Look below the surface – you’ll be amazed at what you find!

Napoleon Hill suggested that one of the things that successful people do is use their imagination to create a belief that they can have what they desire and to communicate between the conscious the subconscious mind.

The subconscious mind is protected

– which is usually a good thing as it contains all the things we have ever learned and we wouldn’t want to have to re-learn most of them. However, it also contains less useful things that may stop us from achieving all that we might otherwise be capable of. 

Anything that comes to us through our five senses is unlikely to affect the subconscious so how do we reach and change those things that are not useful to us?

Hill suggests (long before NLP was invented) that in order to create the belief that we can have something we must imbue it with emotion, imagine that we already have it and create the experience of already having it.

Vividly imagine having whatever it is you desire and experience how that will feel and what you will see, hear, taste and smell. The emotions and physical reactions caused by these thoughts are generated internally rather than coming to us externally through our senses (and could be described as non-sense) and so are more likely to escape the gatekeeper of the subconscious mind.

There has been vigorous research into how emotions cause physical reactions, how physical sensations trigger emotions and how both emotions and physical reactions can be produced by thought alone. Belief may not move mountains but it can remove limitations and control physical experiences.

One of the most popular sayings arising from these theories is that “Thoughts Become Things” and while it is undoubtedly true that this can be the case, it can also be too simplistic. I have seen already distressed people puzzled and hurt at the implication that they have brought misfortune on themselves because their thoughts are not positive enough. Moreover, if we all got what we focused on most of the time, teenage boys would live in a constant state of bliss!

However, that doesn’t change the fact that we are still discovering amazing things about the power of the mind and by using it to create useful thoughts and emotions there is no doubt that we can make life easier and more satisfying.

What would you attempt if you knew without doubt that you would not fail?

Michael Markham is a remarkable man. Abandoned by his mother and brought up in Barnardo’s home, he was fostered by a family he didn’t like and became disruptive, ending up in Borstal and finally given the option of joining the army or going to prison.

Some years later when he was faced with accepting that he would be out of work because the company he worked for was bankrupt, he alone of all the employees decided to save the business. When I asked him what made him think he could buy and run a company he told me that it wasn’t so much a belief that he could do it as a lack of fear about what would happen if he didn’t. He has experienced having nothing and survived.

So, as he wasn’t afraid of failing, he just went ahead and did it. He turned Stanair Industrial Doors into a multi-million pound enterprise and along the way, learned what he needed to learn to make it work at each stage of development.

Why do so many people wait until they face ruin before they decide to become successful? Maybe it’s because when they have nothing to lose, as in Michael’s case, the fear of failure is no longer significant. “I can’t” becomes “I will” and the belief is strong enough.

What would you attempt if you absolutely knew you couldn’t fail?

I’ve been verbed! At a recent meeting, a delegate told the gahering that he’d been
“Anned” (thank goodnes my name isn’t Roger ).  Becoming
a  verb isn’t something I set out to do but I’m not
complaining!

If the first action in achieving success is deciding what you want (your  major definite purpose and all consuming goal) and creating a plan to get it, this also involves ‘starting with the end in mind’.

Victoria Beckham famously said that she wanted to be “more famous than Persil” and she got her desire. Lots of people have become more famous than Persil but that was a side product of what they really wanted.

If you can’t decide on your major definite purpose or all consuming goal then starting with the end in mind may help.

Do you believe you can get what you want? If not, what are the thoughts that are holding you back? The first step to working on a lack of self belief or self confidence is to acknowledge that you have them. The good news is that self-confidence really can be learned and built on. All other things being equal, self-confidence is often the single ingredient that distinguishes a successful person from someone less successful.

Action Plans:
1. Decide on your definite major purpose or all consuming goal. What is the end result going to be?

2. Write down your goal and read it aloud twice a day. Imagine that you have already achieved it.

3. Do you believe you can get what you want? If not, find out what is stopping you and work on it.