How do you change your beliefs so you get what you really want?

(Part 3 of How to Overcome Your #1 Obstacle based mostly on findings in The Answer by John Assaraf and Murray Smith)

There are three components:

1. Fulfill the “Five Musts”
2. Consciously choose the thoughts you want as beliefs (so know exactly what you want)
3. Systematically impress them on your nonconscious brain (The 6 Steps of Neural Reconditioning)

You must rewire your brain and train it to think the same thoughts as those people you aspire to be like and the person you intend to become. You can’t just do what they do; you need to think as they do too. Why? Because your nonconscious brain determines almost all of your thoughts and thoughts determine your feelings. It is your feelings that determine your actions and only your actions can determine your results!

Good news! “No matter what your age, your brain is perfectly capable of creating entirely new neural pathways.”

"The Five Musts:"

a) You must find something that stirs your soul
b) You must become excellent at it
c) You must recondition your mind to believe you can have it and achieve it
d) You must understand how to make money at it
e) You must take daily action”

The 6 Steps of Neural Reconditioning

Step 1: Create a New Vision

You must be crystal clear about what you want from your life. Your nonconscious brain cannot tell the difference between real and imagined events. How strongly you imprint these pictures is the key so repetition and impact matter most. The emotional power you put into your thoughts makes all the difference. It is why you remember where you were on September 11, 2001 and not on September 11, 2005.

Step 2: Create Powerful Affirmations

These state how you want to live in your ideal life. Often they are in stark contrast to what your current beliefs are or they may focus on areas you are some distance from achieving. Examples might include:

I am a brilliant and savvy business professional.
I have absolute certainty in my ability to generate any amount of income I choose.
I live each day with passion and purpose.

(Note: Some people have criticized the value of affirmations as something your brain does not buy into. This is why there are six steps and not one! Please put your cynicism aside. The results are worth any feelings of awkwardness.)

Step 3: Create Emotional Anchors for Neural Linking

Identify a powerfully positive emotional event from your past. Perhaps it was the time you were most confident in your life. Or one where you accomplished something exciting that filled you with tremendous pride. When was it? It’s a fun one to think through.

Write down all the feelings that experience evokes. While focusing hard on how supreme you felt at that time, start feeding in one of your affirmations. This process is what helps to bind the neural pathway you need. Because it is a strong emotion, “protein is released along with neurotransmitters as the neurons fire across the synaptic gap.” Every time you do it, more proteins are released. This is how you develop new empowering beliefs.

Step 4: Prepare Your Neural Imprinting Material

This means writing out your affirmations, creating a vision board of what you want, recording your voice reading the statements and using subliminal media. These hit the sense in various ways and speed up the time in which you can achieve what you want.

Step 5: Your Neural Reconditioning Routine

Assaraf and Smith recommend doing these at the same times each day – preferably three times each day. Apparently our nonconscious is most easily accessed when we first awake and before we go to sleep.

There are three parts to this:

a) Meditation: doing this first helps your brain to focus on what you want. While it has many widely-researched benefits (I was surprised how many), the authors focus on how meditation trains us to use more productive brain waves. This matters because it means we can reach our goals more easily.

b) Visualization: fill your mind with visual images of what you want. Picture the same images each time and if possible embellish them with the senses. The bottom line is to enhance your pictures with feelings because your feelings determine your actions. Do this for a few minutes after your meditation.

c) Affirmation: Then read through your new beliefs – aloud if you want and in the mirror for greater effect. This will probably feel uncomfortable at first. Persist.

Step 6: Using Neurotechnology

You can now play subliminal audio recordings of your own voice and listen to them any time reading your affirmations. It all helps reinforce your nonconscious brain.

Warning: Be ready for your brain to resist change. Your unhelpful beliefs are not going to be substituted without a fight. Remember your habitual thoughts are 1,000 times stronger at first. Even when your status quo is mediocrity and mild depression, your brain will still fight to keep you in this so-called comfort zone.

ABOVE ALL: DO THESE STEPS DAILY. “It is not a huge task; in fact, it is almost ridiculously easy to do. It’s just that most people don’t do it. But you will – and that will make all the difference.”

Think BIG

Lastly, Assaraf and Smith advise that you do not set easy-to-reach goals. On the contrary, they argue that “all truly successful businesspeople have a certain special ingredient in common” and that is THINKING BIG.

See the BIG picture, be driven by passion, stay focused and take action.

Also, big thinkers reach out for help – the kind they don’t know they need!

Read that again. Almost all business owners know they need some help: to delegate, to market effectively, with IT and accounting etc. But the research in Russ Alan Prince’s The Middle Class Millionaire shows that only the highest achievers also get other help: they have mentors or work with coaches or are in mastermind groups. WHY?

It reduces your learning curve.
They provide resources you don’t know about.
They see things about you that you can’t see yourself.
They provide unbiased and unconditional support.
They can push you harder than you might push yourself.

The best thing you can do first is buy this book so you can fully understand the impact of making these changes and instill a daily habit of rewiring your brain. The power of changing your beliefs has been written about for decades. Now the scientific proof is overwhelming. Now it is your turn. What are you waiting for? As the authors conclude in the book: “How will you spend your life?”