My Own Early Beliefs, Revisited

Over the past few days, I’ve been reflecting on the inner beliefs I formed in early childhood and how they’ve shaped my life. Indeed, not all of them are negative—many of them have carried me forward, supporting me in positive ways and making my life noticeably easier. In that sense, I was fortunate to grow up in an environment that reinforced certain constructive, progressive patterns.

At the same time, I can also see how other early patterns led me to develop more limiting or destructive beliefs, often subconsciously. Those continue to make certain aspects of my life harder today.

In what follows, I’d like to share five constructive beliefs and five destructive ones that I developed early on. In different ways, they still shape how easily or how painfully I move through the world.

Positive Beliefs / Pulling me up.

1. Why Is Health Easy for Me?

My dad reads books in his free time. My mom gardens. No one in my family does sports or follows self-care routines—ever.

I was always told: You don’t need sports; you need movement. You don’t need to grind to be healthy.

Watching my parents—who, well into their seventies, have a lot of energy and don’t worry about these things—confirmed that belief in my universe.

In contrast, when I look at the health routines of many of my friends, they resemble hamsters on a wheel. And yet, they often report pain and fatigue. Many of them even joke that “if you don’t feel pain after 30, you must be dead.”

I don’t share that experience. I feel no pain, despite putting in virtually no effort.

If everyone had my attitude, the cosmetics industry would probably collapse. In fact, I don’t even use shampoo or deodorant, let alone more sophisticated products.

No diets, no chronotype hacks, no sports routines — I skip all of it.

And at 40, I’m perfectly healthy and feel better than ever. In that sense, reality seems to mirror the belief I grew up with.

2. America is the Promised Land. 

The women in my family have always traveled to America. For some reason, America has long been seen as the greatest place on Earth.

My grandmother was actually the first woman in her town of 7,000 people to get divorced. Why?

Because she went to America to work as an au pair for two years, hoping to earn money to help her children build their houses. What she discovered there changed her life.

In the end, she realized that her husband—who struggled with alcoholism—was not a good partner, and that American men treated women differently, with more respect. When she returned to Poland, she decided to divorce him. At the time, it was a complete sensation.

My mother followed a similar path. Meanwhile, she spent four and a half years in the United States, working in the American branch of her employer while my sister and I were already studying. She went with the dream of living in America for a few years—and then she came back to Poland.

Later, my sister moved to the U.S. after completing her PhD at Cambridge.

A Pattern Across Generations

Today, she is an American citizen. My aunt also spent several years in the United States, saving money to build and finish her house back home.

In many ways, it became a family tradition: the women go to America.

Ever since I was a child, I was told that America is the greatest place on Earth. And, indeed, America has treated me well. Perhaps that is no coincidence—because deep down, my default assumption has always been that this is where opportunity lives.

Indeed, whenever I land on American soil, I feel as if people are trying to make everything as easy for me as possible. There always seems to be an unusual amount of coincidence and favorable circumstance working in my favor.

It is as if the universe itself were conspiring to confirm my belief that America is a place of serendipity. At times, it even feels as though it were deliberately, almost masterfully, designed to make my life easier.

3. Traveling is Easy.

My father is a chess player, and growing up I often saw him leaving for tournaments and trips. When he came back home, he would tell stories about the places he had seen. What stayed with me most was his light, almost casual attitude toward travel.

Traveling was simply something you did because it was on your schedule—no drama, no big deal. Just pack and go, what’s your problem?

I think that belief stayed with me. Travel felt easy, almost trivial, because at its core it is just moving from point A to point B. You’re not trying to save humanity or solve an unsolvable problem, like a century-old academic challenge or a disruptive business.

It doesn’t require years of planning. It’s a single decision followed by action: this is my task, I’m going from point A to point B.

And if you need resources—transportation, help, directions—there always seems to be someone willing to give you a lift, or some lucky coincidence that gets you where you need to go. Somehow, the world kept proving me right.

Still, my friends are often shocked by the places I’ve traveled to alone as a woman—from the Andes, through India, to small villages and dark corners of Tanzania. And yet, the world consistently met me with kindness. I was never attacked.

I was never assaulted. Most of the time, I experience lots of blessings on the way, and my experiences exceeded all expectations.

Collecting Good Moments on the Road

I often found myself amazed by how many good moments I could collect on each trip. Indeed, I felt lucky—almost as if I kept dodging potential difficulties and always landed on the blessed side of things. 

Again and again, the world confirmed my belief: traveling is not a big deal. It can be easy, safe, and deeply pleasant.

