Why Your BELIEFS Have HUGE IMPACT

[The following is the full transcript of this episode of “The BE ULTIMATE Podcast.” Please note that this is direct from Travis speaking unscripted and unedited.]

Welcome to episode number 57 of the Be Ultimate Podcast. This is your host, Travis Eliot. And welcome back to another powerful episode.

This one is huge!

We are going to discuss why your beliefs have a huge impact. A huge impact on everything. It all goes back to your beliefs and your belief system.

Sadly, for a lot of us, the thing that’s holding us back more than anything else is our negative and limiting beliefs. We’re not able to fulfill our potential. We’re not able to gain traction to achieve our goals simply because of these beliefs.

A lot of these beliefs that are bundled up with our thoughts and our emotions, they exist in our subconscious. So we’re not even aware of it because it’s buried in there. It’s buried deep in our brain. In fact, 95% of who you are by the age of 35 is in the subconscious mind. And that’s true. Unless you have modalities and practices and strategies and tools within your life where you become “aware,” we all have that capacity. These tools have existed in the wisdom traditions for thousands of years, shining light and illuminating what is going on within our subconscious mind.

I’m going to go deep. I’m going to share a lot of research, a lot of science in this one.

So if you found yourself in your life just falling short of your goals, if you found that you’ve just struggled to achieve the things you want, whether that’s in your career, or your health, your personal development, your relationships, again, a lot of that is going to trace back to the source of it all. The source of it is your belief system.

As human beings, we are a desire machine. We desire for growth. In fact, we are meant to grow. The moment we stop growing is the moment that we start dying. So we may want or desire more things. Some of us, we want more money. But then we have that belief that we don’t deserve to have more money. Or maybe we heard from a parent or a family member that money is the root of all evil. So part of us desires to have more money, but then we have this belief system that says money is bad — and so that creates conflict  — and it’s that conflict that’s holding us back.

Another example is some of us, we want to be more fit. We want to lose weight. But we may have a belief that we don’t deserve to be beautiful or we don’t feel worth it. We don’t feel deserving of looking good or being beautiful. Or maybe we have a belief that it’s selfish to take time out of our day to go and exercise, to devote time to ourselves.

One of the worst limiting beliefs is “I can’t.”

“You have to give up ‘I can’t.’ The phrase ‘I can’t’ is the most powerful force of negation in the human psyche.”

-Paul Scheele

So when you have the I can’t in the back of your mind, but then there’s also a part of you that desires and wants more, again, the only thing you’re bumping up against is yourself.

You can’t blame somebody outside of you. You have to become aware that these obstacles and these hindrances are actually coming from within you.

“People become really quite remarkable when they start thinking that they can do things. When they believe in themselves, they have the first secret of success.”

-Dr. Norman Vincent Pale

So we have to change ‘I can’t’ into ‘I can.’

We have to change the phrase ‘impossible’ into ‘it’s possible.’ As I’ve said on other podcasts, the word impossible says, “I’m possible.”

Now one of the things that we often do that maybe we’re not aware of because we’ve been doing it so long is when we say that phrase, “I am.” We may say something like, “I am clumsy.” We knock something over and whoever is around and we say, “Oh my God. I am such a clumsy person.” And anytime we knock it over, or we fall, or we trip, we say that. Right? We reinforce that belief over and over until it becomes wired into our subconscious mind.

We may say, “I am really bad with names.” I know that I had that for a long time because teaching in public I would come into contact with a lot of people every day. And I would always say, “I’m really bad with names,” and that would just reinforce my ability to learn people’s names. So although it can be difficult to keep track of everybody’s names, I let that phrase go and I do my best to learn people’s names. And it may take time, but at least it’s not going to take nearly as long as it was when I had that limiting belief, “I am bad with names.”

