Are You Letting Your Experiences Dictate Your Beliefs?

I nearly threw the towel in on a big writing project last week. It’s something I’ve been slaving over for close to a year, and although the bulk of it is done, I was just about ready to give up. Press delete. Forget that I had a reason – I’ll go so far as to say I had a dream – for starting the darn thing in the first place.

It wasn’t as though I was going to give up over nothing. I’m not that much of a quitter. But it really was the final straw. You see, when it comes to writing and publishing online, the content side of things is really just the beginning. It’s not enough to know you’ve got great material, you’ve got to understand online marketing. SEO. Social media. Adwords. How to generate links. And, what’s worse, you’ve not only got to understand all that technological hoo-ha, you need to know how to apply it.

And I’d had enough. 6 hours trying to make an ‘order here’ button appear on my site was what did it. It. Just. Wasn’t. Working. And I don’t just mean the order now button, I mean the whole thing. It seemed every week I was faced with another internet drama, or the concept of some vital element of online publishing that I hadn’t realized.

Maybe it would be better if I stopped stressing myself about it. After all, if it was meant to be, it would have happened by now, right? I mean, I’d like to think I’m a smart girl – so maybe I need to be smart enough to know when enough is enough?

Do you ever feel the same way when it comes to reaching for your goals? Wonder if it’s ever going to happen? Ever look back on long-past or painfully recent failures and tell yourself it’s obviously not meant to be?

Thomas Eddison failed in his quest to perfect electrical light over 1,000 times before he met with success. He actually went mad, lost his eyesight, and had his wife leave him in the process. But he met his goal. Now that’s commitment.

And you know what? It’s easy to imagine that when the streets of New York first lit up at night he wasn’t even thinking about the failures. His eventual success had made it all worthwhile.

You know some people say that failure is just an opportunity, and I think that’s a great one. But recently I heard something even more compelling, and that was this –

Don’t let your past experiences dictate your beliefs.

Have you ever been guilty of doing this? I know I have. It’s painfully easy to make up your mind that you’ve got no chance. That you’re just not destined to look a certain way, perform a certain way, achieve a certain thing, or even attain the car/house/holiday of your dreams.

That you have bad genes, or your work is too demanding, or you’ve got too many other people to worry about before yourself, or that you just don’t have enough energy.

It’s normal to encounter these sort of thoughts from time to time. It’s fine to have days when you feel completely hopeless. I mean, how would you ever enjoy the ‘up’ days if there were no contrast?

But if negativity and self-defeat has become a matter of course in your mind, you need to stop and look around.

The reality is that there are people out there who’ve built themselves up from nothing by sheer determination. Look at Anthony Robbins.

There are athletes out there who’ve battled against every unforeseeable odd and never given in; even come out a true winner. Look at Lance Armstrong. Look at any para-athlete.

There are those who’ve been ridiculed as fat or ugly by there peers and gone on to transform themselves into the proverbial swan. Pick up any copy of Men’s or Women’s Health and check out the latest 12-week challenge winner.

And you know what?

None of these type of people met success immediately. By contrast, they seem to have tale after tale of failed attempt behind them. Where they stand out, where their determination shines through, where they make themselves winners, is that they never ever ever give up. The do not let their past experiences dictate their beliefs about what they can and will still achieve.

If anything it drives them forward.

You might wonder what makes a person think like this? You might think that you’re mind or body just doesn’t work this way. But the truth is that there’s no magic answer.

You have the choice. Your future truly is in your hands. You can decide right now whether to give up on something that’s important to you, or you can decide that you will find a way. That failure is unacceptable. That there is nothing that can hinder you and that unforeseen circumstance will only fuel you forward.

What do you want to do?

How do you want to live?

Your success is waiting for you.

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