Hey, everyone. It’s Alexander Seery, founder of Shifts to Success, helping police officers break out, make the change and live their lives. And today, I want to share with you one thing that might be stopping you from being successful, and that is your beliefs but more specifically, your confirmation bias, which is the need to be right about something or in other terms, confirming your own current beliefs.

 You see, as humans, we have an unbelievable urge to be right about something. We always want to see and hear things that support our beliefs, and the reason for this is because it’s just simply easier going along with our current beliefs rather than spending mental time wasting energy going through all of the frustrating or challenging thought patterns that may conflict our current beliefs and because of this, your need to be right, sadly, confirming your biases will in many cases defeat your desire to become successful in the future. You see, many people are more concerned about being right than being successful, due to the desire of confirming our beliefs.

 I remember during the Mayweather, the McGregor boxing fight. I really wanted McGregor to win. I really like the guy. I think his mindset’s on point, but my beliefs were saying something different. I believed that Mayweather would win in those later rounds, and when McGregor did lose in those later rounds, I wasn’t pissed off and, in fact, I was probably a little bit happy, and the only reason for this was because I was right, and we all love being right!

Our brains will always seek out the need to be right, confirming our beliefs, typically without even considering if we actually are because when we are right, it just feels really, really good.

So by now, you might be thinking, “How does this relate to me in the police force Alex?”  Well, the need to be right can stop me from being happy, wealthy and successful because your beliefs, even from way back when you were younger, could be that being a police officer is your dream job. And even when you completed your passing out ceremony, your brain would confirm, “Well done. This is your dream job. Congratulations.”

 Of course, you’ll be excited at first, but sooner or later that excitement slowly dies, and then as the years go on, despite the low salary, despite the long working shift, despite the fatigue, despite the injuries, despite your relationships from suffering and despite your stress levels, your need to be right will always overpower your need to make a change because your brain will repeatedly, consciously or subconsciously state over and over again that this is your dream job.

Meanwhile, your inner soul or whatever you want to call it states something completely different, and in fact, knows a change is needed and also knows that what may have been your dream job a while back isn’t your dream job anymore. But regardless of this, you will confirm your beliefs that this is your dream job.

Another form of confirmation bias is the belief that wealthy or successful people are all corrupt, selfish and greedy bastards.

 If you believe this kind of stuff, then guess what? Your brain will actively get to work on confirming your belief’s right, and this is one of the reasons why I tell people to stay away from the news because now and then, when you hear about some rich, successful person being naughty or losing their ethical compass, your brain will automatically think they did those things because they’re rich and successful, which isn’t the truth and as a matter of fact, way more poor and unsuccessful people do those things too because they’re the majority. It’s just that they don’t make the headline news as often.

Being successful doesn’t mean you’re going to be unethical or corrupt, and neither does being unsuccessful. That’s always down to the individual person. Also, if you believe that successful people are greedy, self-centered corrupt and selfish bastards or maybe even lucky, and you watching this want to become successful, there’s going to be a huge conflict with your mindset because you, as a person, don’t want to be greedy, self-centered or corrupt or selfish and you may think that luck alone makes people successful, which will suppress any actions towards achieving success!

Your beliefs are incredibly powerful when it comes to achieving success, so I would encourage you to start believing in things that are going to support you in doing so because you’ll always seek out the need to be right. So ensure you’re right about facts and not things that you think are right because, although your perception will become your reality, it’s not always actual reality.

Now, if you’re a serving or active police officer thinking about going into business one day, then go and take the police officer scorecard quiz to find out if becoming your own boss is something that you should consider for your future.

Thanks for watching and if you like this video, hit the like button below, share it with your friends and be sure to subscribe. See you next time.