Beliefs Series:
- Part 1 – Beliefs Hold the Key
- Part 2 – Own your Beliefs!
- Part 3 – To Be Successful, Have Successful Beliefs
As we’ve discussed, beliefs create our reality. We develop beliefs for every area of our life, yet, the most important beliefs that contribute towards our success are the ones that determine the feelings towards oneself. How you view yourself, has a direct relationship with the success you will have in the world – If you don’t believe you possess value, than there is nothing for you to share.
Successful people have successful beliefs. If you need examples for defining a successful belief, I suggest finding people you deem ‘successful’ and ask them, or read biographies from great minds you admire (sorry, mine isn’t written yet. I kid, I kid.). If you talk with some of the most successful people in the world, past or present, the most common denominator is related to the goals they set and the beliefs they hold.
The belief in yourself, your abilities, your value, and your future success is paramount.
Let’s dig in.
The Power of a Belief
“It always seems impossible until it’s done.” ~ Nelson Mandela
In 1954, the commonly held belief in the world was that it was humanly impossible to run a four-minute mile. That’s until Roger Bannister came along, believing and proclaiming he’ll do the impossible. Sure enough, after many close attempts, he broke the four-minute barrier by.6 seconds! He shattered people’s beliefs by doing the impossible.
Know what happened next? A shift in belief occurred, which led to a plethora of runners conquering this once ‘impossible’ feat. Today, thousands of people have done it.
I don’t believe humans evolved at such a rapid rate in the 50s and thus allowing our muscle fibers to increase in density, enabling new increases in speed and longevity. The only factor that changed was the belief that is was possible – starting with Roger Bannister, believing in himself and not allowing a commonly held belief to hold him back.
What you think about most, what you focus on, what you believe, has a direct connection to your overall well-being, happiness, and success. Check out ‘Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Reality’ for a more detailed discussion.
Clarity is Power
Beliefs form our view on life, and nobody wants a blurry view. Our beliefs naturally guide us in the direction we most desire, and the clearer we are, the better the results. Our subconscious can be our best friend or our worst nightmare, and proper programming (via our thoughts and beliefs over time) is required. Put garbage in, get garbage out.
Developing clarity is one of the hardest things to do; we are very complex creatures and knowing oneself thoroughly is not easy. I was always the kid trying to do anything and everything because I never knew what I wanted out of this life. I would tell my dad “If I knew what I wanted to do, I would start now and be the best at it!” – I was 12 years old. Sure, I held the empowering belief I could do anything and be great at it, but unfortunately, I had no where to point this energy. My goals and aspirations were fuzzy at best.
Let’s look at a better example, from a person who knew what he wanted to do and the value he believed he was worth…
Picture the story of Canadian born Jim Carrey, rising from being a small time Comedian in Ontario, and landing on the big screens all over the world. Want to know something special about him? As crazy as he portrayed himself on screen, Jim had clarity – he knew what success meant to him and he believed he had the ability to capture it. Do you have this kind of belief in yourself? This is what he had to say:
“I wrote myself a check for ten million dollars for acting services rendered and dated it Thanksgiving 1995. I put it in my wallet and it deteriorated. And then, just before Thanksgiving 1995, I found out I was going to make ten million dollars for Dumb and Dumber. I put that check in the casket with my father because it was our dream together.” ~ Jim Carrey
He knew his value, he believed in himself, and even put a deadline on it!
Do your dreams have deadlines? Do you possess the beliefs in yourself to back them up?
Great Role Models
Did you know that Michael Jordan was dropped from his High School team? He believed in himself, he believed he could fly, and before we all knew it he was flying across the NBA courts. In his book, “I Can’t Accept Not Trying”, he says that he can accept failure, but he can’t accept not trying.
Lance Armstrong believes that winning is about heart, not just the legs. Your heart has to be in the right place. He also believes that if you are worried about falling off the bike, you’d never get on.
When Tiger Woods was a young boy, he wrote down on a 3×5 card that he was going to break all of Jack Nicklaus’ records. Look at him now. Jack Nicklaus agrees that Woods can do it if he stays on the track he’s on.
Bill Gates believes in the importance of hard work, and if you are intelligent and know how to apply your intelligence, you an achieve anything. This led him to drop out of college (scary!) to follow his passions.
Will Smith believes ‘I can create whatever I want to create,’ and ‘We are who we choose to be’. Pretty powerful beliefs no?
All these people started with a belief and moved on to greatness. They believed in themselves and it’s easily visible with everything they do. You shouldn’t have to build confidence in yourself by the accomplishments you achieve, you should achieve accomplishments by the confidence you have in yourself.
What Prevents Successful Beliefs?
Have you failed more often than not? Have you been told by people close to you, that you won’t amount to anything? What is holding you back from holding successful beliefs?
