Step 1: Everything Starts with Your Mindset

I’m excited to help you on this extraordinary journey that is personal development. You will find tons of articles online telling you how to be more productive, to be happier or to be more successful.

However, I believe that to be truly successful and live our life to the fullest, it must, first and foremost, start with our mindset. The key to any of our success is our ability to control our thoughts and master our psychology; everything else is a by-product of that process. If you can do that, you will open the doors to success, love, money, wealth and everything you’ve ever dreamed of.

Thus, rather than giving you some personal development tips that will barely scratch the surface of what real personal development is, I would like to provide you with a series of articles that address key principles of personal development.

This first article in the series will address the importance of developing an exceptional mindset.

If you look at successful people, you will find that they don’t necessarily come from well-off families. In fact, many are actually self-made men and come from all walks of life. Most of them are not smarter than you are. How come, then, they became so successful?

I believe that the number one reason behind their success is their mindset. If you’re really determined to live an extraordinary life, developing a mindset that will allow you to attract success is a MUST! So how do you do that?

Be Aware Of Your Limiting Beliefs

The first thing to understand is that all human beings have limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are false beliefs that you’ve accepted as true either consciously or unconsciously.

For instance, you may believe that money is evil and that rich people are all corrupted. Or perhaps you believe that you aren’t smart enough, strong enough, or confident enough to pursue the career you genuinely want or attract your ideal partner in your life. Maybe you just aren’t coming from the right family and stand no chance to achieve your dreams.

These limiting beliefs you hold can be difficult to change for 3 main reasons:

1. Firstly, they may be so deeply ingrained in your subconscious mind that you might not even be aware of them.

2. Secondly, you’ve been living with them for so many years that simply knowing you have them and doing daily affirmations won’t do the job.

3. Thirdly, you’ve become so attached to them, and in a sense, so comfortable with the struggle they cause you to experience, that, at least on an unconscious, you don’t really want to part with them.

To start living up to your potential, it’s essential that you learn to overcome these limiting beliefs.

There is No Skill You Cannot Learn

As you get rid of your limiting beliefs, you’ll gradually realize that the sole obstacle preventing you from being successful is yourself.

In reality, we all have more or less the same brain. Countless people of average intelligence have accomplished great things throughout history. It’s not because they were more talented than other people, it’s because they never stop learning until they developed the skills they needed to achieve their goals.

Talent is overrated and far too many of us have kept using it as an excuse for our inaction. I don’t know you personally, but all I can say is that, whatever skills you need, to go from where you are now to where you want to be, you can acquire it.

Do you want to be charismatic? Confident ? Attractive? Persistent? Happy? Compassionate? Grateful? That’s absolutely possible! Even better, you’re just a click away from all the information you’ll ever need.

We all have an incredible potential waiting to be actualized, but unfortunately many of us are unaware of how much we could accomplish if only:

• We were absolutely clear about what we want in life
• We consistently develop plans of action to help us achieve our goals.

Sadly, average people spend more time planning their next vacation than planning their ideal life. Maybe, as Jim Rohn says, “it’s because escape is easier than change”.

What about you? Do you have clear written goals for this week and for this month? Did you set specific measurable long-term goals for your health, your career, your relationships or your finance?

As we’ll discuss in more details in future articles, setting clear written goals is key to success.

How I Began My Journey

My personal development journey started three years ago. Prior to that, I was studying hard, but I wasn’t really working hard on myself. Studying may even have been a way for me to avoid facing real problems in my life.

At the time, I was struggling with women due to my shyness. This lead me to do some research online hoping to find some advice that would help me become more confident with women. To tell the truth, I had always been shy, struggling to show real signs of proactivity at school, at work, as well as during social interactions. It wasn’t until I discovered books written by so-called “pick-up artist” that I realized how my limiting beliefs had been holding me back for so long.

For instance, I used to think that certain women were just too beautiful for me. Soon after I realized that this was merely a limiting belief, I began to attract women that I would previously have considered “out of my league”. Only one thing had changed: my mindset. But that shift in my mindset lead to a change in my attitude, affecting also my behavior.

As you look at your own life, I hope you start realizing how limiting beliefs have been holding you back all these years. Limiting beliefs can often lead to self-fulfilling prophecy.

For instance, if you genuinely believe that you’re not smart enough, what are the chances that you’ll take action to learn new skills, and move towards your dreams?

In the event you were to take action, you would probably fail anyway. Why? Because you’ll use the slightest setback as a way to justify the fact that you’re a failure: “See, I failed. I told. I’m just a loser”. That’s how you would sabotage yourself. That’s why it is crucial that you become fully aware of you’re the limiting beliefs you hold in each area of your life.

Conditioning Your Mind

One very important thing to know about your subconscious mind is that it cannot distinguish what is true from what is false. Thus, whatever you choose to feed your mind with, your subconscious mind will accept it as a fact.

In fact, all the limited beliefs you currently hold are the result of a constant exposure to certain ideas or beliefs over a long period of time. Your subconscious mind simply accepted them as true. Not because they are true, but simply because it had been exposed to these beliefs over and over again.

As we say, “repeat a lie enough time, and people will believe it”. That’s how your subconscious mind works. Note that this process is very similar to religious sects where gurus keep repeating the same thing to his disciples until they believe it.

As a first step towards reconditioning your mind, I would like you to spend two weeks just getting familiar with personal development materials.

Concretely, what I would encourage you to do is to start taking control of your mind by doing every day what I call “positive conditioning”, that is, by increasing your daily exposure to positive and empowering ideas. For the next two weeks, spend 15-30 minutes reading inspiring materials, listening to inspiring audiobooks or watching motivational videos. I personally watch motivational videos or listen to inspiring audiobooks daily while preparing/eating breakfast.

Reading or listening to inspirational materials is more effective than you may think, that is, if you discipline yourself to do it on a daily basis. As Zig Ziglar said, “People often say that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”

After a while, you may even surprise yourself repeating certain quotes, affirmations or words of wisdom when facing difficult times.

As mentioned previously, discovering the power of limiting beliefs was the first stage in my personal development. Conditioning my mind was the second stage. During that stage I started working on my mindset and attitude in a more comprehensive way (what you would probably call personal development).

This was mainly the result of my encounter with two fantastic audio-programs by the well-known motivational speakers, Jim Rohn (The Art of Exceptional Living) and Earl Nightingale (Lead The Field).

I listened to these two programs countless times and still do to this day. I even introduced Jim Rohn’s audiobook to several of my friends and it was a true revelation for them.

I highly encourage you to check out these two audiobooks. I’m convinced they will significantly impact your philosophy of life as well.

Another great read I recommend is, As a Man Thinketh by James Allen, which explains in details how our thoughts shape our life. The Kindle version is free and the paperback version costs only $3.

Finally, you can also listen to plethora of motivational videos on Youtube. Below are some recommendations for you.

For more motivational videos feel free to check out my Youtube playlist here.

Your Challenge:

Read, watch, or listen to inspirational materials daily for 15-30 minutes during the next two weeks.

You can also listen to various motivational videos on Youtube. Here are some recommendations:

http://youtu.be/PWUftpAMy0Y

http://youtu.be/8jhcxOhIMAQ?list=PL-cGIHnfcmneofURWli3fCDE0S_PuNq_5

http://youtu.be/e2ap6fd_sXY

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