Two Necessary Beliefs For Success

I love this quote because it gives those of us who want to have more influence in our lives and the lives of others excellent information on what is necessary to bring these desires to fruition. In other words, to actually create the life we want, we are going to need to ensure that our beliefs about the future and our role in making it happen have been chosen deliberately, or on purpose.

On some level, this seems self-evident, however, I think it’s fair to say that some, if not many of the beliefs we hold about who we are and the world around us haven’t been chosen on purpose. They have been created based upon our experiences or taught to us by those who were authority figures in our lives. Of course, that doesn’t mean that all of these are problematic, but that they need to be examined to ensure that they are truly serving us.

Two of these important beliefs are, “Can the future be better than the present?” and “Do I have the power to make it so?” If the answer to either one of these is, “No,” then our ability to influence the quality of our lives will be compromised. However, I suggest that in the most important aspect of our lives, the answer to these two questions will always be, “Yes.”

That doesn’t mean that we can influence everything (and certainly not everyone), but if we are talking about our ability to define who we are, and bring our best to life, regardless of the situation, this is something we can always influence, and also something that will help make the future better than the present.

For those of you who follow my “Life from the Top of the Mind” philosophy, you know that to be successful at bringing our best to life, we must be coming from the clear, confident, creative part of the brain, or the neocortex, as opposed to the lower, stressful, reactive brainstem, and the part of the brain that determines whether we engage the upper 80% or the lower 20% is the middle brain or limbic system.

Further, what the limbic system uses to make this determination about which part of the brain to engage is its beliefs or perceptions of who we are and the world around us. In other words, if we believe that we are at the mercy of the situations and people we encounter, then we will feel powerless and see life as a threat (which will throw us into the brainstem). However, if we believe that the future can be better than the present, and that we have the ability to make it so, we will feel optimistic, empowered, and eager to begin.

Therefore, given that our beliefs are so influential in this process, I suggest that we adopt a purposeful criteria for deciding which beliefs we hold on to and which to change. My favorite criteria is whether we would teach and/or recommend our beliefs to those we love. I say this because, as a psychologist and speaker, when I bring this question, “What would I teach to those I love?” up to my clients and audiences, it never fails to produce clarity. This clarity is based upon love, wisdom, and a desire to support those we love in being happy and successful.

Therefore, if we would indeed teach those we love that, yes, the future can be better than the present, and you do indeed have the power to make it so, I suggest that we adopt this wise and powerful perspective for ourselves, for in doing so, we engage the “Top of the Mind,” where our most powerful skills, qualities, characteristics, and abilities lie, which puts us in the most powerful position to affect the quality of our lives and the lives of others in the best way possible.