Opportunities come if you believe in yourself and put energy into achieving your goals. Fast Track Your Success and Happiness has some great ideas for developing yourself so that you can take the opportunities as they arise. – Adam Thorn and Fiona Mills, winners of The Block (first series) and authors of Adam and Fiona’s Renos on a Budget

Petra’s book makes some potentially complex concepts very accessible. Her book is easy to read and therefore a very valuable way to make some key differences to your way of thinking and your life. I recommend it. – Sue Knight, author of NLP at Work

Petra Rankin is a living model for Fast Track Your Success and Happiness. She writes from firsthand experience so she knows what she’s talking about. Petra presents a wonderful collection of techniques and stories designed to help you experience more fulfilment in your life. – Mo Shapiro, Author of Shift Your Thinking, Change Your Life

Fast Track Your Success and Happiness is very positive. It is well written, easy to follow and introduces some new concepts in self belief and ways to change thought patterns and habits. – Lucille Orr, Author of How to Ask for What You Want and Get It!

Maybe you have experienced one of those perfect days, where everything just fell into place. You leapt out of bed in the morning and boldly took charge of your day, checking everything off your to-do list before lunch. You felt confident, happy and efficient and were able to concentrate fully on each task you accomplished.

The difference between a frustrating day and an accomplished day is merely the way you use your mind. When things are going well, it is easy to keep positive and then the rest of the day turns out well too.

It is how people use their moments, not months that makes them successful or otherwise. The ways in which we think, feel and act each day will ultimately affect our success and happiness in the future. Things can go wrong when we least expect them to, disappointments occur and major hurdles always need to be overcome. Not every person is successful, because not everyone has learned to keep in control of their minds through such bumpy terrain. We have to continually make the choice whether to react to what is going on around us, or to plot our own course.

While we cannot change the rest of the world, changing and improving the ways we react to different situations will get us past each obstacle faster and bring better results. Being in control of our minds rather than letting them control us can mean the difference between being rich or poor, healthy or unwell, having great relationships, or living alone. Successful people are proactive people – they make choices for their own lives and then take action on them. Unsuccessful people tend to be reactive – they wait until their situation forces them to take action.

In your own life, your beliefs, perceptions and behaviours will determine the results you can achieve. Whether conscious or not, your beliefs will tell you what you think you are capable of doing. If a goal passes the beliefs test, you will have to behave in a way that works. And equally importantly, you have to make an effort to perceive things positively, not fall to the trap of doom and gloom thinking if something goes wrong.

Hundreds of books give you instructions for becoming successful in your finances, career, health, relationships and anything else you consider important. This book has taken a different approach and is a compilation of different ways to keep you on track, feeling positive and motivated. That way you can become successful faster and with less resistance. The techniques have been selected from studies of neuro- linguistic programming (NLP), cognitive behavioural therapy, motivational psychology and other success guides.

Most successful people spend a little time every day practising some form of self-improvement. Just like realigning the wheels on your car, it means you don’t have to steer as hard to move in the right direction. If you only make one small improvement each day, you will start to see a compounding effect over time.

Some new behaviours and beliefs may take a long time to take effect because the old ones are so ingrained into your system. If you are seeking to overcome negative ways of thinking, for example, it is not possible to achieve that by applying a technique a few times and expecting miracles. You have to keep repeating the new behaviour you want. Habits have grown over years of accumulated behaviour. We are always learning new beliefs, perceptions and behaviours throughout the course of our lives – make sure they are the right ones!

How to use this book
While it is important to learn and read as much as possible, it can sometimes be difficult to hunt for a particular technique in a longer book. The 80/20 rule is just as applicable to information as it is in other areas of our lives – 80% of the value is found in 20% of the content. Many books end up collecting dust on the shelf after they have been read only once. Fast Track Your Success and Happiness has purposely been written concisely so that you can easily find and apply the strategies you want.

Use this book in any way that feels comfortable to you. It has been designed as an action guide. You can start anywhere and build the whole picture, or you can just read the sections that interest you. Alternatively, you might want to just open the book and read the page it lands on, or focus on just one or two techniques and repeat them for a week or two (or more). All you have to do is pick the strategies that feel right and take action on them.

