“Once we accept our limits, we go beyond them.” ~Albert Einstein
At the heart of our all our failures and all our successes is our beliefs; our like thoughts that have amassed. What you believe and what you do not believe are your experience drivers. You cannot tip-toe around them.
Beliefs provide heavy barriers that do not betray you. They are intended to cement a reality for you. They are strong beaconed attractors of like thoughts, of like situations, of like experiences. They filter your thoughts rejecting those thoughts that are disloyal to the belief. They are strong magnets for any thoughts that validate and strengthen the core belief and strong repellants for thoughts that betray the belief.
Your beliefs, regardless of what they are and your attitude toward them limit you. Understand that. Beliefs limit you by restricting your experiences only to those which fit neatly within the structure of the belief. On the over hand, beliefs are meant to restrict. You need to operate within a framework for harmony and solidarity. However, you do not have to stay in that framework.
You cannot bring into reality that which conflicts with your belief system. This is a fundamental key to understanding why you seem stuck. What you do not believe or what is not believable is repelled. What you do believe shows up in your life. Your beliefs set forth your physical reality.
Too often we become discouraged by our attempts at positive thinking, attracting by way of the Law of Attraction, changing our thoughts to change our life or developing effective habits. Our small doses of positively constructed thoughts and forced feelings of expectancy are of no match to our monumental super-sized beliefs. If I want to be a rock star, I cannot draw that experience towards me if I do not believe that is an option for me. I will repel that frequency.
You can think thoughts of abundance consistently. You can attempt feelings of elation over your current situation. You can force excitement as you approach the mailbox expecting a check. But these attempts will disappoint you, further endorsing the permanency of your current situation, until you eradicate the underlying belief that prohibits opportunity from migrating to you. Success cannot come to you if you repel it.
At the back of your mind, gnawing away at your futile attempts to change, are your beliefs. These super-sized thoughts have already formed opinions over what is believable for you. Changing your beliefs requires your acquaintance with them just as you were required to acquaint yourself with your thoughts. You can change your beliefs, people do all the time. You need ample ammunition.
What are your beliefs about success, abundance, your health, opportunities that exist, your abilities? What do you believe about society? Do you believe in bad luck and bad circumstances? What are your beliefs about how money is acquired, the path it takes? What beliefs do you hold about wealthy people? What beliefs do you hold about how people become wealthy? Do you believe it takes money to make money? Do you believe there is somebody for everybody or nobody for you? What is your ideal weight? Why aren’t you at your ideal weight? What do you believe?
For the first time in your life, inspect your beliefs with the finely tuned precision of a scientific microscope. Turn them over. Rattle them around. Remember your beliefs are only assumptions that you hold and have no factual merit. The only reason they appear true is because you have been providing the validating proof. You assume that you are fat, skinny, beautiful, ugly, intelligent, or rich because you subscribe to a set of beliefs that define what those things are. But those things are all meaningless without the definition. You provide the definition. You can say, “No, society does.” However, all you hold is similar thoughts. Thoughts do not make things true.
As you kick the legs out from the detrimental beliefs, your experiences will change. You must be willing to release beliefs that do not serve your purpose. Stop subscribing to limiting beliefs such as: I am fat, or I am too thin. I have limited opportunities, I am unhealthy. Replace these adverse beliefs with constructive thoughts such as: I am energetic, unbound, limitless, and capable of achieving anything. Old beliefs will crumble as new beliefs are installed. Your experiences will shift in response.
At first you might be inclined to whip out your ready-made list of excuses defending your shortcomings which include blaming anything or anyone but yourself, blaming the economy, your job loss, rotten luck or poor health. Recognize these excuses for what they are: thoughts validating your current reality. They have no factual merit. Remember change resides in embracing your power not forfeiting it to circumstances. Do not be tempted to resort to an excuse list that stands erected on faulty thoughts.
If you believe in the limits of a faulty economy, you will not see the opportunity that exists in these rare moments of economic change. If you believe you cannot possibly succeed without seed money, you will not see opportunities that require little or no seeding of funds. If you find people to be difficult, they will not let you down. Believing in the worst for yourself does you absolutely no favors. Equally as bad as a pessimist with a cup half empty is an optimistic with a cup half full. They both are only getting half of what they could have. Each needs to simply walk over to the sink and fill their cup full; neither realizes this is an option. You are not limited so stop thinking that you are.
Your beliefs are not actual facts only interpretations through which your thoughts filter. It is like only seeing the white light of the noon Sun. Change your viewing perspective and the Sun looks different. Change your beliefs and things will look different too. You can change your beliefs at any time by imposing constructive thoughts. Your new belief(s) will form as did your old, by validation. Harboring detrimental beliefs that usurp your power only allows current conditions to prevail. Realigning your beliefs to more appropriately serve you is where your real power resides. This is one of the profound secrets to tapping into your inner power. Your personal power is harvested from the garden of your beliefs. You will begin to attract and experience new pleasures once your beliefs have plowed the way. What you believe either gives you what you want or keeps it from you. The revelation will come to astound you; you direct your beliefs through your thoughts. You are in charge of your destination, always!
