Building Beliefs
One of my favorite quotes comes from the GOAT, Muhammad Ali (ever heard of him?)
“I am the greatest -- I said that even before I knew I was.”
Before he was an Olympic gold medalist and the youngest boxer to defeat a reigning heavyweight champion … Before his epic battles with Joe Frazier and George Foreman … Before he won the heavyweight championship not one, not two, but THREE times … indeed, before he proved himself as the legitimate greatest boxer of all time … Muhammad Ali told himself he was the greatest.
The concept isn’t new in psychology or personal development resources -- it’s certainly not new in my own coaching -- but its basis is rock-solid. Whatever seed you plant will grow; whatever skill you practice, you will improve on; Whatever concept you nurture will become reality.
You believe what you conceive; you achieve what you believe.
Tweet that if you wanna. And put my name by it.
What we tell ourselves becomes our reality. When it comes to our greatness, our skills and the goals we are capable of achieving, this means our success begins in the thoughts we think and the voice we use to talk to ourselves. If you want to be a runner, you have to start telling yourself you’re a runner. If you tell yourself that, eventually you will believe it and when it becomes your belief, your actions will follow. You’ll start thinking like a runner, and most importantly, ACTING like a runner.
So if it’s true that if you want to do something, you must believe in it before you can greatly act on it, it must follow that if you do not believe in something, your actions will reflect the negativity. On a crude, very obvious level, if we believe that being on fire would be terrible, then we're going to take actions during our day to prevent ourselves from catching on fire. On a deeper level, if we start believing we’re not good enough, not smart enough, not skilled enough, not pretty enough, not qualified enough, have failed too many times before, are too old, have too far to go or whatever other limiting belief we may have about ourselves, our actions will, indeed, follow.
We can blame it on luck or genetics or a lack of skills but luck means nothing if we're not in a position to take action at the appropriate time. Genetics can be overcome in most cases and any skill can be learned and honed. More often than not, our goals seem out of reach or impossible because we’re telling ourselves that they are.
If we tell ourselves that 50 pounds is more weight than we’re capable of losing, we’re less likely to take the actions required to lose 50 pounds. We know this is fallacious because people lose 50 pounds all the time! I’ve had several clients lose 50 or more, hell, I lost 100 pounds on this journey! Losing 50 pounds is possible … learning to play the piano is possible … running a half-marathon is possible ... finding your person is possible … getting a better job is possible … becoming the best boxer of all time is possible … all if we’re willing to believe it.
When we use positivity in our inner monologue, we’ll be able to set positive, concrete beliefs about ourselves. And it’s on these beliefs that we can begin performing the actions required to achieve our goals, no matter what they may be.