What do you believe?

My friend Cam once told me that if you hear something three times it must be true. About an hour later he told me again, and then he told me once more. Later that evening I unknowingly recited his statement back to him. Does this mean I'm stupid, gullible or easily led? Probably.

When I was a child my parents convinced me that steak grew on trees so I would eat it. They even showed me the trees - a sort of wattle with bulbous, charred-steak like growths.  My mother also put a lot of time into convincing me that I was a clever, conscientious student, and because I assumed she must be right, that's what I was (kind of...). It's a lot easier to live up to other people's expectations than it is to prove them wrong.

The most important skill I've learnt in my career as an Executive Assistant is to question everything. The statement you 'just accept' is bound to be wrong, and you'll look pretty silly trying to tell the boss something wrong just because you haven't checked it. So if I question and fact check everything professionally, why don't I do it in my own time?

I'm amazed at how easy it is to convince myself of things. A few years ago I decided brown pigeons were lucky (not quite sure why), and to this day I still get excited when I see one. More importantly, its scary how my negative opinions of myself become so easily entrenched as self fulfilling prophecies.

• I hate writing (false, as it turns out, I love writing - that's why I have a blog)
• I don't have time to take up any more activities (pfft, it's my life and I'll make time if I want to)
• I hate exercise (false, I've actually been quite enjoying my time at the gym and doing pilates lately)
• If I eat meat I'll be sick (false, I ate some on Sunday and I'm still feeling awesome)
• I can't save money (OK, so I haven't fixed this one yet...)

Re-learning the way you think about yourself is hard, but its well worth doing. I'm taking a bit more time to question my preconceptions these days and life is starting to look a lot rosier.