themselves can present with symptoms of anxiety
and depression 6
5 Beliefs
That
Impact
Your
Creativity
 Creativity is the energy of change, and the big question of our
lives is how to tap into it, because change is unceasing and can
throw a curve to predicted outcomes of our best efforts. Even
change that we choose or aspire to can feel threatening and
emotionally-charged. We all share the challenge of navigating
this sea of continuous change at an ever-increasing pace but
not everyone is sold on the idea that we all share the capacity
to be creative, which is the unique and powerful province of
uncertainty and risk. Adopting these 5 beliefs about creativity
can help cultivate the mindset for applying it in real life
situations.
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You are a
creative
person
Creativity is the part of every
human being that allows us
to see situations from a new
perspective, to solve a
problem when the old ways
are not working — like
figuring out a way to get the
baby to take their medicine,
or how to talk to mom when
her memory is failing. In The
Courage To Create,
psychologist and researcher
Rollo May describe creativity
as “the process of bringing
something new into being. It
brings to our awareness what
was previously hidden and 9 9
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Creativity is the ability
to adapt and grow
Creativity is like the “push” within a seed that
propels it to form roots growing downward and
tiny shoots that grow upward with enough
force to defy gravity and break through the
ground. It is the unseen current within all life
that turns acorns into oaks. And in our own
lives and inner selves, that “push” is the
creative energy that human beings can direct
toward realizing dreams, growing into more
evolved versions of ourselves and flowing with
the changes we cannot control. The
relationship between change and the creative
force is, perhaps, best understood by looking
at nature where change is continuous and
unstoppable. For a cell, it is either change or
die. A naturally-occurring enzyme within the
cell facilitates a series of stages that results in
transformation, and the process itself liberates
energy at specific points, which is then
available for use in other pathways.
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 3
Discomfort is an
important feeling
structure and predictability produce
mental patterns that streamline our
thinking process and save us from having
to relearn the same things over and over.
Disruption to these patterns can be
tough, even painful depending on the
cause, because they are protected by an
arsenal of defences that can trigger
intense emotional reactions when
challenged. Discomfort can be an
important signal that we have pushed
past a boundary and are truly entering
the unfamiliar, which means we are on
the pathway to important change.

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 4
Belief in our own
creative capacity
grows through
developing skills
Believing that we can control outcomes is self-defeating
because thereover time.
are so many external forces with which we must
interact in a complex world. A creative mindset aims at a vision
or goal knowing that the process of realizing it may have
unexpected twists that take us in a new — sometimes better,
sometimes just unavoidable — direction. The sense of threat
that comes with great uncertainty is best addressed with an
abundance of skill, and focusing on getting better at specific
skills not only absorbs and engages with anxiety about the
unknown, it actually reinforces our belief that creativity is a
readily available resource.

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 5
Effort and
persistence are more
important than talent
or intelligence. Keep
going.
he psychological “muscle” we need to grow and expand develops through repetition over
time in the same way that a musician or dancer gains “muscle memory” that translates into
the fluid movement through which artistic expression can flow. In her book Mindset: The
Psychology Of Success Stanford University researcher Carol Dweck demonstrates that we
can develop what she calls a “growth” mindset — centered in the belief that our most basic
abilities can be enhanced through hard work and dedication, “that brains and talent are just
the starting point.” Her work shows that even seemingly small social-psychological
interventions that target limiting, self-negating thoughts and feelings can lead to deep,
sustainable change. The repeated practice of new thinking, behaviors, or roles long enough
for them to gain traction forms the basis of a new mindset that gives rise to a greater sense
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Modification of Core Beliefs

Once limiting beliefs have been identified modification of these beliefs will help to reframe
them into enabling beliefs. Reframing beliefs is not a simple task as negative beliefs are often
deeply rooted. Describes various strategies that can be applied to modify core beliefs.

1.Define the core belief

1. Explore how the belief fits into every aspect of your life
2.Examine the evidence
1. Critical examination of the evidence that led you to develop the initial belief.
3.Advantages – Disadvantages analysis
1. Review the advantages and disadvantages of a belief to help see the usefulness of the
belief in one’s life
4.Behavioural experiments
1. Beliefs result in particular behaviour eg if you believe “people don’t care what I think”
you may not contribute when asked about a project at work. By changing your behaviour
e.g. contributing to a discussion, you may change your belief by discovering that people
do care about what you think.
2. Behavioural experiments are used in Pain management programmes where you would
use graded exposure in someone with fear avoidance to show them that their belief that
movement will make them worse may not be true.
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1.Acting “as if”
1. Similar to a behavioural experiment, you would act in opposition to your negative
belief.
2.Cognitive continuum
1. Critical analysis of reframing all or nothing beliefs by using a comparative scale
with regards to other people
3.Historical tests
1. Examine past incidents where one has implemented a negative core belief and re-
evaluate what actually happened. for example, if a belief was “I am unimportant”
you may look back at a time when your parents prioritised your sibling over
yourself, but on critical evaluation, you realise that at that stage in life your sibling
needed more help from your parent rather than you are less important to them.
4.Restructuring early memories
1. Psychologists can be helpful in restructuring early memories to reframe beliefs
5.Defining the “new self”
1. Identify who they would like to be
6.Soliciting social support and consensus
1. Use social support to help them
7.Time Projection
1. Imagine what life will be like if with their “new” beliefs

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 THANK YOU

Neal Creative ©