That last question may sound silly, because why would anyone hold onto beliefs that are NOT beneficial to themselves? Ludicrous! Well, this tends to be the main problem that people have, because belief formation is not dependent on a logical framework and are extremely resistant to logical thinking.
Why would a person believe they can’t do something if they have no past experience in which to base that belief? Isn’t it just as easy to believe you can do something? It sure is, but usually fear finds a way to sneak in and blind us. That is what is so great about fear – fearis usually a red flag, an indicator for opportunities to grow. If our beliefs create our reality, than in order to change our reality, we must first change our beliefs. Let’s look at how we can do that.
The Power of Positive Affirmations
Positive affirmations refer to consciously programming your brain with positive thoughts. Reminding yourself of the potential you possess, the feelings you want to experience, the life you expect to have, and the life you want to live. I suggest creating your own affirmations that are personal to you in which you can easily subscribe to. Affirmations could include:
- “I am a successful, hard working, and motivated businessman who people trust, respect and love doing business with.”
- “I am a loving father and husband who shows love, affection, and encouragement to my wife and children.”
- “I get excited and joyful when an opportunity arrives to help someone.”
- “I feel energized when a challenge presents itself because it is just one more success waiting to happen.”
- “My life is filled with an abundance of opportunities waiting to be acted upon.”
- “My mind and body are clean and healthy and I do something everyday to ensure this.”
- “I can do anything I set my mind to.”
The most powerful statements are the ones that start with ‘I am…’ because you are declaring your ideal image of yourself, and your brain will start aligning itself with this image as if you’ve already become that person.
Sometimes affirmations don’t feel like they fit, or we aren’t living up to the expectation of the affirmation, and that is fine. If you are new to the idea behind positive affirmations, then it may feel like you are lying or tricking yourself into believing something that isn’t true. Affirmations are not meant for lying to ourselves; their purpose is to enable the potential within us to fulfill the affirmations. Affirmations help fight the fear that holds us back from action.
Through affirmations, we consciously note the person we want to become, and we actively move in the direction naturally by programming our thoughts and beliefs. Simply thinking the affirmation does not have a positive effect until it is repeated, believed, and felt. This has the potential to be powerful. Start thinking of your subconscious brain as a programmable entity and you’ll start aligning your thoughts and beliefs to promote feelings you want to experience.
Start Having Successful Beliefs
Personally, I strongly believe that men/women should have a life filled with creating – creating ideas or inventions, creating a better world, creating value for others, and creating a fulfilled life. In doing so, you leave your unique mark on the world.
I believe if you don’t have the discipline to convert thought and beliefs into action, you are not living successfully. This belief pushes me and motivates me to produce something on a regular basis giving me feelings of accomplishment, satisfaction, and joy for fulfilling my belief. If I don’t, I feel I am not living up to my potential. I don’t even have to push myself anymore, I simply have the drive, urge, and need to create SOMETHING. This website is one outlet for this belief, and it is my attempt to create something that is timeless and challenges people’s thought patterns, beliefs, and encourages them to live the life they can.
To start having successful beliefs, we need to start by recognizing the ones that hold us back, and as we noted, beliefs are not bound by logic. How can we pinpoint these harmful beliefs? We can do this by making goals and recognizing thoughts that arise when we aim big. We can do this by looking at our previous track record and discovering why we failed or succeeded. Sometimes other people have to tell us. And many times, recognizing a negative belief is as simple as listening to yourself every time you use the words ‘I can’t…’.
Eliminate these negative beliefs and start creating beliefs that motivate you to action, push you to succeed, remind you of your purpose, and fires up your confidence. The battlefield to success is not in the world, it’s inside your head. Figure that out, and the world changes in front of you eyes.
Reflection
Most of us hold ourselves back by some of the beliefs we hold, we place restrictions and limitations upon ourselves. We once believed that light not produced by the sun or fire was impossible. Thanks Edison. We once believed human flight was impossible. Thanks Orville and Wilbur Wright. Successful people hold successful beliefs, isn’t it about time everyone joined in?
Think about it:
- What beliefs do you hold that pushes you to reach new levels of success?
- What beliefs do you hold that limit you from reaching new levels of success?
- Look in the mirror, how do you feel about yourself?
- Close your eyes, what do you think about yourself?
- Do you believe you’ll be successful?
- How do you feel about money and it’s role in success?
- Do you have reasons for why you are not successful? Try and debunk these.
- Do you make a failure into a success by learning from it?
- Are your beliefs shaped by fear and uncertainty?
- Do you believe you can make a difference but fail to act? What belief is holding you back?
- Dig deep and know your beliefs. You have to discover a belief you hold before you can change or upgrade it.
- What feelings arise when I think about something I want to/plan to do? Beliefs lead to the feelings we experience, so knowing our feelings can lead to understanding our belief!
Feel free to share some of your beliefs and discoveries, we’d love to hear them!