Sometimes we have the limiting belief, “I am not a morning person.” Do you say that? Have you heard somebody else say that? And then what happens is, you wake up every morning and you’re groggy and you’re irritable and you’re cranky. You’ve wired this belief, “I’m not a morning person.”

Or we may have something like, “I’m not a math person or an English person or a science person or a yoga person or a spiritual person.”

We say these phrases “I am.” And it’s such a powerful phrase when we say, “I am.” It is a powerful declaration that we have to be very, very mindful and very, very careful of how we use that powerful vernacular.

There was a research study 2006 in Canada, and what they did was they went to– I believe it was a high school. And they went to a group of girls. They split the girls up into two different groups. One group of girls, they said, “Genetically, girls are not as good at math as boys are.” The second group, they didn’t say anything. They just let them take the test. After both groups took the test, the group of girls that were told they were genetically inferior to the group of boys, they scored way less on their math test than the group of girls that weren’t told anything.

So simply having that belief that you’re not good at something, it instills a program, it instills a thought inside the brain, and then you believe it. And then the belief carries through your actions and through your reality and into the end result of things.

The biggest barrier to positive change in your life are your negative beliefs.

So what are your beliefs? What is your belief system?

I know for myself when I started teaching yoga about 15, 16 years ago, I loved teaching yoga. And I started to study the psychology and also started to study the yoga philosophy that addressed the power of the mind. As I started to do this work, it revealed I had this real limiting belief which was, “I am not good enough.” And so that affected the way I was teaching in my yoga classes. Again, there was a conflict. There was a part of me that loved to teach yoga. But there was also the mental frequency saying, “You’re not good enough. You’re not worthy of this. You’re not capable of greatness and success and doing big things in the world.”

This held me back. It was putting a lid on what was possible. It was putting me into a straitjacket of fulfilling my potential. Of course, as I began to do this work and as I began to shift that belief it changed the thoughts, the emotions, the speech, the actions, and that had a huge impact within my external reality, all from making the switch.

Part of the fear of owning our greatness, is we’re going to be judged and criticized. But remember, they never make statues of critics.

They never glorify the people that sit around and judge the people that are doing great things. History celebrates those that have triumphed against all odds and acted boldly and therefore manifested greatness and great things.

Nobody’s opinion about yourself should matter more than yours.

What you think of yourself matters most!

It doesn’t matter what anybody else thinks. So the last thing that we want to do is to worry about what other people are going to think about us.

Now this ties into, also, this theme of perception and our belief system that color the way we perceive the world.

A Mayo Clinic study in 2002 looked at 447 people for more than 30 years. They studied optimists versus pessimists. What they found was the people who were optimistic experienced less pain, had more energy, were better socially, were happier, calmer, and more peaceful, simply because of their perception of the world.

Another study of optimists versus pessimists, done by Yale, studied 660 people who were 50 years and older. They researched this group for about 23 years. What they found is the optimists lived an average of 7 years longer than the pessimists.

The way that we perceive the world, our belief system actually has an impact on our longevity.

Now another powerful way we see the power of beliefs in effect is when we look at the placebo effect. The placebo effect is when they give a patient a pill. The patient thinks the pill is medicine, but it’s just a sugar pill. So they give the patient the pill. And even though there’s no medicine in it, the person taking the sugar pill, they get better. They feel better.

This has happened for myself where I’ve had an issue or I’ve been sick and I’ve gone to the doctor. Almost immediately, just going into the doctor’s office, I start to start to feel better because I trust and I believe that this person that I’m going to, has the skillset to help me feel better.

A powerful study that looked at the placebo effect was a research study done in 1998. This was a meta-analysis of various published studies of antidepressants. This was executed by PhD psychologist Irving Kirsch. He looked at 19 randomized double-blind clinical trials involving about 2,300 patients. Most of their improvements were due to the placebo effect and not the antidepressant drugs.

I believe the placebo effect began in a war when they ran out of anesthesia. The patient thought they were receiving anesthesia and they performed major surgery on a soldier’s leg and he barely felt it. The mind is so powerful it thinks it’s receiving anesthesia, but it’s not receiving anything at all.