Even this fall, I went to Burning Man by myself, flying in from the Netherlands. On the way to the desert, I made a last-minute decision to book an Airbnb and get a proper night’s sleep before heading to the playa. I wanted to recover from the long journey before fully diving in.

That same night, the worst thunderstorm in fifteen years hit the playa. Winds reached up to 120 kilometers per hour and destroyed many tents. Meanwhile, I was asleep in a real bed, taking a hot shower, and later enjoying yummy chicken with veggies at a local diner.

Indeed, I remember lying there thinking: How is it possible that this keeps happening? On my travels, I always seem to get lucky—arriving just minutes before an airport gate closes, narrowly missing natural disasters, or instinctively sidestepping real hardship. It feels as if I’m constantly dodging bullets, somehow ending up on the easy, safe side of things every time.

4. Could I Really Learn Anything?

Traditional Polish schools have a heavy load of subjects, constant tests, and frequent exams. Even when you’re seven or eight years old, you come back home in the afternoon—at least that’s how it was 30 years ago—and then spend the rest of the day doing homework well into the evening. It felt like a work camp from the very beginning.

But I was very good at passing exams. In fact, I could memorize and absorb large amounts of material across many different subjects.

In that sense, I felt almost omnipotent. I had strong grades in everything—from mathematics and history to biology.

What surprised even me was sports. Despite my vision impairment and the fact that I didn’t train or exercise with other kids, I still performed well and even won some competitions during our annual sports day. That was genuinely astonishing.

By then, I had already embraced a powerful belief: that I could learn anything. Instead, I didn’t perceive myself as having weaknesses—only choices.

It felt like learning was a matter of deciding where to place my attention and how much time I was willing to invest. Given enough time, I believed I could master almost anything I wanted.

When I was studying physics at the University of Warsaw, I could clearly feel the strain. It was probably not the most optimal major for me, and there were certainly people who were more naturally talented at learning physics than I was.

Proof That I Could Learn Anything

And yet, the fact that I was able to complete those studies and graduate successfully became another confirmation of a belief I had formed in childhood: that I could study almost anything if I chose to. Overall, that experience only strengthened my sense that I didn’t really have limits in that regard.

That belief helps me enormously today. In my business, I constantly have to learn new things and wear multiple hats (just peek at my LinkedIn profile).

I don’t shy away from taking on unfamiliar roles or trying new directions, because I see it as a conscious decision about how I choose to spend my time. And so far, the world has rewarded that attitude.

Of course, I’ve made some suboptimal decisions along the way. But I was never truly blocked.

In the long run, I always managed to move forward. Despite taking on many different roles, I somehow handled what I was doing.

And whenever I come back to the U.S., I feel that many people simply assume I am competent.

Even though I often jump into deep water and learn as I go, I’ve managed to do things well enough that I don’t burn opportunities—which is something I deeply appreciate. In that sense, the world keeps mirroring this belief back to me.

5. Entrepreneurship Pays Off.

After the political transformation of 1989, both of my parents remained employed. My mother worked in engineering companies, eventually at FIAT in Poland, and later at FIAT Avio in aviation.

My father continued working as a teacher and an office employee, while also pursuing a second career as a chess player. They were doing fine.

For most of my childhood, we were lower middle class. We lived modestly, but we had enough.

I was never hungry. Instead, there were no fancy vacations or expensive gadgets—just stability and continuity.

At the same time, I watched some of my parents’ friends from university take a different path. When capitalism arrived in Poland, they started their own businesses—selling electronic equipment and trading between Poland and other countries. Over time, the difference became very visible.

They built larger houses, traveled more, earned more, and seemed to have more freedom overall. What struck me most was not the money itself, but the atmosphere around them: they appeared less stressed, happier, more relaxed, and often more joyful—even though they worked a lot. In short, they seemed to work with enthusiasm rather than obligation.

The Belief Takes Root

Ultimately, that contrast planted a deep belief in me: that entrepreneurship is a risk worth taking.

I also carry a quiet sense that my mother sometimes felt regret—that she never found herself in the right place at the right time, or with enough courage, to start her own business. I believe she would have been very good at it. That feeling stayed with me.

Entrepreneurship goes against our natural instinct for safety. After all, the mind constantly tells us to stay on the secure path.

But when I look at my immediate surroundings growing up, the few people who took that risk didn’t lose—they gained. In the long run, they won.

So my belief became clear: entrepreneurship is the path worth choosing, the gamble worth taking — because it simply yields a net positive. And so far, the world has consistently reinforced that belief.

Negative / Pulling Me Down.

1. God Is Cruel.

When I was eight years old, my best friend was murdered. We sat at the same desk at school. She was truly my closest friend—we spent our afternoons together after class.

