How To Discover Your Atomic Beliefs

The only way to make sure that you don’t end up being the same person in 10, 20, or 50 years is to become self-aware.

Self-awareness requires knowing and understanding the ideas inside of your head that influence your actions, habits, and identity.

Let’s call them your “beliefs”.

Knowing what you actually believe is not as easy as it might sound.

In fact, I think it is often easier to know what other people believe than our own beliefs.

Trust me, I spent 15+ years studying philosophy and have often felt that I know what other people (mostly dead philosophers) believe more than I know what I believe.

That is one of the main reasons that I created The Micro-Philosopher.

Anyone who is a deep thinker interested in personal development has this same problem.

How can we come to know ourselves well enough to be able to live life with confidence, clarity, and purpose?

Journaling is great, but if you think you are going to truly understand yourself by simply writing whatever comes into your head every morning, you are wrong.

You need to be able to ask the right questions in order to go deeper into yourself.

This is why people pay thousands of dollars for expert life-coaching, therapy, and self-development courses.

For the next three weeks, I am going to give you a step-by-step guide to help you figure out your atomic beliefs in just 20 minutes a week.

In order to build version 1.0 of your micro-philosophy, you first need to know what you even believe.

This is the bare minimum.

Once you have an initial list of things you believe, I am going to help you deepen and clarify your understanding of that list.

Eventually, this initial list will be transformed into your own personal philosophy which you will continue to develop and refine over time.

By the way, in case you missed it, I explained the concept of a micro-philosophy and the 4 elements out of which it is built in last week’s newsletter.

If you want a refresher, click here:

Let’s get started.

Figuring Out And Categorizing What You Believe

Over the next 3 weeks, I am going to talk about the steps you need to take to identify what I call your Atomic Beliefs.

Atomic Beliefs are the fundamental building blocks of your micro-philosophy.

Every atom has a core (nucleus) that is surrounded by a fringe (a cloud of electrons).

Likewise, Atomic Beliefs consists of core beliefs and fringe beliefs.

Before we can determine which of your beliefs form the atomic core of your micro-philosophy, it is important to first write a structured list of your current philosophical beliefs.

If you don’t know what they are, don’t worry!

Today’s lesson is to designed to help you discover 20 philosophical beliefs that you currently hold.

This list of 20 philosophical beliefs will form the raw material out of which your micro-philosophy is built.

The goal is to simply get started articulating and identifying what is already inside of you, even if it is unexamined, fragmented, or incomplete.

You already contain an entire worldview inside of you.

This process is not about passing judgment on your beliefs, or telling you what to think.

It is a personal excavation project.

The templates and assignments I have created are designed to unearth things you did not know about yourself, hold them up to the light, and teach you how to turn them into something you didn’t think was possible.

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

-Walt Whitman

At the end of this process, you will have built a coherent and interconnected framework for living.

It won’t be perfect, or complete, but it will be a starting point.

You will be amazed at how much you learn about yourself and how good it makes you feel to simply write down a list of your current beliefs

Let’s get started.

Lesson #1: Create A Structured List Of 20 Philosophical Beliefs

To keep it simple, today’s lesson consists of 3 steps you can take to write a structured list of 20 personal beliefs that you hold.

If you follow the 3 steps in today’s lesson, you will have a much better understanding of your own beliefs in just 20 minutes.

Here is an overview of what today’s lesson will look like:

• Step #1: Set a timer for 20 minutes

• Step #2: Brain Dump

  • Create a numbered list (#1-#20).

  • Brain dump 20 philosophical beliefs that you currently hold

• Step #3: Categorize

  • Review your list of 20 philosophical beliefs

  • Place them into the following 4 categories:

    • Metaphysics

    • Epistemology

    • Axiology

    • Ethics

Step One: Set A Timer For 20 Minutes

This step is straightforward.

Setting a timer can help focusing your mind by putting constraints on your thinking. It provides structure and forces you to complete the task without worrying about quality or getting things perfect.

Most of you will probably take more than 20 minutes once you get started, because you will get into a flow state. That is totally fine. Don’t stop!

The timer is merely a trick to help you get into the right mindset.

Step Two: Brain Dump 20 Philosophical Beliefs

The easiest way to start your micro-philosophy journey is to brain dump your philosophical beliefs into a numbered list.

What is a belief?

By ‘belief’ I mean a statement that you believe to be true about yourself, other people, or the world in general.

For example, I believe that pleasure alone does not make human beings happy. I also believe that human beings are neither inherently good or inherently evil.

Either of those statements could be false, even though I believe they are true. Whether or not they are true depends on the arguments and reasons that support them. But don’t worry about defending your beliefs yet, the aim of today is simply to get them out of your head!

