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Get this one thing right to boost your success
You’ve performed a review on your life/career/business. You’ve dived deep into what you want and why you want it. You’ve set SMARTER goals and created a plan of attack. Something is impeding your success.
Something is stopping your success!
You are struggling to get traction on your goals. You are having trouble even getting started.
WTF!
What’s going on between your ears may be what is stopping you from achieving your goals and dreams.
Very early on in my career I remember saying to myself that money was not that important and working hard to get a bit more money was not worth it.
I was in a job that I didn’t like and had zero career plan. I was working in a semi-government business, and I got a set pay rise every year. I did enough to keep my job, I got a pay rise. I put in a stellar year, I got the same pay rise. That was poisonous to me.
This was my first full time job out of university.
Was I motivated? Absolutely not.
Did that money mindset get stuck in my brain for years and years? Yes, it did.
Work was not the problem. I have no problem working, although now I have another mental block: How my lower back will hold up with working longer hours. As long as I have my recliner office chair, my sit-stand desk, my foam roller and regular chiropractor appointments, I’m OK. Cross-fingers.
That attitude towards money held me back for years from really going for it.
Now I’m not saying money is the most important thing in the world, but it sure makes life easier and more fun!
Knowing that I can work and still be physically ok, really frees my mind to look for opportunities because I now know I can do it. The next part was finding what motivates me.
FIT Wealth is that motivation. I want to create successful people. And I want to start with those aged 18-30. This is the age group where I can have the most impact.
The purpose of this post is to highlight the importance of the right mindset and the potential for your beliefs to hold you back.
Going into detail on how to reset these are beyond the scope of this post, however, I will direct you to books that can make a difference.
What drives actions?
Back in the post on values we saw that:
Your values determine your thoughts, that impact your decision making which yields a particular outcome through your actions or lack of action.
If my focus is to be healthy, that value will shift my thinking towards healthier choices, and I will decide to eat better and exercise more. Your beliefs also play an important role in determining your actions, or lack of action.
The critical question here is whether your beliefs will create the outcomes you desire.
A faulty belief, such as working hard for more money is not worth it, determines the outcome. Even if it is an outcome that you no longer want.
Beliefs such as:
- I’m not worthy of success.
- I’m not smart enough.
- I don’t have enough money to start my business.
- I’m not attractive enough.
- I’m not good at public speaking.
- Money is the root of all evil.
- I just don’t have enough time.
- I don’t have enough experience for that job.
- I’m just unlucky.
- It’s too hard.
- I can’t change.
- I’ve always been this way.
- You need money to make money.
- Those jobs don’t go to people like me.
- I can never finish things.
- People suck.
- I’m a failure.
These beliefs and many others, trap you in a life of mediocrity or even worse, poverty.
The great thing is, you can reprogram your brain. You can remove a faulty belief and replace it with constructive beliefs.
- I am a great person.
- I do deserve love.
- With money I can change the world for the better.
- Continuous education is important.
- I can achieve whatever I set out to do.
- To be successful, all I need is my brain.
- I love how I can adapt to any situation.
- I am good enough.
- I am worthy of success.
- A failure is a stepping stone to success.
- People are great.
Mindset success
Your mindset is a set of beliefs that shape how you make sense of the world and yourself. It influences how you think, feel, and behave in any given situation.
Imagine that the first list above was your set of beliefs. How far in life would you get?
The wrong beliefs act like a straight jacket. Limiting you, stopping you from achieving what you want.
Now imagine that the second list is your set of beliefs. How far in life would you get? Your world is completely different.
How important are your beliefs?
In the success literature (books, podcasts, etc). The term mindset is used extensively.
The premise is simple: Create a set of beliefs (your mindset) that optimises your chance of success.
Success isn’t a magic pill. It isn’t a business technique to learn. It isn’t the latest investment fad.
Your level of success is determined within you. Some people have a greater natural tendency to have beliefs that enhance success, but the important message is that you can remove beliefs that are not helpful and install ones that are.
Stories abound of millionaires who first made millions, then lost it all, then made it all back.
Donald Trump (yes the ex-US president), for example, became a billionaire in the 1980’s as he borrowed big for real estate projects. A real estate crash in the 1990’s resulted in a negative net worth (due to debt). But he rebuilt and got his billions back.
Was he lucky TWICE? No. He had the mindset and the tools (the knowledge, experience and connections) to do it all again.
In Michael Hyatt’s “Your best year ever”, the first chapter is “Your beliefs shape your reality”. The whole first part of the book is about identifying and upgrading your beliefs.
Early in “Awaken the Giant Within”, Tony Robbins addresses the importance of your belief system and its power to create and its power to destroy.
These two books are a must.
Make no mistake. Your beliefs determine your life.
The “impossible” has been achieved by people who had beliefs that propelled them forward. How else can you get a person on the moon, get a spacecraft 22.8 billion kms from earth (Voyager 1), create light or save the planet?
What is a belief?
Tony Robbins says that if you want to create long-term and consistent changes in your behaviour (your actions), you must change the beliefs that are holding you back.
Tony defines a belief as a feeling of certainty about something.
I feel certain I will succeed with regards to my goals.
