You Are What You Believe

Without doubt, what and how you think, shape what you see. And your belief determines what you get out of life. So, for starters, if your life is not what you would like it to be, it's time to re-examine what you believes, and where necessary change your beliefs.

The question is: what exactly are beliefs?
There is no simple definition, however, it suffices to just say that beliefs are ideas you hold on to as facts; thoughts that you've processed through your mind repeatedly, and as such, constitute the foundation of your world view and life experiences. Unfortunately, beliefs are not always facts, neither are they universal truths, but your mind gives power to what you think repeatedly; power enough to control your life.

I read somewhere that: "your beliefs have a great deal of power over you, because you consistently come across evidence to support them. Your experiences in life will constantly prove your beliefs to be seemingly factually correct. The reason for this is that your conscious mind cannot possibly cope with every piece of information that it is exposed to. So your subconscious sifts all the information it receives and rejects that which contradicts your beliefs and retains that which supports them."


That explains why you would always see what you believe as facts and universal truths. Our beliefs come from a myriad of sources; what we learnt from parents as kinds, from teachers at school, from friends, societal norms and values and the list could go on.

However, what is important is not where your beliefs come from, but the fact that they influence your life because your mind sees them as undeniable fact. The worst problem with beliefs is that most of us leave with 'Limiting Beliefs', which tend to hold us back from going for what we want out of life, or interfere with our attempts to think about things in a new way. How you regard yourself, your strengths, abilities, financial situation, friends and families, to a large extent, determine your success in life.

If you are the type that has been programmed to see evil in everything, if you believe you can't achieve anything good, if you don't trust in your strengths, abilities and capacities; you may never be able to change things for the better in your life. Instead, you will encounter plenty of obstacles to support your belief that this is beyond your capabilities, your family doesn’t love you, your friends don't appreciate you or whatever it is that you're assuming to be the case.

Conversely, if you believe positively in your abilities and strengths; if you believe your family and friends love you and would always be there for you; if you believe things would always work out well; no matter the situation. Then you would always find success and happiness. Your beliefs won't stop you from encountering obstacles and barriers on the way, but they would make it easier to overcome these. You will always find loved ones to support and encourage you and you will be able to deal with failure and still move forward.

Changing your beliefs won't just change your life, it would help transform you into a better and more effective person.


And the good news is that, it is easy to change your beliefs.
Identify your beliefs in that area of your life you want to change. Ask yourself what beliefs would support your goals in these areas. Write out or search for positive affirmations. Recite these to yourself repeatedly for as long as it takes you to believe them. Just remember that for every belief you want to eliminate, there must be a positive one to replace it. Nature hates vacuum.

Go change your life; you deserve a better one!



Words For Today

Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations.
I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty,
believe in them and try to follow where they lead.
Louisa May Alcott

Open your eyes, look within. Are you satisfied with the life you're living?
Bob Marley

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Find Your Weaknesses

In his "The Law of success", Napoleon Hill rightly observed that most successful people only became successful after discovering and correcting the weakness in their person and character. I have often heard people argue that knowing your strengths and building on it guarantees success, but I think differently.

Knowing your weak points and striving to correct them, is as important, if not even more important, than knowing your strengths.

Your weaknesses - the most dangerous being selfishness, greed, jealousy, revenge, egoism, lust, conceit and wanting to reap where you did not sow; could destroy you faster than your strengths would uplift you.

In fact, whatever strengths you posses would only successfully uplift your body and mind if they are not counter-balanced by your weakness. The weakness in our traits often tend to hide our strengths; it is by correcting these weakness that anyone can fully tap into their strengths and make success out of it.

Make it a point of duty, from now on, to identify your weaknesses. Ask colleagues, friends, or classmates to assess you; it is often difficult for relatives to say the truth about our characters, but real friends and colleagues should be sincere about their opinions.

Once you identify your weaknesses, start doing everything you can to correct them. If people describe you as selfish, start forcing yourself to share everything you possibly can; if you are egocentric and/or greedy, learn to think about others and their emotions and you'll be moved to act along this line; if you're revengeful, strive to always let people know when they've hurt you and their apologies might soften your heart.

Always remember that your weaknesses are the major barrier between you and happiness/success. You would only be eternally successful, if you identify and correct them.



Words For Today
Nobody needs a smile so much as the one who has none to give.
So get used to smiling heart warming smiles,
and you will spread sunshine in a sometimes dreary world
Lawrence G. Lovasik

The most effective way to achieve right relations
with any living thing is to look for the best in it,
and then help that best into the fullest expression.
Unknown

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Paths to Happiness [3]

Good Relationship
As far fetched as it seems, maintaining good relationship with people close to you could indeed bring lasting happiness. Much of the depression and pessimism that is prevalent today could be attributed to the growth of individualism in the world. Everybody has become an island that wants to survive on its own. Our fathers didn't live their lives this way.

There is a lot to be gained from building and maintaining loving relationships with people close to you. When you are in love, there is always a listening ear when you need to be heard and a shoulder to lean on, when you are in tears. More importantly, there is someone to share your happiness, aspirations and ambitions with. Extroverts are always happy because they mix with people, make friends and build relationships easily. They like themselves, like people around them and are confident that they will be liked too. As a result, they are always likeable. Why? Because they go out of their way to make friends and build relationships.