If you want the results, you have to follow through and take action! If an idea strikes a chord with you, follow through while it is on your mind. It can be too easy to read an entire chapter of a book at once, fill your mind with new ideas, and then put none of them into practice. This happens when you become overloaded with too many new things to try and then you procrastinate on starting any them. You have then spent your time reading when you could have done something more productive.

Remember that repetition is the key to mastery in any area. Allocate some time every day for developing yourself if you want to be better in any area of your life. You will find that by repeatedly bringing your focus back to who you want to become, you will get there faster. Like exercising or following a healthy eating plan, you cannot just do it one time and then be fit and healthy for the rest of your life. Only with continual practice can you master anything worthwhile. It is more beneficial to apply and perfect a few strategies than it is to read large volumes of material and master none.

There is a significant overlap between different areas of our lives, and while we may think that our relationships or leisure time are completely separate from our career or our finances, a change that we make in one will affect the others for better or worse. Every action has a consequence, and that consequence may reach further than we had originally anticipated. If you foresee that a positive change in one area of your life will cause other areas of your life to suffer, you will have to weigh up what is most important. Every success has a price and only you can decide if you are willing to pay it.

An internal values check is where you consider a course of action and how you feel about the consequences it may have. When you think about what you want in your life, it is very important to listen to your intuition. If there is no harmony between your intuition and your actions, it may mean that you are acting on the wrong principles or that you are chasing the wrong goals.

In addition to your personal values check, it is a good idea to examine how your change will affect the significant people in your life. For you to enjoy your achievements, you may want to give consideration to how your loved ones will feel, so that your valuable relationships do not suffer as a consequence. On the other hand, there may be times when you feel compelled to make changes in your life regardless of what other people think. Even at these times, it is still important to consider how they might react so that you can prepare for them in advance.

Once you feel secure about a new decision, and you have weighed up what it will cost you in terms of time, resources and relationships, only then are you ready to go for the goal.

The internal values check
Before you embark on any significant change, run it past your values. Ask yourself:

• What might be the upside consequences of my actions?
• What might be the downside consequences of my actions?
• What extra will I have do to achieve my goal?
• How much will it cost in terms of time and resources?
• Is it worth the price?
• What do I like about my current situation?
• How can I keep the aspects of my life that I like while I make the change?

The relationships check
Make sure you consider how any changes will affect your loved ones. Ask yourself:

• How will this change affect my loved ones?
• Does it go against any of their values?
• How will they react?

Our beliefs are feelings of certainty about an idea. They determine how we feel and how we behave in a range of different situations. They are like a set of rules about how we choose to live. We have each become what we have believed ourselves to be. Whether we are rich or poor, successful or unsuccessful, fit or unfit, our beliefs make us that way. We are the result of our thinking. Our beliefs evolve throughout our lives. They form in response to our own experiences (the most deeply held beliefs may have been ingrained since early childhood) and others’ experiences. The people we associate with throughout our lives and information from reading, our education and the media strongly shape our beliefs.

Beliefs only become formed once we feel there is enough evidence to back them up. We can believe anything at all with enough evidence, and that ‘evidence’ can be entirely subjective. The evidence may come from our own views of our personal experiences, other people’s experiences, or even imagination. Whether the beliefs are accurate makes no difference. In fact, many studies have shown that people can be led to believe things about themselves and their past that never happened, such as being kidnapped as a child. It does not matter if our beliefs are true or if they are completely false, they will still hold true for us.

Our beliefs are essential for getting through the day, because they reduce the range of choices in our day-to-day decisions. After repeated experience with certain problems, we learn methods that work and others that don’t. When we are faced with the same problem, we use the method that works. For example, when driving you strongly believe that putting your foot on the brake will slow you down, and so you choose that approach rather than considering alternatives. Our beliefs allow us to quickly adapt to different circumstances and decide whether a particular choice will mean pain or pleasure. Once we believe in something, it becomes an automatic filter when we make decisions.