This was the birth of the mind-body connection or what’s known as psychoneuroimmunology. This is where they study the thoughts and the emotions and the beliefs and how they impact the immune system.

Now sometimes, installing a new belief can have a radical effect in our life.

A 2007 study done by Harvard psychologists Alia Crum and Ellen Langer involved 84 hotel maids. They went to these maids that worked in the hospitality industry. One group were informed that what they were doing at work was actually a form of exercise that met the standards of what’s considered to be exercise. They gave the maids exact information on how many calories they were burning. They gave them information on why what they were doing was exercise. The other group of maids were told nothing. After a month had passed, they went back and tested biomarkers within the 84 maids. What they found was the group of maids that were told they were exercising lost an average of two pounds, lowered their body fat and their blood pressure dropped about 10 points. All because they were instilled with the knowledge that they were exercising!

What we are conditioned to believe about ourselves affects our success and our performance.

“The thing always happens that you really believe in, and the belief in a thing makes it happen.”

-Frank Lloyd Wright

So it turns out, the things that you make happen are up to you. You’re in control. It’s totally up to you. What do you want to make happen? What things do you want to create in your life?

Roger Bannister, in 1954, did something that was said to be impossible. Skeptics, critics, the judgers of the world, they said he could not do what he wanted to do. And of course, what he wanted to do, he wanted to break the four-minute mile. But they all said it couldn’t be done. But he didn’t buy into that limiting belief. And on May 6, 1954, he broke the four-minute mile. Now get this, the four-minute mile had never been broken despite hundreds, maybe thousands of people trying to do it. But right after he broke it, 46 days later, an Australian named John Landy, he broke Bannister’s record. One year later and in a single race, three other runners broke the four-minute mile. Since then, thousands of other runners have broken the 4 minute mile barrier.

So when you transcend limiting beliefs, you create a blueprint in the realm of potentiality. You’re a trailblazer and you’re creating a path where you’re showing people what is possible. But if you buy into the limiting beliefs of society and culture and the messages of what other people are telling you, then you’re never going to have that possibility. Of course, what’s possible is to create new paradigms of growth, greatness, and success in the world.

Now that we know the power of beliefs, let’s finish the episode by discussing how can you put this knowledge into action. I’ve broken this down into eight steps. Eight practical takeaways you can do.

Number One.

Become aware of your beliefs.

If you’re not aware of it, if you don’t know what’s happening in your subconscious; if you’re saying those “I am” phrases, and you’re unconsciously limiting yourself over and over, then you’re never going to have a fighting chance. So first, you have to become aware. There has to be an awareness that’s monitoring and watching and observing the thoughts moving through the mind, how your emotions are coming and going, the words you’re saying, and how you’re behaving. We need a bird’s eye view perspective. You may not catch everything, you may not be 100% on point all the time, but even if you’re 50%, that’s a 50% improvement from where you were before. So become aware.

Number Two. You want to choose which programs you’re going to replace.

As you become aware of what your limiting belief is, what your limiting program is, you’re going to say, “I’m going to replace this. I’m no longer going to hold myself back anymore because of these limiting beliefs.”

Number Three. You want to make sure that you catch yourself anytime you say that I am phrase.

So the: “I am not a morning person.” “I am not good at math.” “I am an introvert.” Whatever it is, you want to be really good at catching yourself. So being aware of that as well that the words that you speak, the words that come out of your mouth have a big impact on what’s happening in your life. And I recommend you ask a friend. You ask somebody in your life you can trust to hold you accountable, because we all have these blind spots. This is why it can be good to have a coach or a mentor, somebody that can help shine a light on those blind spots. You want to make sure you’re asking somebody who isn’t going to judge and criticize you. You want somebody who’s going to tell you the truth, but they’re going to do it in a loving, compassionate kind of way.