We can't all be extroverts, but in your own way, reach out to the people around you. Make new friends and make sure that old friends count. Be concerned about others and you'll be liked in exchange. As small it as it seems, a single smile from someone you care about might be enough to wipe out your worries.

You won't find lasting happiness if your problems and failures, your visions, ambitions and successes all remain within you. There is a lot of joy in sharing, especially those intimate feelings of the heart. Go make some new friends today and start building your own network of happy people.

Words for Today

Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
At all the times you can
To all the people you can
As long as you ever can
John Wesley

Our lives are a reflection of our habits
More than our education
Anonymous

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Paths to Happiness [2]

Positive Attitude
We started on the 'Paths to Happiness' yesterday, and I said building the foundation for enduring happiness requires a positive self esteem. If 'loving yourself' and building a positive image of yourself prepares the foundation for happiness, then maintaining a positive attitude, at all times, builds a lasting structure on that foundation.

We all know that it is easy to 'feel good' about yourself and what you doing when things are going as planned, but what about when things get real bad. The real test of your faith in the self comes when failure hits you hard on the face; when something you've devoted your best to, suddenly comes crashing. While positive attitude is vital in our everyday life, it becomes even more important in situations like this.

People who have a positive view of life, who are optimistic enough to take everything life serve them; good or bad, with a smile and still move on, are the real 'happy people'. Someone once said 'the ability to see the good in every situation is worth more than a million dollars'.

However, positive thinking is not a thing you achieve overnight; it's a habit you have to develop. It takes faith and strong will to remain positive when things aren't so good, but it helps. When you can see a glass of water as 'half full', instead of ‘half empty’ and that, it is 'darkest just before dawn', a deeper understanding of life dawns on you. You feel empowered to take control of your life, and whatever happens, you'll still find the strength to believe in your life.

People that have developed a positive attitude towards life don't spend their life crying over failures; they learn from it and move on. They don't expect people to show them the path to follow; they take their lives as their responsibility and whatever happens, they don't blame anybody. They live their life 'one day at a time’; they don't worry about tomorrow’s challenges and refuse to cry over yesterday's failures. And the result is, they are always happy, healthy and successful.

Words For Today

Nobody has things just as he would like them. The thing to do is to make a success with what material I have. It is a sheer waste of time and soulpower to imagine what I would do if things were different. They are not different.
Dr. Frank Crane

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Paths to Happiness [1]

Happiness is one word that has come to mean several things; while to some people, it is commonplace, to others, it is an illusion. Whatever your understanding of happiness is, it's been proved severally that people with a happy disposition live a better and more fruitful life. In fact, it has been shown, in several studies, that health and general wellbeing are greatly influenced by individual characteristics. 'Happy people fall sick less often' is a statement I found on a medical site.

Late in the 1990s, researchers at the National Institute on Aging, after a ten year study, found that, irrespective of changes in marital status, age, job or finances, people with a happy disposition would still be be living a happy life after a decade. That is, no matter what life throw at them, people that have learnt to be happy, will always have a happy life. That's an astonishing fact. The question is; 'can we learn to be happy?' or 'are people just born with happiness?'
Wherever you are in life, and whatever you might be going through, you can decide to be happy and remain happy. Within every one of us lie the power, the will and the resources to lead a happy life. Problem is, some people don't just make use of what they have, while some others search the wrong place for it. We have all been conditioned to think that more riches, more luxury or a better job will bring us happiness. And unfortunately, it takes some people several years of following the wrong path to learn that they have been misled.

Happiness is a result of the mix of several habits or characteristics we develop over the years. Happy people everywhere exhibit these characteristics and just by learning these habits, you could find lasting happiness. These blends of habits vary, depending on your point of view, and ranking them on a scale of importance would be difficult. But in the next four posts, I shall be discussing these 'habits of happy people' one after the other.

SELF ESTEEM

Of the 'habits of happy people' my first pick is self esteem. It is sacrosanct that you'll never find happiness if you do not love, trust and believe in your self. Self love or self esteem is one of the most important prerequisites for a happy life. Sometimes, I start my day by listening to Whitney Houston's "Greatest Love", and where I feel most inspired is where she said "if I fail, if I succeed, at least I've lived as I believed". That is the highest point of self esteem. You must take control of your life, you must realize that the most important thing in life is not failure or success; it is the ability to decide what you want to make of your life and to follow that path.

When you feel that you are in control of your life, that you are following the path you have chosen for yourself and doing what you want to do; you feel that immense inner love for yourself and your self esteem will soar. And, most importantly, you would have laid the foundation for a happy life. People who feel their live is being controlled, often feel dejected, depressed and used. They have very poor image of themselves, want to blame everybody for the problems they have and spend the best time of their lives wishing they could do better with their life. You don't want to follow that path.

Decide today to love yourself, to take control of yourself and determine where and what you want to do with your life. If you haven't learnt anything from everything above, at least, know that 'your life's your business'. It's your business to be happy, go work on it today.

Words for Today

Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself...True happiness is born of self-reliance.
The laws of Manu

I have failed many times, and that's why I am a success.
Michael Jordan (1963 - )

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