Achieving success is as much about what goes on in your head as what you do.
Your beliefs can take you to the greatest heights or they can completely sabotage anything that you try to do. It’s all about your mindset.

Listening to someone else instead of yourself
We all have a set of beliefs that we use to help us make decisions. They come from our experiences, and what we have been taught in the main. And this means that they are often somebody else’s beliefs that we have picked up along the way, our conditioning if you like.

Think about it, when you were growing up how often did you hear things like “money doesn’t grow on trees” or “money won’t make you happy” or “you need money to make money”?
And how many of those kinds of comments do you still say now?

All of these negative thoughts are commonly described as self limiting beliefs. They are beliefs that you hold that are causing some kind of block to you getting what you want. They stop you from having the success that you want and deserve. It may be something you do out of habit without thinking, or it may be a reason you have, where you say “I can’t ….. because…”

So what can you do about it?

Put simply, replace the negative belief with a positive one. Yes it sounds easy, and in theory it is. In practice it may take some effort, at least to start with until you get used to it.

It isn’t easy at first to learn to control your thoughts but it’s a lot like learning a new song. To start with you don’t know the words but the more you hear them and repeat them the more comfortable you get with singing that song.
So when you catch yourself saying something, whether out loud or in your head, that is negative, stop for a second and think about what you could replace it with, then repeat this new thought instead.

You may be surprised at the results!

Here is a short story which illustrates the point in reverse;


He was hard of hearing, so he had no radio.
But he sold hot dogs.

He stood by the side of the road and cried, “Buy a hot dog mister!”.
And people bought.

He increased his meat and bun orders, and he bought a bigger stove to take care of his trade.
His son said, “Father, haven’t you heard on the radio? There’s a big depression on. The international situation is terrible, and the domestic one is even worse.”

Whereupon the father thought “Well my son has gone to college. He listens to the radio and reads the newspapers, so he ought to know.”


His hot dog sales fell almost overnight.
“You were right son”, the father said to the boy.
“We are certainly in the middle of a great depression.”

In the current climate how could listening to others’ beliefs affect you and your success?

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