Beliefs and mental models

A story tells that an eaglet fell out of its nest and grew up as a chicken. It smirched the ground and at most did small flights. One day it saw an eagle up in the sky and it was admired with its grandeur. The cock saw and said: “Don’t worry, you will never be like it”.

What would you do if suddenly you discover that you are an eagle that grew up as a chicken? Maybe you’d flap your wings knowing that you can fly high. Perhaps you’d hunt as an eagle, and would build your nest upon the higher peak. Well, maybe you’d miss smirching the ground and the old hen companions…

We have the capacity of believing and combine beliefs to build models of the world and make decisions based on those models. A person’s beliefs affect their actions significantly. Do you believe that there are problems without solutions? Or do you believe that you can find an escape to every situation? Note how these two beliefs can lead to completely different attitudes at the same situation.  

Mental models are one of the disciplines of the learning organization, as proposed by Peter Senge in the book The Fifth Discipline. Mental models and beliefs are important in many ways. If belief in a possibility is missing, action will too. For example, if a domestic device breaks, maybe the person will not even try to fix it because he or she doesn’t believe he or she can.

Either in an explicit form or not, many articles in this site work your beliefs and mental models: of what is possible, of what you are capable. It is possible to be born like an eagle and grow up thinking as a chicken. It is possible to have a 100-billion neuron brain and don’t use it in its full potential. This site presents several possibilities in this direction.

But neither everything is flowers. They say a man took his pilot’s license for a small plane and got out of there believing that he could pilot any plane in the world. Something beyond belief is necessary: know what to do and how to do it. Improve and complement your good beliefs and models with our good strategies to define and achieve your objectives.

Mental models are so powerful that can affect perception, as you can see in the section New Paradigms. This capacity also opens some lines of action to expand one's intelligence: to change and adjust beliefs and mental models, to introduce new ones, maybe let go obsolete ones. This section by itself aims to adjust your model of yourself, showing your capacity and their power as tools of the intelligence. If needed, of course.