The strength of our beliefs depends on how certain they feel. Our beliefs become stronger if they result in feelings of emotion and/or they are reinforced often.

There are three different levels of belief: opinion belief and conviction. Opinions have the least amount of certainty and are easily changed. Beliefs are much stronger and may have emotional ties. Beliefs have to be acted on if they are to mean anything, and therefore are principles of action, not empty ideals. It takes some persistence to change our beliefs.

A conviction is a belief that is so emotionally tied that someone may feel threatened or angry if it is disputed. For example, a person who rallies against a political decision or attends a workers’ strike is acting with a strong sense of conviction. Trying to change a conviction is difficult because of the emotional intensity involved. On the other hand, having an empowering conviction is a source of strength and persistence.

‘Sometimes I have believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’ – Lewis Carroll

All advances in technology came about because of individuals with strong beliefs. For example, there was a time when most people did not believe that anything man-made could ever fly. When the Wright brothers succeeded with their first aircraft, people all over the world had to quickly adapt their belief system. Since then, aeroplanes have become much larger and faster than anyone might have imagined. This example shows that our beliefs don’t have to be backed up by events that have happened in the past. If we develop a consistent and impassioned focus on something, we can experience it.

For example, if you adopt a belief that you are shy and awkward around other people (which would be backed up by plenty of evidence because everyone has shy and awkward moments) you would then start to behave in a way that is consistent with that belief. Even if you wanted to act more confidently and make more friends, you would have difficulty if your belief that you are shy placed a cap on your confidence levels. If you have ever felt stuck in a rut it may be that you set your limits below your ability.

The problems with our beliefs mainly stem from inflexibility and lack of quality. There is no ‘quality control’ process when adopting beliefs; we usually just let them form. The evidence that supports a belief may even be based on a misinterpretation of a past event. Then, once the incorrect belief is formed, our resultant behaviour will simply add to the accumulating evidence and make that belief stronger. Unfortunately, long term beliefs, no matter how disempowering, are rarely challenged as they become an automatic way of thinking. In fact, our long-term beliefs are so ingrained into our personalities that we often don’t even know what they are.

A belief is irrational and disempowering if it goes against our natural desire for happiness and survival. We will experience barriers if our beliefs about ourselves, other people and the world in general are negative. An unquestioned belief acts like a filter over everything we experience. This filter is applied automatically and unconsciously every time we make decisions.

Global beliefs are usually phrased in terms of ‘he or she is…’, ‘I am…’ or ‘they are…’ They are powerful beliefs and if used to describe ourselves or others in a negative light, they can be very damaging. They are usually used as excuses as to why we have not achieved what we would like. Changing just one global belief can dramatically change your life.

Some examples of limiting global beliefs include:

• I’m too old to do that.
• I can’t get fit because I’m not athletic.
• I don’t have enough education.
• I’m never going to change.
• I always screw up.
• She is trying to make me angry.
• He is unfriendly.
• They are a bunch of crooks.
• They would never understand.

Other people’s negative global beliefs about us, especially if reinforced several times, can be even more damaging because we may consider the evidence to be more accurate if it comes from someone else. We are very susceptible to other people’s suggestions. Allowing someone to tell you who they think you are, if it is something you don’t want for yourself, will create mayhem amongst your beliefs.

When my friend Samantha ended a long-term relationship with her partner Tyson, she felt very insecure when taking to people in case she offended them. Throughout their relationship, Tyson often became angry with Samantha and criticised her, which made her doubt her own opinions of herself. With some help from her friends, however, Samantha started to see that she was not such a bad person after all. She worked on strengthening the positive beliefs she had about herself and was soon able to move on with her life and make a number of new friends.

‘Should’ beliefs describe the standards of behaviour that we expect from ourselves and others. The ‘should’ beliefs tend to focus on the fact that we are not meeting our own expectations. As our competence and confidence grow, so do our expectations. Many times the expectations are unreasonable and unnecessary. These beliefs often start out from other people’s expectations, such as our parents telling us that we should go to university to get a good job, or that we should settle down and get married in our twenties, for example. ‘Should’ beliefs create guilt and unhappiness.

