By: Shantanu Das Sharma, Sr. Associate Editor-ICN Group
Quick recap of what we have covered in Part 10
All Communications Are a Mix of Words, Tonality & Body Language
In Reality There Are No Resistant Students, Only Inflexible Teachers
And You Always Have a Choice!
For Things to (Truly) Change, I Must (Truly) Change First
Learn To Use ‘I Choose’ Often
THE EXTRAORDINARY POWER OF BELIEFS
KOLKATA: Beliefs can make ordinary people do awesome, incredible things but holding on to limiting beliefs can also cripple the most talented
How is it that some people are able to achieve so much more out of their lives than others? How are some people able to produce such outstanding, even extraordinary results… far exceeding what is commonly expected?
Is it because they have a lot more talent, acumen, capability? Do they have superior resources that other people lack? You and I both know by now that this is not true at all. Did the Wright brothers, inventors of the airplane, have more aerodynamic and engineering expertise than all the engineers and inventors of their time? No. They were simple bicycle repairmen.
Did Mahatma Gandhi come from a powerful family that enabled him to establish a power base to liberate India from the British? No. He was just an ordinary man, a lawyer. And using the law taught to him by his colonial masters certainly wouldn’t have freed India. Instead, gentle Gandhi used the power of peaceful assemblies, bringing tens of thousands to sit in peaceful civil disobedience…until the British caved in.
Was Ho Chi Min a mighty general who trained the Viet Cong to first drive out the French and then the Americans? No, he was an intellectual and a journalist who didn’t even have the heart to kill the pests who shared the many jails he was thrown into as he fought for independence for his beloved Vietnam. Ho made friends with the insects!
Neither Gandhi nor Ho Chi Min had any measurable resources to do what they did… and history is peppered with many such outstanding individuals. What set these men apart were the extraordinary beliefs they had about the moral rightness of their cause. That gave them incredible strength to fight on, against all odds, and win. Beliefs are what empower seemingly ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. At the same time, limiting beliefs disallow them to make it happen.
You will take massive action and have the commitment to keep doing whatever it takes to achieve it. As a result, you will tap a lot of your personal potential. What kind of results do you think you will produce? Great results! When you get great results, it will reinforce your empowering beliefs even more! For example, if you have an empowering belief that you can build a highly successful business that will positively impact millions of lives; this belief will drive you to take massive action.
You will start innovating new product lines; probably invest in R & D to create entirely new products or processes. You will develop a business plan, attract investors and launch your marketing campaign. Sure you will have lots of obstacles along the way, but your beliefs will drive you to turn any failure into feedback and to change your strategy until you get the result you want. Even if you don’t achieve the exact targets you set for yourself, you are going to produce some great result. Whereas limiting beliefs are what keep most people, despite all their resources, from achieving what they really can.
Our beliefs are like the operating system to our brain. They determine what we expect from ourselves and how much we get out of ourselves. First of all, your beliefs define your expectations. If you believe that you can become a millionaire, a CEO or a President, then that is what you will expect from yourself. If you believe that you will never have the capability to earn more than Rs.20,000 a year, then that is what you will expect from yourself. If you believe that you can lead others, then you will expect to attain nothing less than a management position. If you believe that you are nothing more than a follower, then you will not expect anything more than being just a front line employee.
At the same time, your beliefs will drive the actions you take, and how much of your personal potential you will tap. When you believe that something is possible, you will go all out to make it happen. You will take massive action and have the commitment to keep doing whatever it takes to achieve it. As a result, you will tap a lot of your personal potential. What kind of results do you think you will produce? Great results! When you get great results, it will reinforce your empowering beliefs even more! For example, if you have an empowering belief that you can build a highly successful business that will positively impact millions of lives, this belief will drive you to take massive action.
You will start innovating new product lines; probably invest in R & D to create entirely new products or processes. You will develop a business plan, attract investors and launch your marketing campaign. Sure you will have lots of obstacles along the way, but your beliefs will drive you to turn any failure into feedback and to change your strategy until you get the result you want. Even if you don’t achieve the exact targets you set for yourself, you are going to produce some great result.
BELIEFS →Expectation → Action / Effort →Potential →Results →BELIEFS
However, if you believe that something is impossible, that it cannot be done, will you take action? Not likely. Even if you did, you would probably stop the moment you hit a problem. As a result, you may have all the potential in the world, but you will not tap into it. And sure enough, you will not get the results. When this happens, it will further reinforce the belief that it just can’t be done.