That experience shattered something fundamental for me. At that point, I began to question what I had been taught about the Catholic God as a kind, benevolent father figure.

That image no longer made sense. Instead, God appeared to me as cruel, unpredictable, indifferent to human suffering—or perhaps simply mad, striking people at random for no reason other than whim or self-entertainment.

Since then, I’ve tried many times to revise that belief, to soften it or replace it. But it keeps returning. In short, what remains is a kind of constant argument—a persistent bickering with God, sometimes even teasing or provocation—because, deep down, I no longer hold a particularly generous opinion of them.

And despite the fact that I feel the presence of God in my life, my belief gets reflected because when I pray to get something from God, I never ever EVER get it.

2. Your Value Degrades with Age (and Other Stereotypes about Guys and Girls).

I watched my first TV shows in the 1990s, when television still had enormous cultural power. Back then, series like Married… with Children and similar shows pushed a very specific narrative: that turning forty marked the beginning of a midlife crisis, the end of youth, and the start of a routine, suburban life—one you could either joke about or quietly despair over.

Indeed, films and TV series of that era were unapologetic about mocking aging, especially in women. Women were portrayed as becoming whiny, invisible, and less attractive with age. It was not politically correct by today’s standards, and that messaging seeped in.

Somewhere along the way, I absorbed the belief that at a certain point a woman is supposed to become “just” a wife, a mother, a housewife—quietly performing her duties because her youth and desirability are gone. As if life, in some fundamental sense, ends there.

Even though we live in very different times now—and I exist in environments where these stereotypes are largely absent—that belief still lingers in the back of my mind. I know it pulls me down.

Because if you believe your value decreases with age, the world tends to mirror that belief back to you. Consequently, other people begin to assign you less value as well.

Have I Overcome This Belief?

So far, I haven’t fully managed to get rid of this belief. But I’m actively fighting against it.

Stereotypes about women are not the only ones I absorbed early on—and that now hold me back. I watched my first TV shows in the 1990s, a time when portrayals of men were just as stereotypical.

Likewise, those images quietly shaped an internal template of what a “real man” was supposed to be: rough, unemotional, looking like a 90s action hero—or, at best, a rugged lumberjack. Sensitivity and emotional openness were simply not part of that picture.

I think that image is still buried somewhere deep in my mind. Even though I genuinely like kind, humorous, gentle people, I sometimes catch myself unconsciously downgrading or rejecting men who are naturally sensitive or fragile—those who don’t fit that “tough guy” archetype.

I’m aware that this doesn’t serve me well, and I actively try to change it. But undoing something that was imprinted so early is hard. Once an image like that settles into your internal world at a young age, changing it consciously later in life takes real effort and patience.

3. Men Are Ungrateful and Treacherous.

When I was a child, my father taught chess to other children, but he never wanted to teach me. I think his intentions were probably good—he may not have seen the potential for me to become a strong chess player and wanted to spare me the effort or disappointment. Still, for me, it was deeply painful.

I watched him devote time and attention to other kids, but not to me. It felt like a betrayal by my own father.

In fact, I think that was the moment when I began to form a belief that men can be hurtful, unreliable, and difficult to trust. In this belief, they often fail to live up to expectations, lack loyalty, and withdraw when you need them most.

Over time, life seemed to reinforce that belief. Indeed, my ex-fiancé cheated on me and left shortly before our wedding. Later, during my PhD, my advisor—another kind of father figure—also let me down.

At some point, he stopped caring about my career prospects and began speaking to the department behind my back, undermining me. He made my life deeply difficult at a time when he was responsible for my development and well-being, and when I needed support the most.

That pattern left a mark. I still feel that belief somewhere deep inside me—that men will eventually betray trust—and, uncomfortably, the world often seems to confirm it back to me.

4. People Value You for Your Achievements.

When I was five years old, I joined kindergarten later than the other children. I arrived in the middle of the school year, when everyone already knew one another.

I became “the new one.” No one bothered to learn my name.

For the entire year, the other kids didn’t call me by my name at all. Then one day, during a drawing class, we were asked to draw train tracks.

I drew them—apparently—very well, with perfectly straight, perpendicular lines. Instead, the teacher erased my drawing from the board and held it up as an example, telling the class that Natalia had done an excellent job.

That was the day the other children learned my name.

It was the first time I felt truly seen—not as “the new one,” but as a person. And I think that’s when a belief formed in me: if you want people to notice you or respect you, you have to be good at something.

If you’re not, you’ll be ignored. You’ll be nothing to them.

Since then, I’ve carried the belief that achievement is the price of recognition—and that there is never enough of it. That you have to keep proving your worth, over and over again.

