Belief, The System that Makes You Who You Are

Belief is the ultimate system that drives man to succeed. If it is wisely used, man can overcome just any challenges and difficulties, but if it is wrongly used, man perishes.

What is a belief?

I’m not refering to any religious beliefs here and I think you should know that.

Basically, belief is something that we have accepted regardless of the truth. Belief serves as the guiding system in determining what we do and don't. For example, if by believing that man with scar on the face must be bad, it will definitely make us to be more cautious and alert when one is around. On the other hand, if we believe that the scar has nothing to do with one's personality, we will treat him as a usual person that walks past us everyday.

Is that belief is all about?

Not really, it's more than that. Belief serves in every aspect of our lives which most of the time, we don't even aware of it. Whatever we have accepted as true will penetrate into the subconscious where every action that the subconscious take is based on that particular belief.

For example, with the belief that money must be hard earned, we will have to work hard in order to make money and this is regardless the position and type of jobs that we are in. Working hard doesn't necessary on the level of physical, it could be on the mental level

That belief creates the "terms and conditions" before money is laid into our hands. So if you want to find out your belief about making money, just look at your working conditions before getting your paycheck or income. By hard, it doesn't just mean physically but as well as mentally, which in my opinion is harder to bear compare to the earlier.

Beliefs are formed by past experiences whether we involved in it directly or not. And through these experiences, interpretations are made - if we see thing bad, than we will interpret it as unpleasant or if pleasant we will interpret it to be good.

However, the interpretations might not be correct, such as from the earlier example. Man with scar doesn't necessary to be bad. He might have save someone from danger in the past and has caused him the scar. We could never know this.

Interpretation is always made at the surface level without deep inspection, it's just a generalization- we might learnt it from watching TV, reading, imagining, etc. Remember, generalization is always based on the majority views.

Well, as I've mentioned before, we hold a specific belief on every aspect in our live; be it health, wealth or success. If by any means that we are not satisfied with any aspects of our lives, we would have to look within. We have to identify those beliefs that limit us and those that make us see thing in the hard way.

Having a limiting belief brings us nowhere, it only traps us in the condition that no one would ever have wished for. By changing the beliefs, the circumstances will change accordingly; it reflects what we hold within us.

Here, I would like to touch a bit on success. Basically, success is not a defined state. Nobody could judge whether one person is a success or not. It does not have a measurement unless we give to it. It does not have a definition because once the definition is put in place, it creates limitation.

Unaware of this, most people go around and tell their friends and spouses that success is hard. It is very hard to succeed in anything especially in term of wealth building or even business.

By always holding this definition in the mind, a new belief will form; that success is hard and not for just anyone, success is meant for successful person only. This one belief alone will stop people from accomplish anything and it might affect every other aspect of life. As far as this, I am not saying that success is easy.

People will not succeed just because they are not successful person? Isn't that absurd?

Is success you?

Well, most people would definitely say "NO".

How about you?

Do you take the fact that you are successful for still be able to live your life today?

OR isn't that's success?

You have successfully live through yesterday and I believe today will not be missed and many more successful days to come. By defining that success is achieved everyday, you gain the momentum and more and more and bigger success will be waiting for you. Success is built bit by bit on the platform of our subconscious and it can be done by just acknowledging the small little success.

Lastly, we will have to believe in whatever we want to achieve. If you want to succeed, believe that you could. It must have the starting point to begin or else never would.

"Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy." -Anthony Robbins

Define your belief positively and constructively and you are on the way..

Whether you realize it or not, your beliefs play a significant role in determining the quality of your lives. Beliefs serves as your life guidelines in determining things that you could do and the things that you couldn't. 'Could or could not' and not either 'right or wrong', it's just the way you see things and which you fix a possibility onto it.

If you believe that everyone is mean, then mostly your world will be filled up by mean people. If you believe that there is always not enough and that you need to struggle to make it through, then it goes all the way. Sounds like 'The Secret', isn't it? But it's true, the psychology forces inside you works on it and your beliefs serve as the criteria for it to follow.

Well, you might say, “I know nothing about psychology and I don't believe in you.”

How about this, if you believe that physics studies is tough, there is always someone out there who believe it is easy. Your belief makes your understanding towards physics tough and the one who believes it is easy, would have an easy experience. I'm guilty about this.

At this point, you or someone might argue that;

What if I am really not good in doing business on my own?

What if I don't look good and she doesn't like me?

What if there aren't any opportunities here?

What if this stuff doesn't work?

What if I'm not good at this?

Or the ultimate questions, what if all the beliefs that I have are really true? Don't you think that I will make the wrong move for not following my existing beliefs?

One of the most important facts about beliefs is that they might not be true. Beliefs do not have to be proven facts. They might be wrong but somehow you truly perceive them as being true. Beliefs are usually generalizations, perceptions, opinions or views that we have towards the world around us.

Before a belief is accepted as to be true, it need to go through certain generalization processes which legitimate or approve it. And once the approval mark is stamped on it, it becomes our world, the reality that you see in your life.

I would like to share a remarkable story here:

The Four Minute Mile

One of the truly amazing stories that I learned from Tony Robbins is the story about the 'Four Minute Mile' (you might have heard this from other sources as well).

In the human history, to run a mile in under four minutes was truly impossible since those who had attempted this failed miserable. From there, it was generalized that human could not possible run a mile in less that four minutes and to strengthen this fact, a medical study had even revealed that human physiology is not meant for that. A person might die if he run close that speed.

However, in 1954, Roger Bannister, a postgraduate student from Oxford University challenged this 'impossible' fact. Despite the fact that he was far from being the best runner of his time, Roger didn't back up and one of the thing besides physical training that Roger emphasized on was training his mind. He kept visualizing himself breaking the four minute time barrier. It was an intensive training and he knew that overcoming the mind was the roof of his success.

On May 6, 1954, Roger Bannister stunned the world by accomplishing the mile in under four minutes and to be precise, it was 3 minutes and 54 seconds .

It was amazing and Roger accomplishment had changed people views towards the four minute run. Within a year, 37 other runners had broken his record and within the next three years, over 300 runners had accomplished the same. Now almost every college kid does that.

So what made the others to accomplished the same after Roger Banister, which was an ordinary runner?

The fact was people before Roger were holding limiting belief; the belief that running a mile in under four minutes was not possible despite the fact that they were indeed capable to do it. And once Roger did it, their belief broken, it was no longer supported by any facts.

Beliefs are never absolutely true, but it does when you accepted it to be true. Your unconscious acts on it and created your reality. Nothing is truly true in the world except the way we spoke it.