The teaching that you have to believe that you can succeed is utter b.s.
This teaching has been the secret to more failures than anything else I can find.
- You see, you cannot force yourself to believe anything that you don’t believe.
- In addition to that, your actions do NOT come from your beliefs, do not even come from your thoughts, they come from a place much deeper than that.For example, I am your perfect pessimist: I never believe I can do it. I never believe that I will succeed.
But… I am not waiting for my beliefs to change, I do what I need to do, whether I believe I will succeed, or even that I am doing the right thing.
Now, why is this stupid lie taught? Because it makes you sheep… Or conversely, it makes you overconfident.
By the way, all Dark Side suggestions, or emotions are designed to make you sheep.
Either way, you won’t do what you need to do to get to where you want to get to, so the result is failure, or no action.
Now, how did I manage to become this way?
I think the biggest difference between you and me, is that I never honored the noise my mind makes. And I rarely honor the fearful emotions I have… although they sometimes get the best of me.
So, my attitude is: this is the thing to do, and I am going to do it. Not because I can, but because I will.
Belief is about ability. Action on the other hand needs no ability: ability builds itself with practice. Nothing a person can do was always part of their tool-box: when you were a baby you could not even find your mouth with a spoon!
You need to extend the same courtesy to yourself as you extend to a little baby.
I call it the right to be a bumbling idiot… and enjoy it.
Not everyone gives themselves the permission to be a bumbling idiot: it takes a certain level of intelligence to get that everything that is worth doing is worth doing poorly… ie. like a bumbling idiot.
I have learned 20 different professions, from laying tiles, to wall-papering, seamstress, shorthand typist, translator, etc. I didn’t take any of them to mastery. I enjoy the bumbling idiot phase.
And there are a few professions that I have taken to mastery… a few.
Even today I start something new every week, or every other week. I ALWAYS take them to a level from where I COULD go for mastery, having passed the bumbling idiot phase.
My experience is that the more I do, the more I enjoy it. The more I cherish expanding myself.
And that takes us to what my site, what my work is about: taking you to Expanding Human Being.
Some of my favorite people are the Coen brothers, film makers. Why do I like them? Because they never repeat the same genre twice. Their whole commitment is to do something new, something that they can be bumbling idiots about, everyt time they make a movie.
I love that. Kindred spirits.
Don’t strive for success. Strive to expand. Seek out experiences that challenge you, that make you grow through the bumbling idiot phase.
And enjoy it. And be proud of yourself.
You are a One-percenter… if you do it. Or 99-percenter if you don’t.
Beliefs? Most of the 99-percenters have beliefs and yet they are 99-percenters. I have no beliefs that I honor… who needs them?
PS: I need to mention, because otherwise you won’t know: depending on your ethnicity, you’ll have an easier or harder time to start being a bumbling idiot.
If your ethnicity is such where “pounding your chest boasting” is common… you’ll have a hard time without first causing an DNA shift in yourself.
If your ethnicity is quiet working, modesty about success, or no mention at all… then you’ll have an easier time.
You know who you are.
Some chest pounding cultures: Italian, Black, Greek. Please add in the comments section if you can think of any other such culture.
PS: There is one exception to this rule that beliefs are b.s. is when someone believes you can. What happens inside is quite different from when you say it.
If and when someone says: “You can do it” you get out of your own way, and look at yourself with the question: what do THEY see? They must be looking somewhere I haven’t looked.
It has happened to me time and again, the a coach said that I can do it, or maybe even just said: do that! and even though I’d never considered the thing doable, I’d never bothered to try, the “thing” changed in front of my very eyes.
Your actions or non-actions come from what you see, not what you believe or what you think. I repeat: WHAT YOU SEE! (for Landmark Education people: the Occurring World)
Get yourself a coach who won’t believe your b.s. and will force you to do what you don’t think you can do.
