The Power of Belief

Your beliefs are the compass and the maps that guide you toward your goals. Perhaps, we can use them a bit more effectively to help get us where we want to go.

Sometimes, we don’t realize how important our beliefs truly are. There is no more powerful directing force in human behavior than belief. Our beliefs form the foundation of who we are. The people who have changed history – Columbus, Copernicus, Einstein, Mandela, Christ, Mohammed, and others like them – have been the people who have changed our beliefs. In many ways, the power that beliefs have over our lives defies the logical models most of us have. However, it is clear that powerful beliefs can affect us in equally powerful ways.

Studies conducted by Dr. Andrew Weil, a Harvard-educated physician, have shown that the experiences of drug users correspond almost exactly to their expectations. People who were given sedatives, but were told that they were stimulants, behaved as if stimulated. People who were given stimulants, but were told that they were sedatives, behaved as if sedated. This totally contradicted the specific designs of the medications, well beyond the already studied “placebo effect.”

When you were a child, you didn’t have much choice about your beliefs. Now that you are grown, it is a different story. It’s probably time to ask yourself, “What do I choose to believe? Do I choose beliefs that limit or support me? Do my beliefs turn on or shut off possibilities? Do they move me toward failure or success?”

You see, for the most part, we are in charge of our beliefs, and we are in charge of the decisions we make about our beliefs. If you have a belief that you know is not working for you, then it is a weight holding you down and holding you back and it needs to be left behind – or at least revised – if you want to grow closer to who you really want to be.

Think of the possibilities!