The most empowering belief you can hold at this time is the belief that you are unbound and capable of anything. You have no limits or restrictions. Truly cultivating this belief will liberate you from limiting beliefs. As you tell yourself that you are virtually anything you wish to be, those thoughts that fire off in counterattack are then easily identified as your limiting beliefs. As you think: I cannot. I won’t make it. I am not smart enough, talented enough or fortunate enough. Times are tough. I lost my job. The economy is bad. I can’t do it. Congratulate yourself! You have found an onion to dig up. Rid yourself of the belief and take the next step forward. What are the whispered thoughts you now hear?
It may be tempting to confuse what you have been experiencing as an unalterable situation. It is easy to do since you have been validating your beliefs quite readily in this regard, holding the situation to a level of permanency. For example, you might point to your belief that you are shy as an actual fact of reality that has limited you. It might be easy for you to bundle your lack of opportunity right around being shy (or your lack of education, or inexperience, or fill in the blank).
By now you should understand that believing you are shy does not make you unalterably shy, but rather you are shy because you believe you are. There is a difference. Believing in something does not transfer truth into truth. The concept of truth is formed by the validated belief. By changing your belief, you can easily make anything appear true or false. As a result it is not the object, the thing or the condition that truth garnishes. It is only the belief that is laced with truth. You are not shy. You only hold a belief that you are. You subscribe to a definition of what shy is. You could change your definition of what shy is, similar to the consequences of Pluto, and thus stop meeting the mold. Alternately, you could shed your shy beliefs in favor of a more outgoing you; hence, also setting aside your shyness. Shyness is not a fact, only a belief.
Once you believe in something, you will seek opportunities to validate that belief. The thoughts will trickle in like a sprung leak. The first time someone labels you as shy for example, thoughts trickled until a belief sprung. When you have to speak up you will stutter, stammer and sweat. These experiences flourish from the shy thoughts. People overcome shyness all the time. They do it with a change in thought. As soon as you discourage shy thoughts and encourage thoughts on confidence your experience will change.
Remember, like attracts like and creates an infinite amount of offshoots of thoughts impossible to categorize. It is likely that if you have shy thoughts, you have also attracted offshoots of similar patterned thinking such as: I embarrass easily. I am afraid to lead. I am uncomfortable being in charge. I am uncomfortable conducting meetings. I don’t like to be the center of attention.
Suddenly, if you want to start your own business, you have a problem. You cannot attract into being that which goes against your beliefs. If you are shy and likely hold negative beliefs about being in charge, leading and being in the spotlight you have stalemated your opportunity on running a company since you likely also hold beliefs that running your own company requires leadership, effectiveness, and the ability to take charge. Your beliefs provide barriers to you in ways you do not realize unless you hold the belief I mentioned earlier that anything is possible for you. You can still be successful and be shy. There are all sorts of success people who consider themselves shy. The difference is their thoughts on success overcompensated for their shy thoughts.
Another common misnomer is blaming the economy on your situation. Often we interpret the economy as being an unalterable fact of our condition. We blame our job loss, financial hardship or lack of sales on bad economic times. We feel stuck and unable to move ahead. Since our thoughts are centered on all the lack and despair the economy has perceptually brought upon us, we are unable to see the opportunity. What we focus on is brought constantly to our awareness and that becomes our boundary. We are unable to see beyond the boundary of the economy, unable to reinterpret our abilities from a job loss except through the definition of how we see ourselves as a teacher, a steel mill worker, or an accountant. We cannot see beyond the view we currently hold of ourselves because the filter is so strong. We easily pump out what is not within our current definition. Our beliefs do this for us. But we do not have to let them. We always have free choice on what to think.
Time and again, we are shown that the economy binds no person willing to find the opportunity. We also see people empowered by age, not enfeebled by it. Job loss is a powerful setting to reinventing yourself. Illustrated below are people who were not bound by the economy, age or job loss. Excuses are misinterpreted beliefs. The sooner you lose them, the better you are for it.
Charles Darrow finding himself out of work after the stock market crash of 1929 took the opportunity to perfect a little parlor game that we call Monopoly. Within a year of patenting the game, 20,000 Monopoly games a year were selling making Darrow the world’s first millionaire game designer. Darrow did let neither his job loss nor an extremely depressed economy draw his limits.
Have you ever heard of a man by the name of Floyd Bostwick Odlum? Odlum took advantage of the failing economy during the great depression by buying up failing companies at around fifty cents on the dollar. He reorganized the firms and sold the assets to raise more money. He repeated this process for more than fifteen years amassing over $100,000,000 making him one of the greatest investors of the Depression Era. Where others saw failing businesses, Odlum looked for, saw and found opportunity.
