"It is the mind that maketh good of ill, that maketh wretch or happy, rich or poor." --Edmund Spenser"Believe you can, believe you can't, either way you're right." --Henry Ford
"The beliefs you choose to operate by are critical key success factors." --Me
Tony Robbins, in his classic book, Awaken the Giant Within, tells of a bitter and cruel alcoholic/drug addict who almost killed himself several times. Today he serves a life sentence in prison for the murder of a liquor store cashier who 'got in his way.' He has two sons, born eleven months apart. One grew up to be 'just like dad.' He is a drug addict, stealing and threatening others until he, too, was incarcerated for attempted murder.
His brother, however, is night and day. As a regional manager for a major company, he is physically fit, enjoys his work, and has no alcohol or drug addictions. He is raising three kids, enjoys his marriage, and appears to be truly happy!
Both were asked privately, without knowing that the other brother was being asked the question: "Why has your life turned out this way?" The suprising answer from both brothers was the same: "What else could I have become, having grown up with a father like that?"
As Tony Robbins states, our core beliefs about ourselves have the power to create and the power to destroy. Are you creating the life you desire? If not, it's time to examine the thoughts that you are thinking and beliefs that may be stalling you in your growth and progress. As the example above illustrates, it's not what happens to us that shapes our life, but our beliefs as to what those events mean.
Recently, Federer beat Roddick in a the longest championship match in Wimbeldon history.
Both were top seeds, yet the commentators gave the odds to Federer at the outset of the match. Why? Mental Toughness.
If you want to lead the field, as Earl Nightingale would say, you will need to start thinking like a champion.
Here is a 4 step process for breaking down negative core beliefs and replacing them with the beliefs of a champion. This process is adapted from McKay, Davis, and Fanning's workbook, Thoughts and Feelings: Taking Control of Your Moods and Your Life.
1. Identify your core beliefs.
a. Keep a thought journal for one week. Purchase the workbook, or just draw three lines down the middle of a piece of paper. The header for one column is Situation. The second column is Feeling. And the final column is thoughts. For example, as a blogger, I might have this situation: "I need to start writing my paper." The feeling might be that of anxiety. My negative thought might be, "I can't write well. What makes me think I can do this?" Don't censor your thoughts, just write down what automatically comes to mind. By doing this with several situations in a week, you will get an idea of what some of your automatic thoughts are.
b) Use laddering to uncover your core beliefs by working down, rung by rung, t the meanings of a statement in your thought journal until you reach the core belief underpinning the statement.
Use the following question to successively uncover your belief. "What if (your thought) is true? What does this mean?"
For example, as a practicing therapist, I have my own, more experienced therapist-coach that I consult with in order consistently improve.
One of the situations that I identified as key for myself in the past is when a coaching client would end the coaching process with me prematurely. The feeling that would often come up for me was sadness/anxiety. The automatic thought was, "They don't like me. This shows that I'm not good at what I do."
Laddering functions as follows:
My coaching client does not like me.
What if your coaching client does not like you? What does this mean?
It means that I am not good at what I am doing.
What if you are not good at what you are doing? What does this mean?
It means that I will not be able to maintain my clients, and that I don't deserve to be an excellent therapist.
What if you are not able to maintain your clients? What if you don't deserve to be an excellent therapist?
It means I am inferior and have to quit being in the field.
An even deeper core belief that I reflected on, in writing this out, is the core belief of being inferior and not deserving success. Or, stated in a different way, "I am inferior, and I don't deserve success."
The other way to uncover your core belief/s is to conduct a theme analysis of your written situations/feelings/thoughts, searching for a particular theme or common thread running through these situations. For example, by listening to me, my coach/consultant uncovered another negative core belief that came out of my conversations: "I need to feel inferior and undeserving of success in order to be successful."
Notice that the above beliefs I had adopted were not something I consciously recognized, until I conducted a thought journal, laddering, and thematic analysis of my thought journal. I was carrying this belief around as the truth.
Step 2. Assess what this belief is accomplishing for you. Believe it or not, as crazy or unhelpful as my core beliefs were, I was holding them for a reason. They must have been doing something for me. In analyzing what my the above beliefs did for me, I found out that:
they pushed me to be continuously better at what I did. they pushed me to provide great customer service to each of my clients.
But these 'advantages' came at such a great price! Once I had laid out all that the belifes were costing me, I was incredulous!
Step 3. Assess the negative impact of your belief or beliefs.
The negative effects these beliefs had on me were as follows: I was often over-extending myself for clients, charging less than my services were worth, feeling let down and undeserving when clients would cancel or end the coaching process prematurely. I was judging myself, being critical of myself, and feeling anxious, sad, and afraid of what this meant for my future career.
Step 4. Form new beliefs that will serve you better.
In my case, I came up with new thoughts, and consequently, new beliefs. As I acted consciously and consistently according to these beliefs, my old beliefs were weakened, and my stronger, more healthy belief emerged. My current newer thoughts are as follows:
Situation: Client cancels, starts to cease coming to therapy. Feeling: Calm acceptance. Thoughts/Actions: The client has different levels of motivation in requesting coaching: asking for help can be threatening. Also, the client may have many circumstances that may make continuing in therapy/coaching difficult. It's not personal."
"I am competent, I am God's creation and therefore worthy, and I am worthy of success"
Here are some key success beliefs that Steve Siebold over at Mental Toughness Blog has found to be prevalently held by world class athletes and performers. His encouragement is to print these out and start memorizing them, until they are part of your mental DNA. Per Steve Siebold, "beliefs are the software of human performance, they can be coached and they can be changed."
1. I cannot fail, I can only learn and grow. ( a global belief broken down by the great Larry Wilson, www.greatgameoflife.com)
2. Everything happens for a reason
Top athletes believe that everything is adding up to their success, everything is conspiring for them, even their mistakes and failures, as well as their successes.
3. All you can do is all you can do. You can only do your best, do your best, and let the chips fall where they may.
4. Every experience makes me stronger
5. Happiness is a choice. I am responsible for how I choose to field.
6. Happiness is a state of mind. This is beautifully illustrated by this whole blog post; namely, you can identify and change the state of your mind through examining and re-writing your core most unhelpful core beliefs.
7. People are inherently well meaning toward me. In other words, not everyone is out to get me or betray me.
8. The world is a beautiful place. They see the good in the world and in people, versus focusing on the bad.9. Almost anything is possible. This is not Polyanna type thinking. This is not thinking that anything is possible. But it also believes that almost anything is possible. It believes in taking off the too often common limited thinking that holds us back.
10. Success is a choice. You can choose to be successful, by choosing to do the things successful people do. You can choose to be successful by committing to work on the four simple steps described in this post.
