II: The Power of Self Belief

As Henry Ford’s famous quote goes: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t - either way you are correct”.

 If you do not believe in yourself, how can you expect the world to believe in you?”

 Self belief is one of the most important ingredients for an effective performance in any sphere of life.

 The entire cycle of self-belief and self-actualization goes this way:

 Beliefs are the mental bandwidth of our Perception, Performance and Action. Just as we can see objects in the ‘visual’ bandwidth in tune with our eye sight, or we have a ‘hearing’ bandwidth, and we hear sound only within the stipulated bandwidth, so too, depending upon our beliefs cultivated and nurtured based on our experience, exposure and training, our actions and performance are limited. So, what needs to be worked on is the limiting belief which confines, restricts and hampers our life.

 Many of the beliefs have such a strong hold on our lives that you create a self-limiting boundary, taking your beliefs as a gospel truth. The right thing to do is to re-examine every belief of ours in the light of the present moments and accept or replace it in the light of the new facts and realities.

 Take a look at the impact of belief and its sequence:

 Beliefs - Attitude - Feelings - Results – Actions

 Your belief determines the attitude towards a situation which leads to the generation of certain feelings instigating actions and the consequent results.

 Beliefs can be of two types: Empowering Beliefs and Limiting or Disempowering Beliefs.

 Empowering Beliefs can be Beliefs which propel us into action and make us unstoppable. We are always in the frame of mind : “OK, this is the situation which I accept now. What next can I do in this situation.” Following are some of the predominant beliefs of empowerment:

 “Anything is possible for me in my life.”

 “I am responsible for everything in my life.”

 “I have limitless ability to respond to situations in life.”

 “I believe that life is beautiful.”

 We need to keep on reinforcing all the empowering beliefs which are helping us to stretch us beyond our comfort zone and realize and live our potential.

 What we need to focus on are the limiting Beliefs which hinder and hold us from taking timely actions in life.

 The first step is the identification of our limiting beliefs in various facets of life. Research has found that in the area of money, the limiting beliefs have a strong hold on one’s progress towards financial freedom and abundance. One classic example is the investment in equities. According to research, less than 5% of Indian population is said to be in the equity asset class.

 I have heard many educated individuals stating that equity investment is similar to gambling. Some of them had invested in equity in the peak of a bull run and lost some money. This experience has made them develop the limiting belief that equity investment is bad and akin to gambling. The truth remains that as per record among all the Asset classes, equity investment has given up to 17.5 – 18% annualized return consistently over the last 100 years!

 Sometimes certain beliefs are propagated by vested interests with a selfish motive. The case in point is the need for a symbolic ‘Cat’ in every yajna. In the ancient days, the Ashrams were in the forests. When the gurus conducted ‘yajna’, a lot of rats used to pester because of availability of fruits and sweets around. Hence cats were kept to drive away the rats. Over a period of time, with modern infrastructure, the menace of rats has dwindled. But still the keeping of cats in a symbolic fashion continues. In the modern time, some priests insist that the performance of yajna or pooja is incomplete without keeping a symbolic metal cat made of gold or silver which is later to be donated to the priest.

 From the above example it can be seen how certain actions of the past have been misinterpreted and given a form of a religious belief by the vested interests.

 Limiting Beliefs have the roots somewhere in Fear. Fear, which is basically a negative emotion, is nothing but ‘false evidences appearing real’. Ninety percent of the fear psychosis is baseless or false or imaginary. Only 1% could be really authentic wherein you have a chance of being physically affected.

 The antidote for ‘Fear’ is ‘Faith’. The more the faith in self and the God (the universal pure consciousness or Atman), the less would be the experience of Fear. On a scale of 1 to 10, measuring the intensity of faith, if one scores 5, then the rest is filled in by ‘fear’.

 If one has 100% faith, then there is no place for fear.

 One effective way of slashing the adverse impact of limiting beliefs is to practice positive affirmations and repeat the same everyday to let it percolate into the subconscious mind.

 I have been practising the following 26 positive affirmations for the past five years. I have benefited a lot from this. I would urge the reader to also recite the same everyday before breakfast, ideally in front of a mirror, and help build a powerful self, free of limiting beliefs:

 1. I think big and positive.

2. I believe that anything is possible for me.

3. I convert all my limiting beliefs into positive affirmations

4. I am very well organized in my life.

5. I convert all my fears into challenges

6. I cover all areas of my life in my time management chart and follow it sincerely

7. I write down in positive words what disturbs me.

8. I take action on my vision and convert it into an appointment or task.

9. I see Godliness in everyone.

10.I am perfectly at ease with new technology. I write down all that I learn.

11. I share actively ‘Tana-Mana-Dhana’

12. I live in abundance.

13. I complete with others immediately.

14. I am very happy with whatever I have at this moment.

15. I clear out the clutter from my organizer, desk, note pad mobile, computer, bags, cupboards and my mind.

16. I live in balance and gratitude

17. I am a team player and always empower individuals to take on higher responsibilities

18. I only verbalize what I want.

19. I believe in ‘me’.

20. I believe nothing is impossible.

21. I believe in unconscious competence

22. I am at the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing.

23. I believe everyone is special.

24. I am responsible for my life.

25. I am always stretching, growing and adapting.

26. I believe in results and not in failure.

 “Behind all the success and accomplishments, glory and greatness lies the mountain-moving power of belief – belief in one’s own powers. You have to believe that you can achieve excellence and rare distinction. You have to believe that you can rise above discouraging circumstances, disappointing remarks and ridicule. You have to believe that your worth is great.”

 - Dharam Prakash

 In selling, every master salesperson has this quality, which is what makes him successful.

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This article comes from one of the topics from Dr. Arunaagiri's best-selling book 'The Sales Master' in which he states the 21 key elements to win the game of life & selling.

The book is available on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.in/dp/1772046906/

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Dr. Arunaagiri Mudaaliar is a best-selling author having authored several self-help books like 'Unleash your Potential', 'Being Customer Centric', 'Jogging for Life Success', 'Pathway to Sales Mastery', etc...

He is aslo a passionate global trainer, an international sportsman and a sucessful industrialist.

Know more about him here: www.arunagiri.co.in

Follow him on Facebook here: facebook.com/authorarunagiri

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