How to Choose your Beliefs for Success
The beliefs that you hold are like the caption under a photograph in a magazine. Consider that this photograph is a snapshot moment in time of your life as it is right now, a frame cut from your epic movie. The first secret is this: you can change the caption without changing the photograph.
Consider that this one frame is just the smallest fragment of the film of your life. The second secret is that the universe will start to change the frames that follow based on the caption you’ve written. Change the caption, change the movie, change the ending.
I was in a bookshop yesterday and I picked up, quite by accident, a copy of Joe Vitale’s Missing Manual. Looking through it, I found the story of a man who always had relationship troubles. One day, he realized that the feeling that he’d always thought of as ‘falling in love’ was really a self-destructive attraction to the wrong women. Wow! The feeling didn’t change but the caption, the interpretation of that feeling, sure did. He’s now happily married to an amazing woman, and has a new feeling with the old label ‘falling in love’.
Richard Wiseman wrote a book about Luck that says something similar. Dr Wiseman, a psychologist, set up several experiments where the subjects go through a given set of circumstances. For example, he’d ask you to meet him at a certain cafe for lunch. He’d put a £5 note in the gutter outside, and a stooge at every table so that you couldn’t sit alone. Some people would step right over the fiver, and sit waiting in silence at one of the tables. Others would find the fiver, get a nice cuppa, and sit and converse with the most interesting looking person while they waited. The difference? The lucky ones think that they’re lucky, and have a wonderful time. If that isn’t a life-changing caption, I don’t know what is.
I was standing on a crowded London bus one Saturday afternoon. The bus started to leave, and a woman ran after it. It stopped and let her on. (They don’t often do that!) She only had a ten-pound note, but the driver gave her change. (They don’t usually make change!) She made her way past me to the back of the bus and found a seat. (Even though it was crowded!) By then I was convinced that she’s an incredibly lucky person - you probably are too - except for the sour look on her face. I bet she hated that she’d had to run for the bus, had to ask for change, and had to shove her way through the crowded bus. Imagine how much happier her life would be if only she would recognize the fabulous fragments of her life.
What are you doing right now that’s really great? Recognize and re-label and re-caption your life. (Just one thing!) Right Now!