In terms of achieving any personal desired outcome, there are three things that you need to believe if you are to stand a good chance of success:
1. Possibility:
It is possible to achieve the outcome.
2. Ability:
You are capable of achieving the outcome.
3. Worthiness:
You deserve to achieve the outcome.
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Possibility
Belief as to whether something is possible is not only restricted by personal beliefs; there can also be cultural beliefs that prevent us from achieving.
For many years before Roger Bannister broke the 4 minute mile it was considered an impossible task. Yet in May 1954, the impossible was made possible as Bannister ran the mile in 3 minutes 59.4 seconds.
Once the belief that it was possible had been created, only 6 weeks later an Australian rival called John Landy took an incredible 1.5 seconds off Bannister's record. Amazingly, within a year of Bannister's record-breaking achievement, a further 36 people broke the 4 minute mile; and within 2 years over 300 people had achieved the so called 'impossible task.’
The point of the story is that as human beings we all have our own limits - we just don't know what they are!
Ability
Rarely do we over-estimate our own ability. More often than not it is our own beliefs that get in the way of our true potential.
We tend to take our beliefs to be facts when they are often either wrong beliefs or just generalisations about how things might appear at a particular moment.
These beliefs can be created on the flimsiest of evidence. On occasion it may take only one or two occurrences for us to create a belief that something we've done (a behaviour) can become something we do (a belief).
In a sporting context, examples of this might be the following:
"I always miss penalties"
"I'm rubbish at bunker shots"
"I never jump a clear round"
"My backhand is useless"
Each of the above quotes may have been created as statements of fact in our heads, when actually each may have only occurred on either one or a couple of occasions.
The danger is that they act as mental handcuffs on our actual ability, so if you do tell yourself you can't do something, put a 'yet' at the end of the sentence. In our minds this allows us to rationalise the situation and understand that we can improve it.
Worthiness
Only we know whether we are worthy of achievement. It can happen that someone believes an outcome is possible and that they have the ability to achieve their desire but they don't feel that they deserve to.
This belief can be just as destructive and is often related to low confidence or self-esteem.
The point is that you DO deserve to achieve your outcome and if you do not believe it, then there are ways to change this.
A Game Changer says…
The three things you should be able to say to yourself in order to test your self-belief and achieve your desired outcomes are:
"This outcome is possible"
"I have the ability to achieve this outcome"
"I deserve to achieve this outcome"
If you feel congruent when you say the above three statements, then you have the belief. If you feel incongruent, then you have a limiting belief which must be dealt with before you can achieve your outcome.