A Vicious Circle

This belief is, in fact, a vicious circle that leads to a losing game in relationships with people. What I mean is this: if you believe that you need acceptance to gain respect, you will never achieve that respect you desire. There is never enough achievement; there is always at least one person in your circle who surpasses your achievements in any area of life.

Indeed, in many ways, the world has reflected that belief back to me. I often felt disrespected during my undergraduate studies, then again in graduate school, and even afterward. According to Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968), expectations alone can measurably change how others treat us and perform.

It sometimes feels as though I keep losing this game between achievement and respect. It’s a crooked game that you can never win in the first place — because of that early lesson I absorbed so deeply: that simply being who you are is not enough to earn respect.

5. Money is Scarce and Hard to Get.

Lastly, I carry a deep belief that money is very hard to get. That belief didn’t come from nowhere—it was something I was told repeatedly growing up. In fact, no one in my close family was wealthy.

My mother came from an extremely poor household; as a child, she often went hungry, barely making ends meet. I never had a living example around me of someone who simply became wealthy. Instead, I was constantly taught—explicitly and implicitly—that money is scarce.

When I was a child, everyone around me was struggling. I had no counterexamples. 

On top of that, my father has a deep aversion to money itself. He dislikes the concept entirely.

To him, money is not noble or admirable—it’s something almost distasteful, something to be tolerated rather than valued. In other words, more like a necessary evil than a positive force.

When he played chess, he played to win—for mastery, respect, and excellence. The money that came with it felt incidental, almost unwanted.

It was something he accepted only to make ends meet, not something he pursued or celebrated. In his worldview, money was a dirty but necessary element of life—like an unpleasant bodily function—never the point, never the goal.

Growing up in that environment, it’s no surprise that my relationship with money became complicated.

I grew into someone who takes pride in being able to handle scarcity—who doesn’t break under circumstances like being on the other side of the world with three dollars left in her account. In fact, having no money and an empty fridge can sometimes feel less stressful than having a full account—at least until you realize that your dreams come with a price tag. And even if the dream is simply peace of mind, it can still be painfully expensive.

When Scarcity Becomes an Obstacle

In that context, my aversion to money—and the belief that keeps draining my account—becomes an obstacle. Something that stands directly in my way.

Even today, I can watch countless visualization videos, follow mindset coaches on social media, and read books about abundance. And yet, somewhere inside, the belief remains: money is really, really hard to get.

And this is despite the fact that I now personally know many millionaires and people who have clearly “made it.” The belief persists.

And, of course, it gets reflected back at me. If you believe money is hard to get, you won’t even pick it up when it’s lying on the floor. Doors open—sometimes doors through which you could earn a lot of money quite easily—but you almost don’t believe they’re real.

You think you must be mistaken. And so you walk past them.

Sometimes that belief even turns into self-sabotage. As a result, you design business models that focus on the hardest-to-monetize revenue streams, while ignoring obvious winners where money flows like a waterfall—simply to subconsciously confirm the belief that money must be difficult to earn.

I know that talking about beliefs around money is a delicate topic. There’s an entire industry of “New Age” money gurus selling courses, retreats, philosophies, and practices that promise abundance, so it’s easy to feel like we’re stepping onto thin ice here.

How to Combat These Beliefs?

How do you fight beliefs that are so deeply embedded they function almost like an operating system? They shape your decisions, guide your choices, and filter what you pay attention to—running quietly in the background according to preset rules. At that level, they feel almost like laws of physics: you follow them simply because you don’t know there are other options.

That’s what makes them so hard to change consciously. Intelligence, insight, and even strong motivation often aren’t enough, because conscious effort operates above the layer where these beliefs live.

As far as we currently know, the most effective ways of changing such deep-seated beliefs involve accessing altered states of consciousness—hypnosis being the best-known example. According to a systematic review published in PMC, neuroimaging studies confirm that hypnosis produces measurable, distinct changes in brain network activity and neurochemistry, consistent with its reputation as a genuine altered state of consciousness.

Reaching the Subconscious Layer

In those states, the mind enters a deep alpha (or similar) state, becomes more receptive to suggestion, and allows you to reach the subconscious layer where these belief “presets” actually reside. From there, it becomes possible to rewrite them.

I’ve come to accept that simply “working on myself” at a conscious level isn’t sufficient—not because of a lack of intelligence or effort, but because real change requires going deeper, under the hood, beneath the conscious layer of cognition. It means clearing outdated internal statements and replacing the automatic associations my mind makes around certain topics with new ones.

So that’s what I’m preparing to do. I’m arranging hypnotherapy and plan to begin in early 2026. Wish me well—and wish me good luck.