How to Believe

I bet most of you that click on this post are going to find something unexpected, something that is entirely not what you were looking for and might just be exactly what you need. If this post fails to meet your expectations, please drop a comment and tell me why. I’d appreciate that enormously.

To begin, I feel it is instrumental to touch on the concept of belief and what it is to believe, the leap of faith will come later on.

To believe, put simply, is to decide on something, holistically. Scary concept for all you who are terribly afraid of making decisions.

It is to decide on a truth or lie, doesn’t matter which, and follow it delusionally without any doubt whatsoever. It is to make that decision with your mind, body, heart and soul. It is to continue to make that decision constantly in your thoughts, movements, actions, lifestyle, conversations, in your very essence. It is to embody that decision in the most complete way as you can and accept life as it happens with the certainty that things will happen a certain way because of your unshakeable trust in following that decision and that time is only factor standing between you and your belief being proven right or wrong. (Your acceptance following that event is entirely up to you).

Let’s look at a more comprehendable example. Say you decide to believe you can run a marathon. I will put money on the fact that given a reasonable time frame, which doesn’t necessarily have to be any long period of time, you will be entirely capable of doing that regardless of pretty much anything else. Let me tell you why:

You know the saying, “You can do whatever you put your mind to”? There’s a very good reason people say that. There is much logic to it. When you start to believe, when you decide, a few things begin to happen. Once you put your mind to it, likely in some delusional manner because all previous and external experience points you towards a different answer, your behaviour begins to change. See, now that you have made the decision in your mind, your mind is communicating that decision to your body, and your body begins to make that same decision as well. Once that starts to happen you will likely face some sort of struggle or set back, and providing that you don’t quit, you will achieve some small portion or milestone en route to your new belief. This starts another interesting process. You have now created evidence of your belief being possible and slightly less delusional. This comes with a fantastic reward – confidence. Why is confidence fantastic? Because it starts to convince your heart and your soul to start believing in your decision to run the marathon. Now there is a lot more of you than just your mind believing and acting on your decision. You have momentum, positive reinforcing evidence, and something else that is new! A feeling. Sounds stupid, it’s not. That feeling, that’s the world, energy around you starting to believe as well, starting to align events and people with your belief around you. Before you know it, you’ve somehow told everyone you were going to run a marathon contrary to popular belief, you’ve somehow started and continued training for it, all the while convincing yourself more wholly that you can do it, signed up and paid the entry fee, and finished the damned thing.

The whole process doesn’t happen quickly, but it sure goes by fast when you look back. The magic is this: it never seems easy, or even possible, until you decide, wholly, that it is. Then things begin to change and reshape until it ACTUALLY is possible even though it might not have been before.

This concept can be applied to EVERYTHING in life, but you will need to manage your expectations because your belief will realise, but often not in the way you imagined it. I used a marathon as an example because most people think it’s impossible for them personally to run one.

Why do most people fail then? Great question, if you thought to ask that. Because they quit, because they don’t commit to deciding wholly and try to take shortcuts, thereby skipping some fundamental part of building a whole belief that can realise itself. Sometimes you don’t see any results or forward motion until just before the very end of the journey, just before the belief becomes a reality. Most people quit because of fear and doubt, and largely because of other people. Most of us are inclined to believe what we already know to be true or what we have been taught to believe. Most of us are not that bright. Otherwise we’d all be Jeff Bezos wouldn’t we? Your life and your beliefs are YOURS to choose. Time is the only factor that you don’t get a say in. So in my humble opinion, fuck ’em. Go do the thing. Go chase the dream. Go embarrass yourself in the process. Go fall down 99 times and get up 100. Go be the exception. You believed in fairy tales as a kid and they weren’t real, why not believe in yourself because you ARE real, and your dreams could be too.