Welcome to our ADULT LIFE DECISIONS Series. These posts are about the adults in the lives of children because children deserve caring, healthy adults taking care of them. It is designed to help adults become more aware of their own potential as they strive to make the best lives possible for themselves and their children. Each posting will explore life decisions adults are faced with and how they can update those decisions to be sure they are helpful to them in their current life circumstances. 

To get the most from this post …

READ FIRST the earlier posts:  

• Recycling

• Eight Adult Life Decisions

• Your “Best Fit” Life Decision Area

• Successful Recycling

• Belief Systems = Helpful Life Decisions

• Understanding Communication

• Giving, Receiving, Accepting Supportive Messages

• Internal Rules of Communication

A “Thinking for Yourself” Belief System

What does a strong, supportive belief system sound like? As an example of how belief systems work in supporting recycling, in this post we will explore the specifics of a belief system that supports  THINKING FOR YOURSELF life decisions (which includes decisions about Solving Problems). Because many of our readers are parents, teachers, or caregivers of preschool age children who are in the THINKING FOR YOURSELF childhood developmental stage and  adults often recycle life decisions that match the types of decisions their children are making as they move through childhood developmental stages, it is logical to assume that many of our readers may also be recycling Thinking for Yourself life decisions.

Believing the things below about yourself, others, and the world around you can help you make helpful satisfying decisions about THINKING FOR YOURSELF which includes Solving Problems.

1. It is OK to be angry, if no harm is done to self or others.

    

2. It is possible to think and feel at the same time.

3. It’s OK to think for yourself and for others to think for themselves.

4. It’s OK to say no, when needed.

5. It’s OK to know what you need and to ask for help.

6. Others will stick by you even when you think differently than they do.

What good are these beliefs?

• You can use the above beliefs as self-talk or self-thinking to strengthen your own belief in these ideas.

• You can use the above ideas to communicate with others you want to support in making helpful, satisfying life decisions about THINKING FOR YOURSELF.

• You can use the above ideas as seeds for helpful messages. You can shape them into your own words and make them fit given situations

 Guidelines for using the ideas in the above beliefs

• Say or do only what you truly believe.

• Convey the meaning of the ideas above in your own words – not necessarily the words above. You can communicate the ideas above without words. For example, by listening to an angry friend without making any judgement.

• You can communicate the ideas to yourself (self-talk) or ask someone else to communicate them to you.

With the exercise below you can see how strong your current belief system is regarding THINKING FOR YOURSELF. It creates a personalized graphic example of how strongly or weakly you believe ideas that can help you make helpful life decisions about THINKING FOR YOURSELF.

Draw a graph like the example below by thinking about what ideas you believe and how strongly you believe them. Make vertical columns of varying heights, with the tallest representing those you most deeply believe and the shortest columns representing those you believe less strongly.

Study your graph and think how you can strengthen the beliefs that are weaker for you and how you can celebrate the beliefs you deeply believe.

Next week’s post will discuss clues that your life circumstances are inviting you to recycle your past life decisions about Thinking for Yourself.

This posting is inspired by and adapted from Jean Illsley Clarke’s copyrighted books.

Do not distribute or duplicate without permission.