Everyone has a sincere, deep desire to succeed, especially at the beginning of a new year.

Your ability to establish and accomplish goals will help shape your happiness and success more than any skill you can ever develop. You can’t hit the target when you can’t see it.

You begin building the foundation of your success when you decide exactly what you really and truly want, in all aspects of your life.

If every person has that desire for winning, and if success is accessible to everybody (which it is), why do only a few succeed? This is because only a few truly believe in their potential, only a few actually define and acknowledge a goal, and only a few believe, in their spirit and mind, that they can, without a doubt, achieve that goal (whatever "that goal" is for you).

Simply wishing for something is very different from being able and prepared to accept it. Nobody is ever prepared to accept anything until they truly believe that they can obtain it. You must KNOW that you can obtain what it is you're after.

The mind must first be in a state of believing and not just hoping or wishing for something. An open mind is important in believing and a closed mind never inspires courage, faith or the power to believe.

Almost everyone has gone through difficult encounters and experiences in their lives. These experiences and encounters usually define your existence, becoming important educators on life's course. However, the antagonist, which is that negative force within, often would recognize these difficult experiences as symbols of you, symbols that say you’re not “good enough” to succeed. Simply put, this is fear from within, not truth.

Fear, according to psychologists, is a normal and natural line of attack focused to life's adjustments and changes. Fear is what prevents you from doing “crazy or stupid things”; but it may be allowed to reach an excessive degree. When you fear nothing, you can be considered as “mad” and “foolish”; but then again, fear of almost everything, especially fear of taking risks, can make you be seen as a coward. The antagonist inside of you will tell you that your fear is real and reasonable when, in truth, it is actually temporary and may be unfounded.

As the mind dictates your fear, it also dictates your thoughts and your actions.

When you believe in your mind that relationships are complicated and demand so much effort, you will indeed attract those individuals who will cause difficulty in the relationship or demand a lot of effort from you. More significantly, when you worry regarding something that you essentially believe will have negative outcomes, the results of your actions will be exactly that - difficult and negative.

Of course, it doesn’t happen every time you think and believe negatively, because although there is worry and apprehension inside you, there is still, in that little corner of your heart, of your mind, that hope for a positive result and the power of that little hope prevents disaster from happening. Yet worrying constantly and consistently, without a small spark of hope, will bring disastrous results.

However there is so much more to faith and believing than simply creating beliefs. Possessing “positive beliefs” in the mind is only the initial step towards creating a successful life.

Believing that you can actually achieve your goals is something entirely different than having positive beliefs. For instance, you have “positive beliefs” with regards to money; at the same time, you believe that many ways are offered in order to acquire money. Yet, if for any reason, you don’t believe you will be able to make money, then you will not make that certain amount of money that you want. Here are some guidelines to help you develop that true belief in your abilities:

Getting through the fear, developing how you believe:

1. Your belief should be superior, exceeding fear. It will require a lot of effort, but as much as you can, try to closely observe and listen inside of you, look around and see what is functioning well in your personal or business life and what is not. Small or great, acknowledge your successes. Believe that you can reach great things and as early as now, begin counting your blessings. Acknowledging your small successes and accomplishments can give you greater confidence, which usually leads to greater successes.

2. Only believe in you, in the things that you can do, and not in the circumstances. You have to believe in only yourself because there will be times when you will be tempted to put your belief into something else such as a job, a friend or a particular opportunity. Although this could be nice, note that people and circumstances are changeable. Your success should be created by only you and what you know you are capable of, so you alone can decide whether to change it or not.

3. Keep in mind that success will take some time and if ever you do fail, take it as an opportunity to learn and reassess your beliefs and your goals.

The powers of believing are very strong and affect our decisions, feelings, and actions. And although you have been depending on a specific set of assumptions regarding your life for so many years, they are only assumptions. Realize that they can be adjusted or changed and start changing them now!

© January 8, 2007

P.S.  For a complete course on how to change your life to exactly what you want it to be, check out the book Take Back Your Power!