Empowering beliefs can lead to the highest achievements and have a paramount impact on performance.
They are the powerful force that propels us towards our goals and keeps us going no matter how big the challenges we face are.
Our empowering beliefs are where our success starts.
Everything's in the mind. That's where it all starts. Knowing what you want is the first step toward getting it”. - Mae West
Empowering beliefs enable us to act on our dreams in the first place.
If you believe you can achieve your goals, then you will.
Likewise, if you believe you cannot, you won’t.
So, don’t hold on to limiting beliefs.
“Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re right”. - Henry Ford
Beliefs are self-fulfilling prophecies.
All of us can draw upon the unlimited power and resources we have within ourselves, provided we hold on to empowering beliefs.
Empowering beliefs guide us to take empowering action, which leads us to reap astonishing results and live life to the fullest.
On the contrary, limiting beliefs guide us to take lousy action that in turn leads us to reap mediocre results and live a miserable life.
This holds true in any area of life.
Whether it's relationships, finances, well-being, education, or whatsoever, the kind of beliefs you hold on to determines whether you succeed or fail.
The good news is that you can choose what kind of beliefs to hold on to.
Let me stress how beliefs can either lead you towards the highest achievements or towards a downward spiral by the following experiment.
THE POWER OF BELIEFS - EXPERIMENT ON RATS
In the 1950s, Dr. Curt Richter conducted a series of brutal experiments on rats that, however, turned out to be a revolutionary discovery.
They proved the power of beliefs in overcoming challenges and achieving astonishing results.
Dr. Richter put rats into buckets half-filled with water to examine how long they would swim before giving up and drowning.
In a first experiment, the rats on average gave up and drowned after 15 minutes.
Dr. Richter came to the conclusion that the rats’ death was more psychological than physical.
In his words:
“they gave up mentally, not physically”.
So, in further experiments, Dr. Richter did something different.
Right before the rats were about to give up and drown due to exhaustion, he took them out of the buckets.
He dried them off, and let them rest for a few minutes, before putting the rats again into the water.
Try and guess; how long do you think the rats swam this time?
Bear in mind, they had already given up on life a few minutes before Dr. Ritcher rescued them from certain death.
Did they survive another 15 minutes?
10 minutes?
Or maybe 5 minutes?
None of the above. They kept swimming for 60 hours!
Yes, you read right.
But, how come?
How on earth could the same rats that swam for 15 minutes last 60 hours?
What changed in them? What caused their muscles not to give up and keep fighting?
Their BELIEFS. The rats realized the situation was not hopeless.
When they started BELIEVING someone would rescue them, they didn’t give up either mentally or physically.
They actually pushed themselves beyond what they had considered IMPOSSIBLE.
In Dr. Richter’s words:
“the rats quickly learn that the situation is not actually hopeless”.
“After elimination of hopelessness, the rats do not die”.
The summary of the study reads: “A phenomenon of “sudden death” has been described that occurs in man, rats, and many other animals apparently as a result of hopelessness”
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness”. - Desmond Tutu
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
Beliefs are vital to our life, they determine whether we achieve our goals or not; what’s more, they lead us either to live a fulfilling life or a miserable one.
Even though humans and rats are different, we have one thing in common, we all need a reason to keep swimming.
If a belief causes rats to swim for 60 hours long, what BELIEVING in YOURSELF could do for YOU?
How different would your life be if you started BELIEVING in YOURSELF and HOPING that, as long as you don’t give up, you’ll achieve your goals?
Remember: Whatever you have done and achieved up to this point, is a reproduction of what you believe subconsciously you deserve and what’s possible for you.
“Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning”. - Mahatma Gandhi
What is a goal that you have always wanted to achieve, but you haven’t yet?
Why haven’t you?
As stated above, it all comes down to the limiting beliefs you hold on to.
They sabotage yourself and prevent you from hitting your targets.
If you have not done it yet, make sure you check out WHY YOUR BELIEFS CREATE OR DESTROY YOUR LIFE.
You’ll find out the steps you can follow to drop your limiting beliefs and adopt new empowering ones.
As a result, they’ll spur you to take massive action and succeed in whatever you want to achieve.
If you have been positively impressed by this discovery, would you consider sharing it with the people you know would benefit from it?
It would mean the world to me.
If this post can inspire and light up even one single person, it would accomplish its purpose and I would feel fulfilled.
What’s more, you’ll have played your part in waking someone up, allowing them to pave the way to a fulfilling life. You rock!
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Poor rats… great experiment though. It’s hard to judge whether rats have beliefs but they are similar to humans on many levels.
Beliefs are crucial for achievements – do you remember Roger Bannister? Before him a four minute mile was considered impossible, when he proved that wrong suddenly many people could do it.
“I can” – that’s an empowering belief!
I totally agree with you Mikolaj about how beliefs are key ingredients for achievements. I do remember Roger Bannister indeed.
He proved the scientific community and everyone else wrong. Doctors and scientists believed that breaking the four-minute mile was impossible, that one would die in the attempt.
Yet, Roger believed he could and he made the IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE. Bannister’s feat shifted the entire paradigm through which other runners viewed the world and helped redefine what the human body could achieve.
Since the common belief that running a mile under 4 minutes is IMPOSSIBLE was disproved, many other people have broken Bannister’s record.
Thus his story is a remarkable example of how our beliefs can either make or break our success in any area of our life.