Some examples of ‘should’ beliefs include:

• I should not make mistakes.
• I should be treated fairly.
• He should always be on time.
• She should get a better job.

Any disempowering beliefs that you hold about yourself will lower your self-esteem and personal success. If you believe that you cannot achieve a goal, it is very likely that you will not even attempt it. Even if you do attempt the goal, the results you expect (and get) will only ever be as good as your beliefs about yourself will allow. Someone who believes they are a lousy salesperson will not secure as many accounts as someone who thinks they are great at their job, even if they have the same amount of ability.

If you do not achieve a goal that you want, or you are dissatisfied with an area of your life, it is highly likely that there are disempowering beliefs holding you back. To experience success, your beliefs have to be kept as positive as possible, even if they do not seem realistic.

Successful people tend to place fewer limits on their abilities. They believe that if they are going to make an error about what they can and can’t do, it is better to overestimate
than to fail to achieve their potential. Optimistic people believe that they are in control of their lives. Rather than blaming other people when something goes wrong, an optimist will accept their part in the situation and resolve to learn something from the experience. They are more likely to attribute good results to their personal performance, and bad results to the situation. They also attribute other people’s poor results to situational factors, which means they are less likely to get angry with others or hold grudges.

The level to which we exaggerate our limiting beliefs will have a strong effect on our behaviour. A negative person will extend a belief in one area to their entire life, whereas a happy person will minimise the severity of the belief. Rather than feeling like a ‘complete failure’, an optimistic person may resolve to do better in that area of their life next time. Happy people believe a bad event will pass and that it is a one-off event, whereas unhappy people see their problems as permanent.

My close friend Lucy decided to open a floristry shop. She found a suitable business that was selling at the time and invested her life savings into purchasing it. Two weeks before the business was due to settle, the owner of the shop backed out and changed her mind. Lucy immediately went to her lawyer, but did not have enough money left to take the shop owner to court. She lost her entire savings.

Although devastated, and with no money left in the bank, Lucy had a belief that her problems would pass and that she would still open her shop. Within a few months, a lease became available down the road from the original shop. Lucy quickly snapped up the premises and started a shop from scratch on a shoestring budget. Now, one year later, her shop is a huge success and is close to putting the other shop out of business.

Here are three different activities that you can use to help you discover what you believe.

Analyse your emotions
Every time you feel a strong emotion ask yourself ‘What would I have to believe to feel … when … happens?’
For example, you may ask:

1. What would I have to believe to feel anxious about making cold sales calls?
2. What would I have to believe to feel rejected by my partner when he wants some time alone?

Listen to your chatterbox
Listen carefully to your internal chatterbox. Are you generalising about anything? Are you saying something to yourself that makes you feel sad, angry, jealous, excited or happy? Are you saying to yourself ‘I can/cannot achieve what I want because….’? If so, pay attention to what you are thinking so that you recognise your beliefs.

List the beliefs you want
List at least 10 things that you would really like to have in your life, not necessarily material. They could be a new house, a healthy heart, a successful business, a million dollars, a loving partner, or whatever it is that you want. Now ask yourself: ‘What would I have to believe to get these things?’ List as many beliefs you can think of. Divide the beliefs up into ‘I believe this already’ and ‘I would like to believe this’.

Once you have a list of beliefs that you would like to either change or strengthen, you can go on to apply one of the following techniques. You will find these strategies more successful if you focus on only a few beliefs at a time and repeatedly work on those beliefs, rather than trying to change all of your beliefs at once.

Affirmations are based on three ‘P’s’. They are positive, present tense and personal. These rules should be adhered to for the affirmations to work effectively. Firstly, affirmations must be positive – i.e. phrased in terms of what we do want rather than what we do not want. Our brains are unable to process phrases like ‘do not’ until after they have processed the other parts of the sentence. For example, do not imagine a bright red sports car. Whatever you do, do not think of that car! If you only choose affirmations that you want for yourself rather than thinking about what you don’t want, you will be training your mind to activate those areas in the future.

