How Powerful is Belief?

A week ago, I found myself returning from a month long "recharge", a perk still offered by Meta after 5 years of service. As you can imagine, returning to work at any place is going to feel like information overload, but I think that's exaggerated when you're a TL at a tech firm. I found myself interleaving my days with meetings to catch up with people to learn everything that wasn't written in documents.

The week felt good, I started my days early (thanks jet lag) and made it a point to end them early, too. I was practicing Germany everyday, going on runs, and sort of feel like...yeah, this could be a healthy balance of things. But ironically it was the weekend that gave rise to a disgruntled mind. Despite having a relaxing Saturday and productive Sunday - fixing my car, cleaning the apartment, exercising and topping it off with an F1 race, I felt incomplete. Hours of the day remained...and yet the next week - and life loomed ahead.

Interestingly, a post would find itself centered on my computer screen "you are how you act". It introduced this tension of how we often index so heavily on beliefs, which gives us this idea that beliefs form character. And character is formed through integrity – which cyclically is just acting our beliefs. If you simplify this equation it distill's down to Boz's key point - that the actions we take out shape our character.

This poses an interesting parallel (or contrapositive, if we want to be technical) – if actions ultimately shape our parallel, then our belief system's purpose is simply to shape our actions. Believing your altruistic isn't meaningful until it leads to altruistic actions. While I don't want to dig into the details - the more personal (and pointed) example is probably close to that of religious believers who's actions don't reflect the sacred texts. But let's go a different direction here:

If we're optimizing for actions, the repeated behaviors which form our true character in the world, how should we shape our beliefs?

YouTube fittingly recommended a video to me last night about using delusion as a means to achieve things, and remembering seeing Veritasium's video "Why Being Delusional is a Superpower", I opted to give it a shot. The video moved pretty quickly, but the concept of strategic delusion stuck with me. If we accept the premise of the value of our actions, then choosing beliefs to prompt those actions and outcomes is the natural choice.

The orator then suggested an experiment, and I'm a huge fan of experiments. Pick three beliefs for a week, and test them. I strategically picked these three:

1. I have enough time to work on my software side-project, learn German, and work on this website everyday without falling behind at work.
2. I could have code committed for my side-project by the end of this week.
3. Waking up and getting out of bed early is easy.

The goal is to truly accept these beliefs as truth and report back in a week later how they feel. The first feels like a good test of elasticity and time management. The second it almost a commitment to myself – a belief in myself. The last is perhaps the most hysterically delusional, but in the interest of the experiment, feels perfect for testing limits of the power of belief.

Day 1.

Enthusiasm. When you start out, you're filled with a newness and optimism. I made time to start this post in the morning. I carried that optimism in the day, and while I certainly had enough time to work on my side project, I felt quite content about my day by 6pm and ready to shift gears. My wife was getting home late, and I wanted to greet here with a great dinner!

Day 2.

"Waking up early is easy". I found myself echoing those words in my head while laying in bed at 6am. It wasn't so much that I disagreed with the belief, it was easy to get up. But it also was easy to stay in bed. More importantly, what purpose did it serve? Sure, it was easy to get up...but why? I realized that such a simple belief in itself was not overly powerful.

In contrast, this idea of having time to do all the things I wanted to do - practice German, write, work on a side project: those did not lose value. I intrinsically wanted to do them because I want to be multi-lingual. I want to be not just an orchestrator, but a creator. Putting in a few extra hours at the office was easy to justify to not stay behind. When I got home, the long to write and create didn't stop. The beliefs at face value are important, but also what stands behind them: purpose.

Day 3.

It's Thursday and I'm supposed to have code committed for my side project by tomorrow the sort of end of the work week. Is that what I originally believed? I think I had doubts from the start. I need to figure out how to start on that...

Day 4.

Belief number 1 continues to be the most powerful of the beliefs. I laid in bed this morning, tangled up with my wife, and didn't want to get out. I was comfortable, content, and happy to be co-exist. Getting up might have been easy, but it wasn't appealing! German on the other hand, and thinking about things continues to be. This belief about having time for things does tend to work!

Day 5 and 6.

It's funny, it "being easy to wake up" hit me again first thing in the morning. The side-project code didn't land in the week. Equally - it was from the power of belief. Because I knew to prioritize that I'd need to stay late, get extra focus time in, spend less time with my wife. I didn't really believe I could do it, because I didn't think I'd really be able to prioritize it. And that self-fulling belief was actually quite informative.

Day 7.

As if the pressure lifted from acknowledging that I didn't believe I could get code committed for some AI project, I came with a renewed since of belief that I could do it, and didn't think so much about exactly when. And then it clicked. Between meetings, in short-spurts, I drafted up things together. Ignored messages for brief periods, and got code shipped. Belief I could do it. If a week is 7 days, did I just fulfill my original "belief"?

Reflections.

This little experiment certainly proved to me that there is value in belief, and it certainly shapes how we approach things. If you lack belief in the possibility of an outcome, then it's inherently blocked. Yet, just as we can not use wishful thinking to imagine things into existence, belief does not spawn desires into reality. It's a precursor, but not in itself complete.

Coming back full circle to some original points, the default state is being practical, realistic, and rationale in our beliefs. This type of belief effectively puts a cap on the possible outcomes, as it will subtly and subconsciously guide our behaviors towards rationale and reasonable outcomes. I found myself making way for more practical activities the majority of the week where I failed to accept the premise of being able to put realities aside and just ship some damn code.

In other words, there is some truth to towards delusion as a superpower. It invites extraordinary experiences into our lives, welcoming them as consistent and natural. If you desire specific outcomes, you must first believe they are possible. This realization has left me excited, feeling as though I've unlocked a barrier, and ready to explore what hidden beliefs are holding me back and how to reshape them. One thing I hold firmly, is that there is so much of life to be lived, and for that, I will always keep chasing to figure out how best to live it.