Number Four. You want to remember you are empowered to choose what you strengthen and what you weaken.

This is the big difference between us and the rest of the animal kingdom – right? – is the power of choice. You have choice. Your choice exists in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. This is like the CEO of your brain or the conductor of the brain communicating to the rest of the brain what’s going to go down. You want to activate the prefrontal cortex and always make choices in alignment with who you want to be, where you want to go, what you want to become.

Number Five. Switch external validation for internal validation to increase your success and fulfillment.

Remember the only person’s opinion that matters about yourself is you. That’s what matters. It’s about what you feel within and validating yourself from within. So you’re not giving your power up to these external sources and these external messages. If you’re not clear on your own internal validation system, then you’re going to fall into the trap of giving your power up to these forces outside of you. That’s never a good path. Never a good road. You want to be the writer of the script. You want to be the director of your life story.

Number Six. Take a little bit of time every day to journal what would the highest version of you believe about yourself.

Reflect upon what those beliefs would be from the highest version of yourself. Write how would this person be thinking. What thoughts would be moving through a person’s mind like that? A person that wasn’t getting in the way of themselves, that wasn’t creating their own obstacles, what would they be thinking? Also what would they be speaking? What words would they be saying? What would they be saying about themselves? What would they be saying about other people? They wouldn’t be judging other people. They wouldn’t be talking negative about other people. And then how would they be acting? What would their behavior be like? How would they move through life? How would they walk? What would their behavior be like? How would they carry themselves? It would be with a quality of nobility and majesty and magnanimity. So journal about that and ruminate that. Reflect upon that.

Number seven. In the morning, mentally rehearse moving through your day as the highest version of yourself.

It may be just five minutes. So five minutes of journaling and then five minutes of mentally rehearsing how you’re going to go through your day. Again, what are you thinking? What are you saying? How are you acting based off of your empowered beliefs instead of those negative or limiting beliefs?

“Experimental and clinical psychologists have proved beyond a shadow of doubt that the human nervous system cannot tell the difference between an actual experience and an experience imagined vividly and in detail.”

– Maxwell Maltz

Number Eight. Reinforce your empowering beliefs through the tool of affirmation supported by elevated emotions.

Temember we talked about the “I am” phrase and we talked about how it can limit us. “I am not a morning person.” “I can’t do this.” “I’m not capable.” “I don’t deserve this.” “I’m not worthy.” Instead of having a negative “I am,” you’re going to have your positive “I am.” You’re going to affirm what it is you want. A phrase that I often use throughout my days. “I am healthy. I am wealthy. I am full of love.” These are three things that I want to affirm. I want to affirm health. I want to affirm abundance. And I want to affirm love. I affirm these when I’m in the car. I’m saying it. And I’m saying it with an elevated emotion. Sometimes I’ll even sing it, turn it to a song, and I’ll start to feel that emotion of vitality. I’ll feel that emotion of power of abundance. I’ll feel the emotion of love. It’s very important you affirm with elevated emotions. And be consistent. If you only do this stuff every now and then, it’s not going to be that powerful. You have to be consistent. It’s like taking an herbal supplement. If you take it once a week, it’s not really going to have an effect. But if you’re taking it on a daily basis, even just a little bit, five minutes here, five minutes there, every day doing this, being consistent, those small adjustments are going to have a significant impact over time.

“Wisdom is measured in routine.”

-Benjamin Franklin

Create these routines. Automate greatness. Neurons that fire together, wire together. And when you repeat things, it wires in the brain. It enriches the brain. So you got to do this stuff over and over and over again.

All right, you guys. Hope you enjoyed this podcast on why your beliefs have a huge impact.

Let’s finish now with the ultimate prayer.

“May we bring strength where there is weakness.

May we bring courage where there is fear.

May we bring compassion where there is suffering.

And may we bring light where there is darkness.

May we be ultimate!”