SELF-BELIEF – Give Yourself Permission to be Successful

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<h1> SELF-BELIEF – Give Yourself Permission to be Successful</h1> by Tim Richardson <div align=justify>Do you lack self-belief? Does it stop you from achieving what you want to have and do and your want in life? Well you are not alone! But how can you start to break the chains and really live again? Enter self-belief into “Google” and it seems inevitable that the major search results will involve someone’s story of how they changed their life from one of under-achieving and procrastination due to a lack of self-belief. Big deal I say! Who cares!? You only care about you. You may have tried to ‘break the chains’ of having low self-esteem which also pretty much inevitably goes hand in hand with a lack of self-belief. Having a lack of self-belief and of self-esteem is simply crippling to the personal growth, self actualisation and self-fulfilment of anyone. We humans experience change all the time in life, its situations, challenges and constant changes within ourselves too. We are literally living in a different world from one day to the next in a body and mind and emotional and psychic state that is constantly changing. Often it’s difficult to keep up! With the rush of ‘modern living’, we lose touch with ourselves to the degree that we do not have a clue who we really are. We end up attaching so many externally based labels to ourselves of what we are, what we do, our definition of ourselves, and most of all, our definition of what we can and can’t do! Most of us know about those childhood experiences that have so shaped the way we are today. We can do our own psychoanalysis thanks very much. We know ourselves better than anyone, right? We may count ourselves lucky or unlucky depending on how our childhood experiences shaped us and our present life. But we probably do not know ourselves at all! So how much of how we see ourselves is from the past based on our perceptions of what happened to us, how it affected us and how we feel about it all? But our perceptions are fallible and our ability to process scenes, events, emotions can be changeable, to say the least. Even the way we map faces in our brains can be deceived by our perception of ‘reality.’ Even green plants are not green but that’s what our brain tells us! (That’s the colour wavelength reflected off the plant but is not the plant colour itself!) The brain is limited by the way it works. Not only this, but everyone is ‘wired-up’ differently so to speak. Ask a policeman what opinion he has of the public’s ability to describe details of an incident. It will not be that high probably with vast discrepancies between different people’s accounts. There are still areas of our brains and aspects of our minds about which we know as little about as the deep unexplored oceans and the outer reaches of space, and these are constantly throwing scientific ‘dogma’ into turmoil. We usually do not even remember an event 24 hours ago, or 2 hours ago, or even a minute ago. So how can we really trust and believe our self-belief about ourselves, which may be based on ‘memories’ from times before our brains have even been fully formed? That’s just plain crazy! Our ‘reference points’ are simply not accurate. If we add all our fears into the equation, then realise that most of our fears come from the fear of something happening but probably never has and never will. Not only this, but if we were growing and stretching as human beings according to our natural ability to do so, dealing with these fears if they did happen would be so much less of a trauma as our capability to deal with them would be so much greater! I meet so many people every day and this relates to the majority of people I meet, who I would term as emotionally and psychologically ‘closed down’ often to great degrees, even though operating as ‘average’ people you would meet on the street. They may have jobs and families and busy lives, but they are in effect ‘sleep walking’ through life. Mostly these people know in intricate detail what they do and what they have, but how many of them truly know who they are, what they truly want in life, and the honest reasons why? Virtually none of them! Most people are living in the past every day of their lives and therefore are not living in ‘reality’ moment by moment. Having created a false world view of reality based on opinions, false impressions, misinterpretations, lies they have been told or incorrect information they have been fed. It is like we all live in a dream of our own making, good or bad. Our minds do not represent a true map of our external reality at all and can be easily fooled. That is why it such a shame that so many of us live our lives according to our false limiting beliefs we have created. We are all growing, but unless we realise it and explore it regular, how can we exploit these changes and assimilate them into our new belief systems and act out a new internal reality accordingly? Sure, emotional scars can really run so deep they are not 'cured' by methods we presently know. But many can be healed by numerous means and our own bodies and minds especially are the greatest healers of them all! So you may suffer from a lack of confidence in situations where past feelings of pain, fear or inadequacy raise your heart beat. But each time you watch television or read a book, you may wander how it is you can ‘zone out’ and ignore completely what is going on around you. That’s the power of your mind. It can work for you to protect you as it should or against you because it is still protecting you in situations that are no longer a genuine threat to you. These ‘mind traps’ sabotage your life every moment you are not aware of them happening, where your mind is now working against you. Now I am no expert on self confidence and how to achieve it, but I can tell you I was rejected at birth and adopted as a one year old by a family in which I did not live and perform up to their expectations. However, I am not living my life, like so many ‘sleep walkers’ do, trying to achieve in life exactly what my parents’ expectations of me were. So many people live their lives trying to get love where it will not come