For example, if you don’t believe that you can ever build a successful company, you won’t even attempt it. Even if you did go into business, you will quit the moment something goes wrong because you had limiting beliefs that ‘It is just too difficult’ or ‘I don’t have what it takes’.
Our Beliefs: The Tap to Our Personal Power Potential
So you see when we believe that something is possible, we will inevitably summon all the resources we have to support that belief. We will open the tap to our creativity, energy and resources. Does this mean we will be able to produce the exact result that we envisioned? Not all the time. But having a belief of possibility will allow us to produce results far beyond what we would have done if we had no belief to begin with.
At the same time, if you believe that something is beyond your reach, you shut out the possibility of ever achieving it. You shut the tap to your own personal (power) potential. Now, whether this or any other personal development article you have read will change your life, depends on the beliefs you finally choose to have, and act upon. If, after reading this article, you choose to believe that you can achieve any goal by applying all the strategies, I bet you are going to set some pretty high goals for yourself. At the same time, you will take massive action by applying all the ideas you have gained. You will use the ultimate success formula, start taking responsibility and do whatever it takes! As a result, you are going to tap a whole lot more of your potential.
And, even if all your goals are not met immediately, you are inevitably going to experience a major increase in your quality of life. If you believe it will work for you, then it will! Believe me! At the same time, if you choose to be a skeptic and say, ‘All this seems pretty interesting, but I don’t think it will work for me’, then chances are you will not have any expectations at all.
You will settle back into taking the same old actions. As a result, you are going to tap no more of your potential that you have before. Will you experience any results? Of course not! Again, your belief that this stuff doesn’t work becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
The fundamental reason I have been able to create so much more results in my life as compared to so many of my peers, some of whom are probably a lot smarter and more hardworking than I, is simply because of the powerful beliefs I started to build about myself when I was in my impressionable teenage years. At that time I was exposed to many empowering role models and it is from these super charged people that I learned that age is no barrier to creating wealth and success.
I read about Anthony Robbins who became a motivational trainer and millionaire by the age of 25. I read about Richard Branson, the boss of Virgin, who started his first business at the age of 15 and became a millionaire at the age of 23. I read about Steve Jobs who started Apple Computers at 18.
My best friend gifted me books by Dale Carnegie who had inspired millions to become effective public speakers and communicators in generations past. I learned about Dale Carnegie and about his ‘Human Potential Movement’. As a result of all these exposures, I developed an unshakeable belief that I could start a venture, become a best-selling author and trainer even all starting afresh at the age 50!
Most of my peers were not fortunate enough to be exposed to such empowering role models. So they had the usual limiting beliefs such as; starting a business is difficult and risky, you need lots of money and relevant work experience and contacts to even consider starting a company.
As for writing a book, when I started writing the manuscript to my first book I was 50 and my friends laughed saying, ‘Who will ever read a book written by someone so novice in his training & coaching career?’ In their minds – and this goes for most others too – only very smart, very experienced and highly qualified people write books. Many of my peers continued to hold on to these limiting beliefs as they embarked on their careers and in so doing, they held themselves back from what they potentially could achieve. Consequently they made average decisions that led to average results.
(I facilitate Thought Leaders, Change Makers; Professionals & Business Owners translate NLP concepts into actions to achieve and elicit personal excellence. I conduct NLP Lifestyle Coaching Certification programs for individuals, corporate and celebrity clients. We will conclude with the ‘Power of Our Beliefs’ in the next article and after that you will come to know in subsequent articles, how you can utilise concepts of NLP+ in all walks of your life to replicate the success blueprint of a winner mindset to win through life. So, stay tuned every Monday & Saturday and fasten your seat belt to ‘Enhance Your Lifestyle With NLP+’)
My #1 Amazon Best Selling book ‘Awaken The Incredible Within – Incredible Is The New Giant’ is available at Amazon in English at http://bit.ly/Awaken-The-Incredible-Within
Shantanu Das Sharma, Creator of the concept NLP Lifestyle Coaching with NLP+, Founder of Neuromind Leadership Academy is an Amazon #1 Best Selling Author, NLP Lifestyle Master Trainer & Coach, Clean Language Facilitator & Strategic Interventionist.
