Since I wrote my post on Abraham Hicks ‘The Vortex’ a few months ago I have become more and more aware of the importance of belief in our lives and of how many people aren’t ‘believers’. I don’t mean this in a religious sense… I am talking about the power of belief on an individual and deeply personal level. In the previous post I said:
Our beliefs are what keep us from who we really are and what we really want and if we need to see it before we believe it, the proof will never come.
This has sparked quite a bit of discussion with clients and colleagues who agree on an intellectual level but find the application of believing in something they haven’t seen tough to grasp. Here is how I see it…
The Power of Belief
In many aspects of my life (not all, I admit) I have always been a strong believer. I imagine what I want, visualise it and intensely focus upon it with every essence of myself until I get it or achieve it.
I have come to understand that belief is a critical factor to ultimately creating the life I want and while I waver at times, my approach has been fairly constant: I believe, I behave consistently with that belief – it happens, rinse and repeat. This has happened so many times for me that I am often more surprised when it doesn’t and it leaves me feeling quite wounded until I pick myself up again, shake it off and regain my focus.
I have discovered recently that there are two critical factors that affect the outcome for me and I don’t use the word ‘critical’ lightly. The times I have fallen flat on my face are when I haven’t taken both of these factors into consideration.
The first is one that I have practiced for many years. While I have heard many successful people use the phrase ‘believe in the possibilities’ I didn’t fully understand the application until I buried myself in the work of Jim Rohn nearly a decade ago.
Believing that something is possible is important, believing that something is possible for ‘me’ is what makes it or breaks it.
Believing that something is possible is the easy bit, challenging myself as to whether it is possible for me is where the rubber hits the road and I get the feeling in my body as to whether it is something I can set my sights on or not.
The answer to the second question needs to be considered on both an intellectual and emotional level. The words we say can be programmed, the feelings we get rarely are and provide us with the indicator of whether this is truly something we can invest our belief in or whether we have more work to do before we can take this step.
Let me explain …..
Many of us have goals involving a greater level of income. Whether we achieve these goals is directly related to whether the goals we set are within the realms of our own belief parameters. Our belief parameters are normally established through our experiences, whether they be our own or those of someone close to us.
The first question I ask myself when I have considered a potential goal is:
Do I believe this is possible? And my answer is always ‘yes’ because I have a fundamental belief that anything is possible – your response may be different. The second question is by far the most important and relevant: Do I believe it is possible for me? If my immediate response is ‘yes’ then I know it will happen for me, if there is any sense of doubt (and I mean any slight hesitation that would indicate doubt) it’s a ‘no’ and unless this is resolved it will affect your belief and the outcome of your goal. Any belief worth having must survive doubt.
I have had times (many actually) where I have said all the right things and even thought all the right things but there was something niggling inside me that wasn’t quite aligned and this small but significant feeling undermined my entire goal.
This isn’t only relevant for money but all things we believe we want in our lives. Deep down we know whether something is possible for us or not and yet many of us go through the motions because we have a false belief or we choose to ignore what is really going on for us and this is when we are at risk of coming undone.
Can we change our belief parameters? Yes, I believe we can but I will save that long conversation for a future post!
The second critical factor is only relevant when another person is involved in what we want. There are times when we will see eye to eye and head toward a similar direction with a loved one, business partner or friend setting a shared goal based on a shared belief.
Having a second person adds to the complexity and any significant difference in what we want can lead to conflicted beliefs and a disconnection from the objective.
In this circumstance we need to ask ourselves (and them!):
- Do we believe this is possible for us? And;
- Do we share a similar level of commitment to this belief?
If we can’t answer yes to both of these questions then we need to re-evaluate whether our energy is best spent in this arrangement or elsewhere.
What I have come to understand is that the only person I can believe for is me and the only person they can believe for is them. It is not my role to believe for them as much as I have wanted to at times. Just like we cannot ‘love’ someone into someone they are not, we cannot ‘believe’ someone down a path they don’t believe is possible for them.
Applying the power of belief isn’t complicated if you take note of these basic questions. If you do believe something is possible for you then I urge you to ‘go for it’ with every ounce of belief that you have and if you don’t then I will leave you with this quote to ponder….
“Above all, be true to yourself and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it” Unknown
Take care
Helen.
