It Took Me A While To Trust My Side-View Mirrors

When I was driving on the freeway switching lanes, something occurred to me: What was once a scary, uncertain, tenuous situation has become very commonplace.

I remember when I first started driving that I would check the side-view mirrors to see if there were cars in the lanes next to me. But further, I’d look left and right over my shoulders to see first-hand where the cars were. Obviously that’s way more dangerous to do, completely taking my eyes off of the road in front of me… But at the time it felt safer.

That’s because I didn’t fully trust what I was seeing in my side-view mirrors. The cost of getting it wrong was too grave to not verify there wasn’t a car in the lane next to me. Since it was all being reflected backwards, it took some time to be confident about what I was seeing in the orientation around me.

This is a great example of how beliefs work, actually. At first I didn’t have much evidence to suggest that what I was seeing in the side-view mirror was true. I’d look there and look over my shoulder to confirm. But once I did that enough times, I had enough evidence to confirm that, in fact, what I saw in the mirror matched what I saw in real life. I needed enough instances of experience to believe what I thought I was seeing.

Speed up to today where I have many years of driving experience and not a single reason to not believe what I see in my side-view mirror. I fully trust it. The same is possible for any belief. 

Hitting your sales quota for many years will convince you that you’re a good salesperson… 

Having a partner who holds space for you through many difficult times makes you believe it’s safe to be vulnerable with them… 

Our beliefs add meaning to our reality and create the emotional experience we perceive from different life events. And the best way to reshape your belief system is to collect so much proof that it’s unreasonable to believe that anything else could be true.

‍