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The incredible power of beliefs! Do you wonder why it is that some people are able to achieve so much more in their lives than others? Why are some people able to produce such outstanding, even extraordinary results… far exceeding what is commonly expected? Is it because they have a lot more talent, expertise, and capability? Do they have superior resources that other people lack? You and I both know that this is not true at all.
“The outer conditions of a person’s life will always be found to reflect their inner beliefs.” – James Allen
Did the Wright brothers, inventors of the airplane, have more aerodynamic and engineering expertise than all the engineers and inventors of their time? No. They were simple bicycle repairmen.
Did Mahatma Gandhi come from a powerful family that enabled him to establish a power base to liberate India from the British? No. He was just an ordinary man, a lawyer. And using the law taught to him by his colonial masters certainly wouldn’t have freed India. Instead, gentle Gandhi used the power of peaceful assemblies, bringing tens of thousands to sit in peaceful civil disobedience…until the British give up.
Neither Gandhi or Wright brothers had any measurable resources to do what they did… and history is filled with many such outstanding individuals. What set these people apart were the incredible beliefs they had about the moral rightness of their cause. That gave them extraordinary strength to fight on, against all odds, and win. (Excerpt is inspired from ‘Master Your Mind, Design Your Destiny’ by Adam Khoo).
Operating System to Brain
Our beliefs are like the operating system to our brain. They determine what we expect from ourselves and how much we get out of ourselves. First of all, your beliefs define your expectations. Beliefs are what empower seemingly ordinary people to achieve extraordinary things. At the same time, limiting beliefs are what keep most people, despite all their resources, from achieving what they really can.
If you believe that you can become a millionaire, a CEO or a President, then that is what you will expect from yourself. And if you believe that you will never have the capability to earn more than $40,000 a year, then that is what you will expect from yourself.
If you believe that you can lead others, then you will expect to attain nothing less than a management position. Or if you believe that you are nothing more than a follower, then you will not expect anything more than being just a front-line employee. At the same time, your beliefs will drive the actions you take, and how much of your personal potential you will tap. When you believe that something is possible, you will go all out to make it happen. You will take massive action and have the commitment to keep doing whatever it takes to achieve it. As a result, you will tap a lot of your personal potential.
What kind of results do you think you will produce? Great results! When you get great results, it will reinforce your empowering beliefs even more! For example, if you have an empowering belief that you can build a highly successful business that will positively impact millions of lives, this belief will drive you to take massive action. You will develop a business plan, attract investors and launch your marketing campaign. Sure you will have lots of obstacles along the way, but your beliefs will drive you to turn any failure into feedback and to change your strategy until you get the result you want. Even if you don’t achieve the exact targets you set for yourself, you are going to produce some great results.
The Pygmalion Effect
The beliefs not only affect our performance and results, but they also affect the people we interact with as well. As a teacher, parent or boss, the beliefs you have about your students, children, and employees will affect how you treat them, how they respond, and ultimately how they perform.
Have you ever heard of the Pygmalion effect? This psychological phenomenon was first presented by Robert Merton, a professor of Sociology at Columbia University in 1957. The study involved a teacher who was instructed to teach a new class of gifted students for the next school year. What she did not know was that these students had been tested and found to be of low IQ. Moreover, they had behavioral problems.
Sure enough, when she started teaching, the students started misbehaving and did not learn or respond. But because she believed they were high IQ students, she figured that they were not the ones who had the problem, but she.
She started to take responsibility for their misbehavior and disinterest in learning. Maybe her teaching style was too boring and not stimulating enough to capture the attention of these gifted, demanding children.
So she started to experiment and change the way she taught. She started to encourage them, arouse their curiosity, challenge them with games and activities, and really nurtured them. The more she treated them like gifted students, the more they responded. At the end of the school year, the academic grades of the students jumped tremendously. And when retested, their IQs measured a 20-30 point increase on average. She literally created gifted students!
In his work called ‘Social Theory and Social Structure’, Merton said the phenomenon occurs when “a false definition of the situation evokes a new behavior which makes the original false conception come true.” In other words, once an expectation is set, even if it isn’t accurate, we tend to act in ways that are consistent with that expectation. Surprisingly often, the result is that the expectation, as if by magic, comes true.
Way Ahead
By now you must be clear that the belief either empowering one or self-limiting has incredible power. It can give you all the success or doom you to. Most of our beliefs are false, even by knowing so we are not able to change them. This is again due to our own firm belief of not accepting the truth.
“What the mind can conceive and believe, and the heart desire, you can achieve.” – Norman Vincent Peale
