It’s been written in every major philosophy and religion that belief precedes results.
Meaning, an event you wish to transpire will not occur unless you believe that it will happen first.
Why do you think this is?
Myself, I believe that we each are our greatest ally and our greatest enemy.
I also believe that we create our own reality through the stories we tell ourselves internally.
Your Mind Is A Lens Filter
We see the world through the filter of our beliefs about the world.
In other words, if we believe that we are not capable of greatness, or if we believe success is not our calling, we are doomed to a path of mediocrity.
To achieve anything substantial, will you have to put in the work involved? Absolutely!
Nothing worth having falls into your lap by accident. You always have to do the work and take the steps to get there.
But you can do the work for years and years, and if you don’t believe — truly believe that your goal is something you can achieve, you will not achieve it.
Everyone has some self limiting beliefs. But it’s difficult to step outside of ourselves and be aware of our silent thought patterns.
Bricks In The Wall
Self-limiting beliefs are often ingrained in us from years of repetition.
Perhaps someone in authority once told us we couldn’t do something, like a parent, teacher, coach, or pastor. We accept it, and it becomes part of our internal belief pattern.
As we get older, we also silently take on the overarching beliefs of our particular society or culture.
Freud called this the superego — an internal voice that guides our belief system throughout life, and becomes a self-limiting device for many adults.
I call these “invisible scripts”. These are the echoes of limiting beliefs that we’ve heard somewhere, and accepted as our fate in life.
Though the words that others define us with can happen at any time in life, we are the ones conscript in deciding whether to accept those external definitions and then internalize them. We are also the ones that choose whether to reject someone else’s definition of our limitations, and therefore choose to define ourselves.
For those who struggle with invisible scripts, realize we can be the ones repeating it to ourselves, enforcing our personal truth that we won’t achieve what we want to.
Deconstructing our own personal beliefs about what we are meant to do is a lot of work. Beliefs that take years to build up in our psyche often take years to tear down as well.
The Crab Bucket and Like-Minded People
It’s important to surround ourselves with people that also believe in us and our goals.
You see, humans are funny.
We often reflect our beliefs about ourselves on to the people around us. We see other people through our own mental filters.
And when you’re trying to achieve something larger than you’ve ever done before, belief is something you need more of, not less.
A wise man once said that you have to protect your dreams from those who would destroy them with their words.
It’s common for people to not want to see you succeed more than they have. Like crabs in a bucket, they don’t want you escaping the level that you’ve been at previously. If they see you trying to escape the level of normalcy that most of us reside at, they’ll try and pull you back down to their level through their words and actions.
You must surround yourself with people who also believe that you can achieve your goals.
I once had a business coach that gave me very useful advice on several occasions. But I stopped working with him because he did not believe I could achieve the (frankly modest) goal I told him I wanted to achieve.
Naysayers are often very close to you. They may be friends or family.
When some of the people who are closest to you are the same people who don’t believe in you, what do you do you?
Every person is different, that many people are negative about people outside of themselves. Perhaps this is the case for you.
The best thing to do is keep believing in yourself, keep focused on your long-term goals, and find other people who are like-minded, and also trying to achieve great things.
Mastermind groups can be a good place to find such people. Entrepreneurial meet ups and networking events may also lead you to like-minded people, Sharing a common destination with you.
Be prepared for negative words from every side when you start talking about achieving more for your business. Gird yourself mentally and emotionally. Negative comments are not easy to shut off at first.
The important thing is, do not let negative people dissuade you from your path if you truly believe in yourself and your goals.
No One Anoints You For Greatness
Everything in the world was built by ordinary people, just like you.
Most entrepreneurs started small and kept building on what they had until they grew something substantial.
Like Cicero said 2000 years ago, all things have small beginnings.
No one gives people permission to do great things. They have to claim that right for themselves.
Your thoughts and your beliefs about yourself and your business are important.
If you don’t believe you can grow, you will not grow. It’s as simple as that.
Similarly, you must believe in yourself and your business if you want it to grow.
Thoughts become words. Words become actions. Actions become habits. Habits become routines. And those routines become weeks months and years.
Establish good routines for moving to the next level by starting with your thoughts and beliefs first.