from truly unconditionally. Many people never acknowledge their true selves their whole lives, not allowing themselves the personal integrity to be true to their own dreams which rarely are the same as their parents anyway. Sure mind traps are like walls that have to be dismantled brick by brick. But it helps to get a big breakthrough once in a while by challenging your own beliefs and taking risks in new situations in life. Once a big false self-belief starts crumbling it can effect many others like dominoes falling. I think most people live their lives rather like you might try to bend a spoon like the infamous Uri Geller. The vast majority of people will focus all their energy on the spoon, trying to change it with all their might, their egos getting more and more frustrated the longer the spoon stays the same. But is very interesting to note that many children are able to bend spoons like Uri Geller. We have no scientific explanation for this phenomenon at present. But the funny thing is that children appear to bend spoons with ease. Perhaps the key is not trying to change anything at all, but being in a relaxed and unattached state where we are truly in touch with ourselves. At a place where any negative self-beliefs and conditioning are not present as a barrier to natural processes we have yet to discover scientifically. As our quantum physicists admit there is far more ‘space’ between matter than previously thought possible. This sure is shaking their beliefs about the true nature of ‘reality’ and of all the physical matter in it. If you let go of past set paradigms of thought and realise how shaky they are – how many laws of science have had to be re-written in even the last 50 years, how much of our accepted beliefs of reality will be different in another 100? I’m certain we will be shocked beyond belief. Like many big changes to our belief system, there will be shock. As someone of limited self-belief and of very changeable self-esteem, I can say this. I do get very sensitised by various experiences which feel risky. They may make me feel extremely vulnerable. Some give me a feeling of great strength afterwards. Some leave my nerves jangled. It seems crucial not to over-stretch when exploring and developing yourself on purpose. Taking ‘baby steps’ is the key. I’ve tried big risks and big steps, and they can leave you on highs that take you out of ‘practical everyday reality’ and can undermine your confidence very detrimentally if you take risks you are not ready to handle when they do not work out as you had hoped. As Zig Ziglar said “You’ve got to be before you can have.” Life is full of fears, pain and trauma that is completely illusory. When you meet new people, their impressions of you are not true. Their opinions of you are often based on the tiniest of scraps of information. It is not personal because they do not truly know you. I think it is such a waste and shame that people often just judge people on first appearances. This is completely insane. How many of you have felt that ‘peer pressure’ of having to fit in by buying that outfit, car, house, or even getting that husband, or girlfriend. That is not living. It is living ‘second hand’ to appease and fulfil the clouded desires of others. Why live your life for other people when your true happiness comes from the love of doing what you need to grow for yourself. Sure this may mean serving other people in many different ways but you will feel the freedom and feeling of positive energy as you burst through one false inner shell after another. Helping others is self-growth in action. And positive action is the key. Princess Dianna ways painfully shy and yet she was able to face strangers, massive crowds of admirers and even manipulate the media. Her solution was simple. When with people, focus on them instead of on yourself! The big lesson for me about my past is that life is not about finding my past or my roots, hoping to find there the thing to ease the pain of my past. I do not think you find yourself in the way many think. I think you make yourself and in doing so you discover and remember your true self along the way. The past is gone and can never happen again quite the same way. The truth is, we give ourselves the permission we need to have the things we need and want, and sometimes we can give those things to ourselves and the most important of them all is unconditional self-love. Whether you believe in love as an eternal spiritual power is irrelevant. We all die inside without it... Even if you are made to look stupid in front of millions on a television 'reality show', who cares? If you do it for personal growth and it strengthens you and makes you more secure in yourself you will secretly be envied for doing it. Anyone can laugh at someone but could they walk in that person's shoes ? Failure or defeat is subjective, so whatever happens in our lives has the potential to help us grow. Feedback is painful, but it does not have to stop you. As Bruce Lee said: “Defeat is not defeat until accepted as defeat in your own mind.” (And even a rubber band has to stretch before bouncing back...) (Warning: This article is protected by copyright.) By Tim Richardson. For the unique and acclaimed new massive expert bait making ‘bible’ ebook / book: “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” SEE: http://www.baitbigfish.com</div> Article source: <a href="http://www.ArticlePros.com/self_improvement/Self-Esteem/article-80977.html">ArticlePros.com</a> <table align=center width=550 cellspacing=1 bgcolor=silver cellpadding=5> <tr bgcolor=antiquewhite> <td> About the author Tim Richardson is a “British carp study group” member, carp and catfish bait-making expert, and a highly successful big fish angler. His bait making and bait enhancing books / ebooks: “BIG CARP BAIT SECRETS!” At his dedicated fishing baits secrets website. http://www.baitbigfish.com <a href="http://www.baitbigfish.com" target="_blank" title="will open in new window" class=blue>http://www.baitbigfish.com</a> <input type=button class=asubm value="Other articles by Tim Richardson" onclick="document.location='http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Tim Richardson'" style="height:20px;cursor:hand"> </td> </tr> </table>