Make your affirmations personal by referring them back to yourself. A good way to do this is to start the sentence with ‘I am’ or ‘I choose’. The remainder of the affirmation should be simple so that it doesn’t clutter the mind with too much information at once. Only the bare essentials of your new belief are required.

Affirmations must always be stated in the present tense, even if you are not sure if you agree with the statement yet. If you affirm that something will happen in the future, you are simply reinforcing that you don’t believe it is happening now.

For evidence that affirmations work, think back to primary school when you were learning your multiplication tables. Chances are, your times tables were imprinted into your consciousness (can you quickly compute three times seven? five times nine?) because they were repeated, written out and practised until perfect. Now they are permanently stored in your mind and are automatically triggered whenever required. You don’t need to practise your multiplication tables again or refresh yourself to remember them. The same process is used when changing your beliefs.

Some examples of affirmations include:

• My life is filled with peace and love.
• Every day, in every way, I am becoming better.
• I have a successful and profitable business.
• I am loving and I am loved.
• I am a well-organised and efficient person.
• I am healthy, happy and beautiful.

How to make your affirmations work for you
To create your own affirmation, first decide which belief you want to change and phrase it in affirmation style.

1. Concentrate on your statement. Repeat it either mentally or out loud and whenever other thoughts or images creep into your consciousness, quickly bring your focus back to your statement. Give it your total attention and really feel the message. Try to generate as much emotion as you can, as emotion will help your future recall. If we say our affirmations out loud with conviction and enthusiasm, or if we share them with others, we receive an even greater benefit than if we just recite them mentally. Our minds always try to keep our actions in line with what we say.
2. Keep repeating the message over and over, allowing your mind to absorb it and really believe it. Try to hold your focus for as long as possible, depending on how much time you have available.
3. Spending five to ten minutes repeating your affirmation each day, or a few minutes at different times throughout the day, will soon make an impression on your mind and retrain yourself to think that way automatically.

I used to be a little sceptical about affirmations, but I decided to give them a go. After coming back from holiday a little heavier than when I set out, I affirmed ‘I am healthy, happy and beautiful’ and visualised myself as a healthier and happier person for five minutes at a time, six or seven times a day. I continued this affirmation for one week.

The effect was immediate. My usually sweet tooth vanished and I had no interest in unhealthy food. I was so cheery that week that I couldn’t have kept the smile off my face if I tried. Plus, I ended up spending more time than usual caring for my skin, hair and nails. By the end of the week I looked and felt a million dollars!

One of the most powerful affirmations you can say is ‘I like myself’. Stand in the mirror each morning, look directly at yourself and smile. Say ‘I like myself’ a number of times until the words penetrate and you feel confident and happy. This exercise will allow you to build self-esteem and improve your overall self-concept. The sillier you feel, the more it means you need to practise the affirmation.

How to turn a negative belief into an empowering conviction:

1. Pick a negative belief that you are committed to changing. Write down the opposite so that you now have a positive belief. For example, if you have a belief that smoking is attractive, you may want to write down that being healthy is attractive.
2. Look for evidence supporting your new belief. Do some research – read books and magazines, talk to people, look at pictures and visualise yourself living differently. The more evidence you can find to support the new belief, and the stronger the associated emotions, the stronger the conviction will be. This will do two things: first, give you the motivation you need to make the change; and secondly, replace some of the false evidence that you have built up around you in holding on to your old belief.
3. In order to turn a supportive belief into a conviction you have to do more than just gather evidence. Once you feel confident about your new belief, seek out and put yourself in an emotionally charged situation. The situation should represent what your future could become if you do not change. To continue the smoking example, you could visit a hospital ward for lung cancer patients. Alternatively, if you have beliefs that affect you financially you may consider volunteering at an organisation that provides food and shelter for the homeless. Try to experience what life might be like for you if you don’t make the change in your life.
4. To maintain and strengthen the new conviction you must adjust your daily behaviour to reflect that you are completely certain about this belief.