If you develop the absolute certainty that you WILL achieve your goals, you will lead yourself every day to the fulfillment of those goals.
I am certain that I am not worthy of a great life.
Beliefs can be poisonous to progress.
Speaking about the people he has interviewed, Tony said that every great achiever had the ability to get themselves to feel certain they could succeed, even though no one before them had ever accomplished it.
A belief is much stronger than an opinion on something and goes to the core of your very being. Opinions can change easily based on new information. But a belief is often held even though ALL information would suggest otherwise.
Michael Hyatt discusses three area of beliefs.
- Beliefs about the world.
- Beliefs about other people.
- Beliefs about yourself.
Your deep feelings about the world, other people and yourself will influence how you interact with the world around you.
If you have positive beliefs about the world, others and yourself you will mostly likely have a positive life experience.
If you have positive beliefs about the world and others, but not yourself, you will not put yourself out into the world for fear of failure and getting emotionally hurt.
If you have positive beliefs about yourself, but not the world or others, then it’s all about you and you don’t care about anyone else because you believe they will let you down, they’re all stupid etc.
You can see by having positive or negative beliefs regarding internal and external aspects of your life can significantly impact how you live life and the quality of your life.
Exercise:
What are your beneficial beliefs?
What are your hindering beliefs?
Where do these beliefs come from?
Many beliefs come from your parents. I know mine do.
My father was a criminal prosecutor. He put the bad guys in jail. But what did he see day in and day out? Bad guys. What was the belief that was “passed” down to me? People are fundamentally bad.
Now I never actually saw the bad guys. But with repetition over many years, you get “programmed” to think that.
Your parents may be the source of many good and bad beliefs. If you are a parent, what you say can leave a lifelong mark upon your children. Make it a good mark.
- You’re smart.
- You’re dumb.
- You’re fat.
- You’re intelligent.
- You can achieve whatever you want.
- The world is a great place.
- The world is a dangerous place.
- Work hard.
- Help others.
- Family first.
What parents think is just a minor comment, can shape the beliefs of your children for life.
If they are full of beliefs that are not helping them, their progress in life is hindered.
Other sources of beliefs in childhood can come from your friends or from bullies at school. Due to the nature of kids, they tend to pick on the negative.
In adult life, your experiences can shape beliefs. Maybe you have made a few bad decisions, or you attempted something, and it was a failure. These events can lead you to the conclusion that you are a failure or that you always make bad decisions.
You now have two entrenched negative beliefs, even though they may not be true or reflect the full set of circumstances that occurred.
Can you change your beliefs?
You have identified your hindering beliefs. That’s the first step in change.
Next, according to Tony Robbins, is to get your brain to associate massive pain to your hindering belief.
For example, your current belief is that you’re too unattractive to find a partner (assuming this is something that you want).
You can replace whatever hindering belief you have and go through the same process.
If you hold onto that belief, you will be single forever. Imagine being single forever. Does that hurt? Does it scare you? Does that sound miserable?
Which is worse, retaining the hindering belief, or the reality of holding on to that belief? The reality, right?
Then create doubt.
Focus on the positive. I’m a loving and caring person. I’m funny. I’m smart.
These are traits that others will find appealing.
Address the negative. Because I have no doubt that you spend a lot of time dwelling on this. Use the pain identified above to create action.
- Overweight – get healthy.
- Underweight – get healthy.
- Present poorly – learn how to present yourself well. Grooming, clothing etc.
- Learn to be a great storyteller. Be engaging.
- Read widely. Be interesting.
- Care about yourself (sensibly).
Now we have created significant doubt about those original beliefs.
Question your beliefs. Look for evidence that can further challenge your beliefs.
Well, actually, I do have a lot of friends. They come to me when they need help or because I am a fun person.
New belief – I am worthy of finding the love of my life.
How you interact with the world is now totally different.
To quote again from Tony Robbins: The way to expand our lives is to model the lives of those people who are already succeeding.
This may mean reading biographies on successful people. It may mean identifying people in your life who are successful in areas of life that you want to be successful in: career, business, health, parenting, relationships, etc. Then ask them what they have done to be successful.
Collect the information and find a way to assimilate it into your life that works for you.
I have reminders on my phone that pop up every day. In it is list of goals I’m aiming for and beliefs I want to solidify into my mindset.
The right stuff, drilled into my head daily. Repetition.
The bad stuff was drilled in regularly, so I take the same approach in getting the good stuff in!
Important note: My discussion here is only scratching the surface on changing beliefs with a very brief summary of my readings.
It is very important that you do further reading or seek professional assistance if you have major beliefs that are holding you back.
The wrap
What goes on between your ears determines your reality.
Understanding what you value and what beliefs you have will explain where you are right now in life.
I can’t tell you what your values and beliefs should be. There is no “right or wrong” answer. It’s a matter of what is beneficial to you or not. Are you moving in the right direction (goal setting) at a speed (limiting values and beliefs) that is optimal?
If you are not on the right path or moving at the speed you want, review your values and identify those hindering beliefs.
List the values and beliefs that you feel will place you in the right direction.
Constantly review the list until you end up with the right values and beliefs that move towards being the person you want to become and have the life you want live.
Up next …..
The right collection of these will lead you to success.
Take action in your life.
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