The conversation turned to,  “So, what have you been doing with your time lately?”

When I replied, “I started this site on calisthenics and I am super excited about bodyweight exercises!”

His reply was, “I never saw you as the fitness type…”

There was a brief but silent gap in the conversation, as I paused to take in what my friend had said.

The first thing that popped up was that quote by Henry David Thoreau writes, “If a man loses pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured, or far away.”

Each of us has our own inner music our own inner drive. That passion inside each and every one of us, that is unique and different.

Each of us has 86,400 seconds, each day. And what you choose to do with that time is completely up to you. There is no prize nor cheering accolades each time you make a decision that serves your highest good. The prize is the joy and satisfaction you feel at the end of the day knowing you gave it all you had and did all you wanted today with the precious gift that you have called life.

The power of belief is so vital to one’s existence. It is in fact the difference between a life of regret or a life of dreams. The only real thing that separates those world class athletes and the rest of the pack is their belief system.

Winners believe they can. There is no other option but to forge ahead and create the life they have always dreamed.

Losers complain and find fault with everything.

If you reading this article I highly doubt that you are the latter.

Your belief system is like a compass pointed north. It guides you in just about everything you do or say.

A Brief Overview

To truly understand the power of belief  you do not have to look to far. You have probably heard of the placebo effect. For those of you that are not familiar with the placebo effect. It is essentially “a fake treatment, an inactive substance like sugar, distilled water, or saline solution — can sometimes improve a patient’s condition simply because the person has the expectation that it will be helpful”.

In addition to the placebo effect there is also, what is called the nocebo effect, which is the complete opposite. Instead of being something positive or helpful, a nocebo is actually quite harmful.

Both the placebo and nocebo have one thing in common, they originate from one’s mind, also known as your belief system. The more medical term is called psychogenic (psycho meaning mind and genic meaning origin or genesis).

Your mind is a very powerful thing.

From December 2007 to  January 2013 a very interested study was conducted in five orthopedic clinics in Finland by doctors Raine Sihvonen, M.D., Mika Paavola, M.D., Ph.D., Antti Malmivaara, M.D., Ph.D., Ari Itälä, M.D., Ph.D., Antti Joukainen, M.D., Ph.D., Heikki Nurmi, M.D., Juha Kalske, M.D., and Teppo L.N. Järvinen, M.D., Ph.D.  It was called the Finnish Degenerative Meniscal Lesion Study.

They enrolled 146 patients 35 to 65 years of age who had knee pain for at least three months associated to broken knee cartilage. They were tested to make sure that their knee pain was not caused by other conditions.

Groups were divided amongst those that had the surgery and others that did not however neither group knew whether or not they actually had the “real” surgery.

The results were quite impressive, both groups recovered equally the same. Which goes to show that if you believe it to be true, it very often can be the case. Those patients that did not have the surgery but believed that they did actually recovered from knee pain.

Other similar studies have be conducted and have shown similar results that fake surgery is just as effective as the real one.

To see more evidence of just how powerful your mind is to suggestions or auto-suggestions, you can check out the famous mentalist, Derren Brown, pay for things using just plain paper. He actually buys a diamond ring worth $4,500. (Time: 3:37 minutes)

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind

As you can see, falling prey to another person simply by one’s words is easier than you think.

That is why for decades “subliminal advertising” was illegal.

Your belief system is directly tied to your conscious and subconscious mind.

In psychology, the subconscious is the part of consciousness that is not currently in focal awareness. The word “subconscious” represents an anglicized version of the French subconscious as coined by the psychologist Pierre Janet (1859-1947), who argued that underneath the layers of critical-thought functions of the conscious mind lay a powerful awareness that he called the subconscious mind

Your subconscious mind runs on auto-pilot. It is your own personal adviser giving your recommendations and suggestions based on past information that you have deemed to be either positive or negative.

Most of what we do, we learned from outside influences.

There are many influences that can affect our belief systems:

1) Your own personal motivation (Will power), “want to”
2) Your own personal ability (Talent) “will power”
3) Social pressure/motivation, such as family, friends, acquaintances (People)
4) Social ability, such as schools, teachers, mentors, coaches, professors, books, movies, etc.
aces
5) Social rewards, such as prizes, rewards, positive feedback/negative feedback, etc
6) Environment (Places), like your environment at home, at work, social events

Here is a terrific TED Talks by Al Switzler on, how do you break down mental barriers and beat the willpower trap. (Time: 19:02 Minutes)

The key to harnessing the power of belief is to surround yourself with those positive influences that will enable you, that will empower you and that will encourage you to keep keeping on your journey toward the best version of you that you can be.

Firefighters versus Firelighters

In life you are either surrounded with those that either extinguish or put out the flames of passions in your life, which I like to call firefighters. Like the job of a firefighter they are tasked with putting out flames. The opposite is firelighters, these are the people in your life that encourage you to follow your bliss, do the things that inspire you. They are your champions, your own personal success coach in life.

The goal in life is, of course, to increase the number of firelighters and reduce the number of firefighters.

It might be easier than it sounds, as you can’t always choose the members in your immediate family. But you can choose how much time you spend with them. If you find that those in your social circles are more negative than positive, change your circles, and change them quickly.

Life is just too darn short to spend it with people that just don’t want to support you in the way and manner that your desire.

If someone doesn’t want to be with you, so be it. Don’t force anyone to be with you and share in your company.

You are better than that.

Sooner or later you will find that like-minded people just gravitate to you, as you continue doing the things you love.

What You Say and Tell Yourself When You Are Alone

Your belief system is in good part also what you say to yourself alone when no one is around you. Self-esteem (how you esteem or value yourself/how much you value yourself) self-confidence (how you confide or speak to yourself) are without a doubt the two most important traits that can significantly improve your belief system.

What you believe is so critically important to your success or failure in life that we have thousands of books devoted to this very subject, under the labels of Psychology, Social Psychology and Self-Help.

As Winston Churchill the former Prime Minister of England, once said, “The empires of the future, will be the empires of the mind.”

Think about it, no pun intended, what separates a great athlete like say Michael Jordan from the rest? Both are equally talented, they two legs, two arms, etc. What I believe is that the real difference is in the inner strength and fortitude.

In conclusion, use and harness the power of belief and you can quite literally be, do, or have anything. It’s really just that easy. Positive beliefs in what you are being, doing, or having can go a long way.

Here is a great audiobook on The Power of Your Subconscious, by Joseph Murphy. (Time: 1 Hour 36 Minutes)