To Be(lieve) or Not To Be(lieve); That is The Question
You don't need to believe in God, the Law of Attraction or any other such thing to accept one simple fact.
If you hope to achieve anything in life, you had better first believe you can.
"Whether you believe you can do a thing, or not; you are right." Henry Ford
If a man(or woman) truly believes he can finish the Boston Marathon he will train for weeks, sign up, show up and give it his all. If he holds firm in his belief, he will continue to run, although it may rain, his legs may burn, his sides may ache, his breathe be ragged, his heart pounding, he will persevere until the end. He may finish, or if he hasn't trained properly he may fail, only to learn he had better train harder next time.
But if a man(or woman) doesn't even believe they can finish will they even train? No. They will merely content themselves to watch it on T.V. and say, as always, 'I'd love to do that.' 'Maybe one day.' 'That's my dream.' Until they develop the belief that they can, it will always remain a dream.
D.E.B. Desire, Expectation, Belief
Those are three critical elements to achieving any goal in life. In yesterdays blog I gave 5 methods for creating burning Desire. Creating belief is a little more difficult because we all have set beliefs to begin with.
"You must unlearn what you have learned" - Yoda
Okay, quoting Yoda from Star Wars may be cheesy (if fun) but the little green guru is right on this one.
We all have belief systems that we built or that our parents, peers and social circles built for us. Usually without a wit of conscious thought going into it. For example, if you had Attention Deficiency Disorder as a child and recieved poor grades in school you may have established a belief that you are not very smart. That's nonsense of course because A.D.D. has no bearing on one's intelligence, just on your ability to focus. Most people outgrow A.D.D. in the teenage years but may carry on the belief that they aren't very intelligent for many years afters. Until someone or something comes along to disprove it.
So how do we abandon old limiting beliefs and enbrace new ones?
Think of a belief as a tabletop. Like any tabletop it needs to be supported by legs. In this case, the legs are references. Things that you have seen or heard that supports the belief. The more legs the tabletop has, the more stable it is. So if you want to knock over a table, you can by chopping it's legs out from under it.
5 Steps to Creating Belief
1. Identify old disempowering beliefs. Most of us aren't aware of what our beliefs are on a conscious level so start by asking yourself a series of questions. What do you want to achieve? Do you honestly believe, in your heart, that you can accomplish that? Why not? Write out the answer. Does this belief move you towards your goal or away from it? It's not a matter so much as to whether the belief is right or wrong, all beliefs are subjective anyway, it's a matter of if it's empowering or disempowering. If it's disempowering then it has to go. (However common sense must stay; believing you can jump off a building and fly isn't going to make it happen unless you build yourself a hang glider first).
2. Dismantle old beliefs. Once you have a disempowering belief identified start asking yourself why you believe that. What are the references supporting that belief? Look at them one by one and ask yourself if it really makes sense? Most of them shatter under close inspection. Many were probably adopted as a child and you've never even reconsidered them before now.
3. Create new beliefs. Look at what you're trying to achieve. What will you need to believe in order to make that happen? Adopt that belief. You're probably shaking your head saying 'I can't just believe something just like that'. Sure you could. If you came face to face with an alien even the most hardened skeptic of alien life would quickly have to accept the reality before them. Or for a less dramatic example, tell your girl friend (or wife) she's fat and see how quickly she adopts that belief. Fact is you can believe anything you want to believe. All you need is references for support.
4. Support the new belief. Find evidence to support your new belief. If you want to believe that you're attractive (so you can find a love interest for example) you can by looking at all the evidence that supports that. Everyone has some attractive features, focus on what's beautiful about you. Make a list of great features that you have and take note of them whenever you look in the mirror. If you have nice legs, wear clothes that help to show them off. Buy new clothes than make you feel sexier. Exercise. Diet. The more you see yourself as attractive and do things to make you feel that way, the more confidence you'll exude. And confidence is the biggest factor in attractiveness. A confident man will always get a woman before a shy handsome man. And a woman who believes she's sexy and acts accordingly (and tastefully) will be.
5. Re-enforce the new belief. Keep finding new references to support that belief. At first you will find this hard but as you continue to look you'll find more and more and it'll become easier and easier to do so. Ever buy a new car and suddenly you notice how many other people have the same car? They did before you bought yours of course, you just never noticed before because your brain wasn't focused on that. Once you condition your brain to look for something (or it decides it's important) you'll find lots of whatever you're looking for.
NLP can also be used to re-enforce beliefs very effectively in a short amount of time. (See article on Desire)
Anthony Robbins deals with creating belief very practically in his masterpiece 'Awaken the Giant Within'. (Available through the Amazon link below)
[Luke] I can't believe it. [Yoda] That is why you fail. - Couldn't resist!
©Preston Squire 2009
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