How To Believe

"I can't do that" or "That's impossible" are just two of the many phrases we use to express our disbelief in the possibilities. There’s an old saying “seeing is believing”; this begs the question: do we really have to see the results before we can believe in the possibilities?

I believe not, it is the possibilities that make life so incredible not the results. For me seeing is not believing but believing is seeing because when you believe in something that’s the moment when anything becomes possible.

Somewhere along the way we lose our ability to believe in the possible. As we grow up we begin to focus on the reason why not. There is no scientific way to explain why this happens but I have a theory. I think it’s because we see what our society has done to believers. Our society has taught us that if we dare to believe and step out that we will be ridiculed for being different (think back to your school days). If we fall down they laugh and taunt us for being failures but even when we succeed they scrutinize every step we make and so we just sit and wonder “if I could have done this or that then I would’ve been able to”.

We just need to find a way back to when we knew how to believe. Think about it, when you were young and you dream about being a Fire Fighter, an Astronaut or even President you never thought about the reasons why that wasn’t possible, you just believed.

We have to un-train ourselves out of the “Why Not’s” and train ourselves to believe. So, how do we do that?

In order to believe you have to first think you can do something. In order to think you can do something you have to tell yourself you can. It all starts with what you’re saying about yourself. You’ve been saying negative things about yourself (i.e. “I can’t”) and so we need to make a shift and start saying things that breathe life into your possibilities. Here’s how to do that:

1. Make a list of all the things that you’ve dreamed about doing and still wish you could.
2. Start saying OUTLOUD “I can do ______!” or “I will do _______” every morning, at lunch, dinner and before you go to bed.
3. Every time you have one of those negative thoughts pushed it out of your mind and immediately replace it by speaking out something positive (if it’s about your list, then speak your affirmations)
4. Start making plans that’ll help you accomplish your list (do the research to find out what it’ll take and start putting things together).

You see when we start saying things as if they were already part of our lives and we do that long enough then our thoughts will change to reflect what we’re saying. When we start to think those things long enough it will shape what we believe about what we think. When we believe then anything becomes possible. The best part is that there is no limits on how many beliefs we can have.

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Power on your words

One of my favorite scriptures is Proverbs 18:21 life and death are in the power of the tongue. My life has proven this scripture true. I used to talk negative and defeated ans so I was but when I turned it around and started to speak life giving things over my life it all turned around. No matter what happens in life if we are speaking life giving words, I believe that's our faith being released and when those things come to pass that was God responding to our faith.

Think about it, it also goes back to the scripture about reaping and sowing. If you sow negative and defeating things in your life then your harvest will most certainly be negative. If that's true then the opposite is true, if we sow positive and life giving things, then our harvest has to be positive and life giving which basically means we are blessed.

The tricky part is that it's our choice what we sow, that's why the scripture say life and death are in the power of the tongue because we have the choice of how we'll live. So, today let's all choose life! Let's speak life over ourselves and the people we come in contact with today. That is how we can shine Christ's light into this dark world.

Success Speaks

Many a renowned authors have written on the subject of positive thinking, and the power that someone with a positive mental attitude can have in shaping their own future. Some have even tied these powerful ideas to wealth such as Andrew Carnegie and his book Think and Grow Rich, which I, myself, have found to be true. You vastly increase your chances of success by thinking positively. I’ve never heard of anyone who made his or her fortune by walking around thinking “well I guess I’m not good enough” or something along those lines. However, I’ve met so many people that think little very little of themselves, and don’t even know how to begin to change their thinking.

The secret is what you say not what you think. I know that this statement goes against the grain, but I’ve found it to be true in my own life. Several years ago, I started representing a new service in the marketplace for a NYSE company (I won’t mention any names) that had a fantastic service that was offered. I started out like a wildfire and within just a few days I had reached stardom within the company and it was great. About a year into it, I started to work with this young lady who couldn’t seem to help herself; saying the most negative and defeating things I’d ever heard in my life. Eventually, I found myself repeating the very same defeatisms she’d committed to memory. It began to take its toll on me, which resulted in my sales dropping and my shining stardom fading away, and I couldn’t understand why. It’d gotten so bad that I’d stopped functioning properly, and when I finally got the opportunity to present my service to a group (of only thirty people) fear completely enveloped me, and my mouth went so dry that my lips literally stuck to my teeth.

At first, I allowed myself to say negative things about others, and then after some disappointments, the tables turned and I began to say those things about myself. Before long, I had talked myself into being a failure. Did it happen overnight? No, it snuck its way into my life; little by little. I’m sure you’re wondering what I did to get out of that hole that I dug for myself. I started to talk myself back into being successful; I printed lists of positive things to say about myself. For example, things like ‘I’m a successful salesperson; I’m talented; I’m great at helping people. I created as many affirmations about myself as I could. Most of which, I came up with by writing down the exact opposite of what I felt about myself at the time.

This is called the perception of truth; whatever you believe to be true is true. Let me give you an example: You’re forced to work overtime at the office. You get home and give your spouse a hug or kiss; she smells the faint smell of perfume or cologne on your shirt each time you come home. You explain it with the traditional “I don’t know what you’re talking about”, which does nothing but raise the suspicion that you’re cheating. And to top it off, you were at the office alone, so no one can corroborate your story. Whether you did or didn’t cheat is irrelevant. If they believe that you cheated, then to them you did unless and until you can change their perception of that truth.

The same is true about what we believe about ourselves. In order to achieve anything in life, you have to first believe that you can achieve it; in order to believe that you can achieve you have to think its possible; in order to think its possible you have to tell yourself it is. Of course, there are other factors involved and this has its limitation— especially if you’re telling yourself something outrageous like, “I’m going to be the best NFL quarterback in history” when you’re 45 and have never played a professional sport in your life. However, within reason this will work! If you’re a number four salesperson in your company and you want to be number one; then start convincing yourself that you can be number one by telling yourself that you are. Yes, it will take time for you to get to a place where you finally believe you can accomplish what you set out to achieve, but the first person you have to convince is yourself. I dare you to write positive things down about yourself and start saying them to yourself every morning, at lunch and just before you go to bed for the next 30 days and see for yourself the difference that it can make. You have nothing to loose except the negative and that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.