072: The Power of Belief

"The law of your mind is this: You will get a reaction or response from your subconscious mind according to the nature of the thought or idea you hold in your conscious mind." - Dr. Joseph Murphy (Author, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind)

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One of my favorite Self-Improvement books ever written, is "The Power of Your Subconscious Mind" by Dr. Joseph Murphy.

(... Yes, I'm fully aware of the sketchy title. Don't let it fool you. This isn't some "Secret" non-sense.")

Back to the book... Here's what Dr. Murphy says about believing in yourself:

“The law of your mind is the law of belief itself"

To put it another way: what we believe makes us who we are.

Having said that, it’s only natural to ask yourself the following question:

“What do I believe?”

The famous psychology writer William James observed that whatever people expect to be true will be so, regardless of whether the object of their belief exists.

In the Western world, we tend to place a lot of value on “the truth” (i.e. "I’ll believe it when I see it") — and this is no doubt super-important — but this paradigm pales in comparison to the power of *belief*, and how much of an impact it has on shaping our lives (both for better and for worse.)

• The bottom line is this: whatever you give your subconscious—false or true, good or bad—it will register as fact.

That said, you might want to avoid joking about misfortune and be more mindful about certain types of self-deprecating humor... because the subconscious has no sense of humor.

A mentally disturbed person and a mentally stable person share the same power of belief; the mentally stable/sane people are different from the mentally disturbed/insane only in that they retain objectivity about their beliefs. When a man in a hospital says he's Elvis Presley, he's not “making it up,” he knows he's Elvis.

We need to use this same power to help us achieve our own goals in life + business ...

Beginning right now, make the decision to begin using this power (of belief) to stop wishing and start knowing that you're:

a business genius, or- the perfect spouse, or that - you've got the physique of an Adonis.- (or, obviously, whatever else you want to do, be or have in life + business.)

The trick is to choose to know something that seems almost crazy, but not quite—something that seemed impossible to us a year ago, yet at the same time would really be something that fulfills our deepest desire.

ACTIONABLE INSIGHT:

• After you’re done reading this, take out a sheet of paper and write “what do I believe?” up top.
• Now, apply this question ("what do I believe?") to each dimension of your life — physical, mental, emotional, spiritual — and write down your answer. For example, if you were to apply it to the emotional area of your life, you might ask yourself something like this: "what do I believe about my level of confidence when it comes to public speaking, and persuading people through conversation?"
• Next, take a look in the mirror and repeat what you wrote down... does it empower you? Inspire you? Get you excited about your life? If not, it might be a good idea to re-evaluate your beliefs.

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LIVE LIKE YOU GIVE A DAMN,

Dean Bokhari

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