How to Overcome Your #1 Obstacle: Part 2

Why Your Beliefs Are Your #1 Obstacle

Meet Your Remarkable Brain

98% of what we now know about the brain has been learned in the last DECADE! Your brain has about 100,000 miles of blood vessels and 100 billion neurons with the capacity to perform some ten quadrillion operations per second. Writing out all the possible neural connections your brain is capable of would take you seventy-five YEARS. 

In other words, your potential is unlimited.

It has two basic divisions: the conscious brain and the nonconscious brain. 

The bad news: we think our conscious brain controls what we do and that if we have an idea, we act on it. Regrettably, this is rare. Our conscious brain impacts between 2 and 4 percent of what we do. The average person loses focus every six to ten seconds! Mostly we live on automatic pilot (if you’re not sure what I mean, think about driving a car. You only think consciously about this when you first learn. After that, you drive, talk on the phone, listen to audio, chat with passengers, eat food, drink coffee etc and pay little attention to consciously driving!)

The good news: your nonconscious brain can track everything nonstop and it never loses focus. This is what needs to be impacted and where the beliefs must be changed.

Why Most People Do Not Reach Their Goals

A desire in your conscious brain - simply wanting something - is not enough. Why? Because if habitual thought does not believe that you deserve it, that habitual thought is 1,000 times stronger than a desire! 1,000 times! Those habits are the repeated thoughts that have created unhelpful neural pathways in your brain. According to the authors, the average seventeen year-old has heard “no, you can’t” thirty times more often in their life than “yes, you can.” “That makes for a powerful belief of “I can’t”.”

This is why so many people set big financial goals and get frustrated so quickly. Their brain has been conditioned to believe something unhelpful (such as: rich people are corrupt; it is more honorable to be poor; there’s only just enough money to cover expenses – beyond that it’s greedy) and will not let it happen.

The fruit matches the seed and the seed is the unhelpful belief.

96-98% of your behaviors are automatic because the nonconscious mind dominates your thinking. This explains why we usually do NOT act on the ideas we have. The seed needs watering and our nonconscious, unhelpful beliefs will come in unbeknownst to us and starve it.

What are beliefs?

Sure – they are opinions and attitudes but really they are “nothing more than the specific neural patterns in your brain, thoughts that are so ingrained they have become automatic. They are not there because they are ‘the truth’.”

For example, when it comes to asking for referrals, many people ‘believe’ that they are being pushy by asking or that it makes them look needy if they are asking. Provided your client recognizes that you have brought value and you ask in way that is about your client helping others (rather than about you growing your business which they don’t care about), I think this belief is completely ridiculous. If you bring value, why would you starve the world of your contribution? That’s your nonconscious brain being unhelpful.

Your beliefs create your reality – that’s great if you have what you want, but it is rotten if your beliefs are not doing that for you. And, unfortunately, most of your thoughts are unconscious ones – habitual thoughts that are mostly negative and unhelpful.

However, high achievers think differently and have mostly empowering thoughts that encourage them towards what they want.

How do you figure out your current beliefs?

It’s much easier than you may think: look around you! Look at your current situation! How is your health? Your relationships with loved ones? Your financial situation? Where you live? That is what you have attracted and what you presently believe you deserve. This may well be a tough pill to swallow. I know the first time I heard this idea, I was outraged at its stupidity! That was 12 years ago. And this is why I am so excited about this book – it finally presents some solutions that are practical and fully explained.

What else but your ways of thinking could have gotten you to exactly where you are right now?

What are your choices at this point? You can either blame, justify or complain about your results OR you can take full responsibility and create the life you want. It’s not easy. And it starts with planting new seeds of thought in your head and watering them.

How do you change your beliefs?

Part 3 of this incredibly important topic will be in next week’s ezine.