Here is the best way to do this:

Step #1: Open a blank document or get a blank piece of paper

Step #2: Write a numbered list #1-#20

Step #3: Start each line with the phrase “I believe that”

Writing with a template or outline makes it so much easier to get started and build momentum than staring at a blank page.

The Belief Finder Template

By the way, in order to make this easier for you, I created the Belief Finder Template in my favorite writing app Kortex.

Kortex is a completely free second-brain writing app specifically designed for writers, content creators, and lifelong learners.

The Belief Finder Template contains everything from today’s lesson, as well as more detailed instructions, explanations, and the ability to #tag and connect your ideas together in a second brain writing app.

Here is a preview of the template:

If you sign up for Kortex using my affiliate link below, you can access the Belief Finder Template in just 2 steps.

Here’s how:

1) Create a Kortex account using this link in a new tab: https://kortex.co?via=pm

Then

2) Follow this link to the template and click “duplicate” in the top right corner: https://app.kortex.co/public/document/fc95e57d-9045-48d6-999a-2e000d076047

This template was specifically designed for Kortex because it is the only app I know of that allows you to easily connect and synthesize ideas in an organized way.

This makes Kortex great for building your micro-philosophy (and content creation in general).

Step Three: Categorize Your Beliefs

Now that have your list of 20 philosophical beliefs it is time to get a deeper understanding of them by categorizing them philosophically.

For each category below:

• Read the basic description and example questions to make sure you understand the theme of each category

• Review your 20 philosophical beliefs 

• Choose a category that you think each belief fits into best

This is the hardest part of today’s lesson so here are some tips to help you.

Tip #1: Some beliefs won't be a perfect fit, so just choose the one that you think makes the most sense for now. In more advanced lessons, there will be opportunities to utilize more fine-grained categories that fit certain beliefs better.

Tip #2: For each belief, ask yourself: “Is this about what the world is like? (metaphysics) Is this about how we know something about the world? (epistemology) Is this about what is valuable or good? (axiology) Is this about what how to act? (ethics).

Here are 4 Fundamental Philosophical Categories:

Category #1: Metaphysics

Metaphysics explores the fundamental nature of reality and existence. Metaphysics concerns existence, objects, properties, possibility, necessity, space, time, causation, consciousness, identity.

Here are some examples of common Metaphysics questions:

What is the nature of reality? Is reality fundamentally material or immaterial? Is consciousness physical? What exists? How many things exist? Do numbers exist? What makes two things identical? Which entities are fundamental? What is time? What is causation? Is everything determined?

Example belief: I believe that physical objects are the only things that are truly real.

Category #2: Epistemology

Epistemology concerns the nature of knowledge, belief, and truth. It seeks to understand how we know what we know, what justifies belief, and the limits of human understanding.

Here are some examples of Epistemology:

Is knowledge gained through reason or sense experience? Do our beliefs correspond to an objective reality? Are human beings able to know anything with certainty? Is there a foundation to human knowledge? What kind of evidence justifies a belief? Do we perceive reality directly or through mental representations? Can we prove anything? Can we know anything? What is the difference between knowledge and opinion? What makes something true?

Example belief: I believe that the only thing we can know for certain is the content of our own mind.

Category #3: Axiology

Axiology is the study of value, including questions about what is good, worthwhile, or beautiful. It is also concerned with the nature of value itself.

Here are some common questions of Axiology:

What does it mean for something to have value? Is value objective or subjective? How do we determine what is valuable? Is there a hierarchy of values? What makes something beautiful? What makes something good? How do we resolve conflicts between values? Can we measure values?

Example belief: I believe that what makes something valuable is whether it is useful.

Category #4: Ethics

Ethics is the branch of philosophy focused on morality and the good life.

Here are some common questions in Ethics:

How should one live? What is right and wrong? Is morality objective or subjective? Is morality relative or absolute? How do we resolve moral conflicts? What is the best human life? Is pleasure good regardless of its source? What do we owe to other people? Are there any objective moral duties?

Example belief: I believe that some actions are always wrong, no matter the circumstances.

One Last Thing

Congratulations.

If you made it this far, you have already separated yourself from millions of people who have never taken the time to think about their personal beliefs.

We are just getting started.

Before you go, if you enjoyed this exercise and want to help other people become aware of The Micro-Philosopher, the best thing you could do is to click the image below and share some of your beliefs on X.

Finally, don’t forget to check your inbox next week — because we are going to take what you have done here and go even deeper, turning your initial list into core beliefs.

Take care.

Paul Musso, PhD