*One Very Long Post Alert* LOL

*But trust me, it’s gonna be worthy of your time*

Success and failure. One is desired and the other is feared. Irrespective of the nature of the final outcome, we all strive hard to reach that part. So… success. What is success? Is it money? is it studying in a foreign country? Is it owning a sports car? We all have different definitions of success. I’d say, it is a state of mind. You need to have the right state of mind to get success.

A plant needs sunlight and water to grow. Just so, you also need a proper environment in here (mind) to produce a result. Let it be success or failure, you need a proper environment to reach that final outcome alone whatsoever. A success journey begins in your mind so does failure. The world around us is drastically changing and every one of us has this dire need to continually put ourselves out there, to go out of the box, and achieve great things.

In order to do that, in order to achieve a particular outcome, you must make an effort, take some action towards it. That’s the first and the foremost. If you want to reach a destination, you must travel from here to there. That is the action required from you. Many people fail even before getting started without taking an action towards an opportunity they are presented with.

And throughout this journey, you know, dreaming of doing something to accomplishing it, one hurdle we see the most is our fears. Our own fears balk us from doing something we want and that can push us forward in life. Most of the times, it happens to be the fear of failure that stops us from taking effective action. In a way, you’ve become too comfortable in your circle and are reluctant to take a step outside your comfort zone. Now that’s a problem.

So… that’s our topic for today, how to take effective action in spite of any fear. I’ll only say one thing here. While there are different approaches to overcome fears, I’m gonna tell you something that helped me the most. Whatever you want to achieve, however you want your life to be, reprogram your belief system that way. Your beliefs must align with the life you want to live. This one technique really set me on the right path.

You are as strong as your belief system. Your beliefs must empower you. They must be useful for you. Suppose, one might believe they are not attractive, or in a much harsh way, they think they’re ugly. That doesn’t really empower them in any way, right? What’s reality doesn’t really matter. Whether they are actually not attractive or attractive isn’t important here. Reality is something that is perceived differently by different people. Someone that is attractive to me might not be attractive to someone else. We perceive the same thing in different ways depending on various factors. We have varied perspectives and opinions. I think we all can agree on that, right?

So what am I saying anyway??

Choose your perspective. Choose how you want to see yourself. Choose how strong you want to believe in yourself. Reality might be anything but how do you choose to see it? That’s what really matters. Someone believing they are ugly doesn’t get them anything, rather it causes you distress, anxiety, and sadness. Why do you want to hold on to a belief that’s causing so much pain? Don’t hold onto things that will put your mental health and beliefs at stake. Represent the things the way they can get you closer to success instead of taking you farther away from it.

Have you heard of NLP?

It’s Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It studies how human brains work. Some time back, I read a book by Antony Robbins and there I was introduced to NLP for the first time. I am not an expert at it but I have the interaction with a few techniques in it (even before knowing it) and I’m going to share exactly that now. Although, guilty that I couldn’t finish the book completely yet but I thought, sharing even some of it here would be totally worth it.

According to NLP experts, people who produced a successful result has a belief that they can achieve anything and on the other hand, those who failed, have a belief that they can’t. We have plenty of instances where people with much lesser resources achieved so much than the ones with more resources. What made the difference? Belief.

So, what you need to know here to create such a powerful belief system inside your mind is, modeling someone you admire. How? You replicate your model’s way of life, their beliefs, the way they talk and all. What I did is instead of replicating someone else, I modeled my own self however I want to be. The better version of myself. To achieve that, visualization and speech are two important techniques here that I followed.

First, thinking and visualizing. Change the way you think. Think only good thoughts. Only those that help you achieve what you want. Here, reframing is a technique that can help you. Pick a negative event or a feeling and reframe it and turn into something good. Visualize it. For example, as a child, you have been oppressed so much that you felt inferior all the time. That negative feeling can be erased if you reframe your memories. Take that event, and reframe it. Think that they did not mean to do that and you probably misunderstood them. Think of it in a positive light. Set your mind free. Don’t carry the baggage of the past.

And next, speech. It’s really necessary that you talk to yourself in a positive way. When you feel down, do not say anything that’s unnecessary. You know, like, all the negative talk we do to ourselves. That’s a no-no. And more importantly, watch your tone. When you raise your voice while talking to someone, they don’t like it, they feel hurt; Just like that, you are also supposed to be that considerate toward yourself. Why do fighters/boxers shout in the ring? Why do those who meditate talk in a calm, soothing voice while meditating? Because that’s what aligns with their activity and helps them in getting a successful outcome out of it. The way we communicate to ourselves decides our mindset and mood.

So… these are two important techniques that will help you reprogram your belief system. As I said, you can do either way you want, model someone else or model your own better version. But remember that you are always striving to make yourself a better person. Do only such things that align with this goal of yours.

And finally, have the courage to take just one step at a time forward

You have a situation right in front of you and you are left with two options, either to go forward or step back from it. The first step is always the most difficult. Here, you must influence yourself in an effective way. By influencing, I meant communicating with yourself. Everything I talked so far is an effective way to communicate with yourself, the way you think, the way you talk and even your body language. Go forward like you have no other option left. Take step by step.

And instead of focussing on your fears, shift your focus to devising a plan to achieve your goals. When you focus on your fear, it will seem bigger than it really is. So push your mind to focus on positive things rather than on fears and problems. I’m not saying you can achieve all this in the very first attempt, it needs consistency.

Remember, thinking alone will not overcome your fear, but it will inspire you to take effective action and that action will help overcome your fear.

Lots of LOVE,

Nikki.

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