A couple of days ago I attended a teambuilding event at Ebeltoft Zoo arranged by my employer. Ebeltoft Zoo is an animal park where the animals are given large spaces to live in instead of cages and they have a special focus on saving endangered species. It was a great event and I really enjoyed the nice natural surroundings and experienced the many different animals. Nature has incredible variety! It must be a personally very rewarding experience to work in such a place and the staff there told us many interesting and funny stories about the animals.

One of the stories was about the monkeys there. Now, in order to keep the monkeys from running away but still let them walk around freely they have put the monkeys on an artificial island separated by a bridge. The bridge is made of metal and the monkeys are not able to walk over it as it is electrified in the same way as an electrical fence. The staff started by letting the monkeys find out that the bridge would give an electrical shock and then afterwards they could turn off the electricity. They need to turn off the electricity during the open hours, so that visitors can walk on the bridge without the risk of getting an electrical shock, then during the off hours the electricity is turned on again. As long as the monkeys were scared of the bridge it did not matter that the electricity was not always flowing, they would keep away on the assumption that the bridge would still be electrified. What they forgot to take into account though, is that monkeys are way smarter than you think. The monkeys were smart enough not to assume that what they learned initially was carved in stone. They discovered that the bridge was not always electrified and the way they discovered it was very clever. The little pranksters devised a plan: they would trick some ducks to walk onto the bridge and if the ducks did not react by quacking like crazy and flying away, they knew the bridge was safe. Not a very nice thing to do to the ducks but you have got to give it to them, it was a pretty creative way of finding out, especially for a monkey!

What really got me thinking though, was that the monkeys were testing what they initially thought to be absolutely true: that walking on the bridge would give an electrical shock. It seems to me that it is very rare for people to test their beliefs like that. Quite the opposite in fact: based on 1 try the diet is rejected as useless and a new one is tried instead, based on 1 failed job application the content of the application is thought to be poorly written, based on 1 failed attempt to get a relationship working you conclude that something is wrong with you and your ability to be in a relationship, etc. Evolutionally speaking it is extremely useful to be able to quickly decide on an initial conclusion based on limited information so you can get away from danger quickly, so it is not something that should be thought of as a bad thing. It is, however, a bad thing to forget that due to the limited information it is only an initial conclusion. Later you follow up by investigations to determine whether the original conclusion should be kept or a new one formed from the additional information acquired.

What would happen if you never questioned your existing beliefs? You would get entrenched in them, is what would happen. Slowly but surely each area of your life would get populated by beliefs and since they were not up for discussion, there would be less and less space for new beliefs. You might think that the brain is so mighty that there will always be space for new beliefs – but even if that were true, it would not matter as what limits the space is not the capacity of the brain but the existing beliefs. Your brain needs some consistency in your beliefs, while it is true that you can have beliefs that are inconsistent, you can not have beliefs that are in direct conflict. You can not simultaneously believe that people in general are trustworthy and that people in general are not worthy of your trust. Without space for new beliefs personal development would be nonexistent.

It will probably take a full life of not questioning existing beliefs in order to reach a state where there is absolutely no space for new beliefs. However your mental growth can get stunted way before that. Consider a belief like “People are not worthy of my trust”, how do you think a belief like that will influence your relationships? Your career? Your ability to apply personal development techniques you get from books, articles and friends? Without ever trusting the noble intentions of others you will constantly question their words instead of your beliefs – and since your brain will come up with an answer to whatever you ask it, you can always find a way to discredit advice you do not like (and what you like is determined by your beliefs).

Do not fall for this trap, do not let your brain get entrenched in old beliefs that does not serve your goals and ambitions. Revisit your beliefs occasionally and test them rigorously to see whether they still serve their purpose. You will probably find that a lot of them are still very valuable to you and your development so it can be very empowering to test your beliefs, you discover how well your brain works. It is the few beliefs that fails when tested that are holding back your personal development though, and discovering those will guide you towards the areas of your life that needs some work. Do not get frustrated that some areas do not pass scrutiny – get excited! Knowing which areas are problematic is the first step to improving them and improving them is the first step to improving your life!