Colonel Sanders did not let his age stop him or his flopped restaurant. At the age of sixty five Sanders having a failed business, took his $105 from his first social security check and began visiting potential franchisees. He received over one thousand rejections before pairing up with Dave Thomas, founder of Wendy’s Old Fashioned Burgers. Sanders opted to revitalize a failing Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant stripping the menu down to just basic fried chicken and salads…the start of Kentucky Fried Chicken that we know today. He was sixty five years old, with a failed business and on Social Security. However, he did not allow his current predicament to determine his potential.
Winston Churchill failed sixth grade. He was subsequently defeated in every election for public office until he became Prime Minister at the age of sixty two. He later wrote, “Never give in, never give in, never, never, never , never- in nothing, great or small, large or petty-never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never, Never, Never, Never give up.”
Thomas Edison’s teacher said he was too stupid to learn anything. He was fired from his first two jobs for being non-productive. Edison made one thousand unsuccessful attempts at the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How does it feel to fail one thousand times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail one thousand times. The light bulb was an invention with one thousand steps.”
Hyatt Corporation opened its first hotel doors at the Los Angeles Airport during the Eisenhower recession 1957-58. Bill Gates and Paul Allen launched Microsoft during the recession in 1975. CNN started its humble beginnings as a little known station called The Cable Network News during the 1980’s recession. The Fortune 500 is full of companies that were founded during down times: from Johnson and Johnson to Disney, Cisco and Intel.
A recession can offer opportunities such as lower rents, a surplus of employees willing to work for lower wages, partnership opportunities, and opportunities to scoop up failing businesses, or job losses that can be turned into opportunities of a life time by forcing self reinvention. Unemployment equals time to find opportunity.
When you do not allow conditions to dictate your experiences, they do not. When you do not allow boundaries, no matter how real they seem to limit you, they cannot. And when you do not define success according to the prevailing economy, a job you had, your age or lack of education then success is a wide-open path for you. What do you want to do? Why aren’t you doing it? Your excuses are your belief barriers.
Darrow, Odlum, Edison, and Sanders looked for opportunities not explanations for their failures. They did not seek out reasons why they were incapable, or somehow prevented from accomplishment. Their focus remained on seeing the opportunity.
When we focus on our limits, they become our boundaries. Excuses are our losers limp. You are probably familiar with what a losers limp is from watching sporting events. The loser, not wanting to take responsibility for a loss, limps off the playing field pretending to be hurt. The injury is cited as the reason for failure in the game. We employ our losers limp on occasions when we are unwilling to take personal responsibility for our failure.
Blame and excuses are loser’s limps. People have shown that success, wellness, abundance, happiness and harmony can be had in spite of any prevailing circumstances. It is a belief in excuses that keeps you holding hands with current predicaments, whatever they may be. If you feel stuck, complaining something is preventing you from moving forward, it is your complaints that are your losers limp. Essentially, you are using “that thing you are complaining about” as a scapegoat for continuing on. However, most people do not do this purposefully. Their beliefs have so engaged them that they do not understand how reality is created; and so like vultures they keep circling rotting experiences.
You cannot attract into your experience events, people, places or opportunities that go against your beliefs. That is yet another of the fundamental secrets to achieving whatever you want. You can only attract what you believe in. If you want the experience of being a millionaire, then you must believe with absolute certainty that this experience exists for you.
Intense emotional outpourings and saturated thoughts of success get you nowhere if you have contrary beliefs. If you put up a vision board with a picture of you next to a yacht, pin up the ideal skinny you on the refrigerator, try visualizing yourself successful, or even write an acceptance speech for some award you try imagining yourself earning; all of these attempts will do nothing for you if in the back of your mind you hold doubt.
Think back to when you were a child at night alone in bed and afraid. Night after night your heart beat faster and faster as you tucked your head under the covers nearly intoxicating yourself with your short shallow breaths. Sweating profusely, you were afraid something was going to get you. In all likelihood, a villain should have appeared. The intense emotional outpouring, the cyclical thoughts, the body behavior all should have produced that furry monster ready to nibble your fingers off. However, the monster never appeared. Why? In the back of your mind, tucked way down in there, a belief existed that monsters do not exist. You cannot produce that which goes against your beliefs even in the event of emotional climax.
Beliefs confine you. That does not mean that all beliefs are bad. On the contrary, you have many beliefs that benefit you. You do need to be aware of what your beliefs are because they do encase you
in a framework. They prevent you from changing your course, taking action, succeeding, feeling well
and being abundant. But they also provide consistency, stability and reliability. You can alter any part
of your life simply by starting with the phrase, I am anything. What slaps you back with “no you are
not,” is where your belief inspection must start.
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