“Man is made by his belief. As he believes, so he is.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I feel like I’ve written about belief a lot lately. If you’re sick of it, my apologies. Unfortunately, I keep running into situations where it’s obviously an issue. I’m not sure why I didn’t notice this for the first 30+ years of my life, but now I notice it right away.
Negative beliefs = no success. Guaranteed. If you think positively about your situation, about your abilities, about your ability to change the world around you, then you have a chance. It’s not necessarily going to be easy, but you have a chance. If you think there really isn’t much hope and you have no control over what happens in your life or your business, then it’s all over.
I spoke with a very intelligent, hard-working, experienced group of businesspeople last week. I did most of the talking for 20 minutes or so, and then we gradually had more and more discussion (around the idea of strategy development and implementation). Within 5 minutes of discussion getting started I could tell immediately whose business had a chance and whose would not be around much longer.
The sad part is that so many people sabotage themselves with their negative beliefs without even realizing it. Saying & thinking negative things is such an everyday occurrence/habit for them that I don’t think they even know they’re doing it. And I’m positive they don’t understand the impact it has.
The group member who sticks out in my mind works for a business that’s been around for over a hundred years, but is in a rapidly consolidating industry. Certainly their industry is facing challenges. But others in that industry have managed to grow and thrive, while he’s convinced it’s just not possible. The problem with thinking growth isn’t possible is that even if you “try to grow”, you really don’t try that hard. Your heart’s just not in it because you don’t think it’s going to work. Self-sabotage.
For all the blogs we’ve done about strategy or planning or change or whatever, for all the speaking engagements and workshops, of all the topics we cover, if there’s only one thing I could convince you to do, it’s to believe. Believe that you are able to impact the world around you. Believe that you can make changes to your business – or your personal life. Believe that the only way you’re certain to fail is to believe you can’t succeed. If you do that one thing, everything else will open up. If you don’t, then the doors are already closed.
