People who are happy have optimistic beliefs that empower themselves and others. Optimists usually have a belief that the past does not equal the future, which allows them to keep persisting at an important goal even when they have failed in the past. A major turning point in our thinking comes when we change our language from whether we will achieve something, to how and when we will achieve it. Some people form a belief that they can never succeed, but successful people believe they only fail if they learn nothing from the experience.

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.

Before you can change your beliefs, you have to know what they are. Becoming aware of your beliefs requires you to draw them out from the unconscious and into the conscious part of your mind. I recommend that you jot them down as you think of them, so that you can dispute them more than once. Remember, you have to be persistent if you want to change a habit. Don’t just write down the negative ones that you want to change; if you practise the same methods with the positive beliefs that already empower you, you will be able to make them stronger.

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’.

If you have a number of beliefs that are limiting your quality of life, it is time to change them. If you change your beliefs in any area of your life, you begin immediately to improve your life in that area. By choosing empowering beliefs, you will live a longer, happier, more successful life.

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 positive, simple, present tense statements that we can use to replace negative internal chatter with empowering positive thoughts. They allow us to retrain our minds to think in the way we choose, and in doing so they transform our beliefs and attitudes.

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.

Sometimes we let bad habits drag on for too long because we haven’t got a strong enough drive to change them. A conviction is such a strong belief that it compels you to take action. It is beneficial to develop convictions from beliefs that really support you, because then you will be driven to make any necessary changes in your life.

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.