“Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.”

The Miracle Morning, by Hal Elrod, is all about waking up early to supercharge your performance throughout the day.

In The Miracle Morning, Hal discusses how the average person does not devote the necessary time to personal development. By waking up early and carving out time to work on themselves, people can become the best versions of themselves.

If you aren’t a morning person, Hal gives a strategy for increasing your “Wake up Motivation Level”. His strategy includes setting intentions before bed (last thought in the night = first thought in the morning), moving your alarm clock across the room, brushing your teeth, drinking a full glass of water, and getting dressed in your workout clothes.

S.A.V.E.R.S.

Once you are awake, Hal’s morning program is called S.A.V.E.R.S. and stands for:

• S = Silence (Mediation / Prayer / Reflection)
• A = Affirmations.
• V = Visualization.
• E = Exercise.
• R = Reading.
• S = Scribing (Journaling / Writing)

Hal suggests spending time in each of these 6 areas. Depending on the morning, you can spend as little as 6 minutes on all 6 sections or take as long as you want to complete all 6.

For me, I spend about 10 minutes on the first 3, 10 minutes on exercise (some body weight exercises and stretching), 30 minutes on reading (Goal of reading 75 books for 2017), and 10 minutes on Scribing. The importance of the completing each of these tasks is outlined in the book. I hope to focus more on Silence and Visualization in the coming months.

“Our outer world is a reflection of our inner world.” If we are at peace with our inner being, we will be at peace with the world around us.”

Before reading The Miracle Morning, I was waking up around 7:30 AM, getting to work at 8:30 AM, and while I was performing well, I wasn’t achieving greatness. After a month of the S.A.V.E.R.S. program, I’m waking up at 6:30 AM, getting some personal development time in, and getting to work at 8:30 AM. I’ve noticed my mind is sharper and I’m able to focus with a greater intensity than before.

Remarkable Quotes and Passages from The Miracle Morning

Some memorable quotes and passages from The Miracle Morning:

• Find time for personal development each day.
• Your level  of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.
• Every time you choose the easy thing, instead of the right thing, you are shaping your identity, becoming the type of person who does what’s easy, rather than what’s right.
• Now matters more than any other time in your life, because it’s what you are doing today that is determining who you’re becoming, and who you’re becoming will always determine the quality and direction of your life.
• The moment you accept total responsibility for everything in your life is the moment you claim the power to change anything in your life.
• If you don’t control your habits, your habits will control you.
• Don’t wait to be great.
• If you want your life to improve, you have to improve it yourself.

Our Recommendation for The Miracle Morning

I recommend The Miracle Morning to anyone looking to supercharge their performance and improve their life. Like I mentioned above, The Miracle Morning is a quick read, has many motivational quotes and passages, and gets you fired up to improve your life!

Readers: are you a morning person? What is your strategy for personal development?

Yesterday morning, I sat down with The Alchemist and 6 hours later finished it. Wow, what a book. I’ve read a fair number of books in the past few years, but none of them have kept me on the edge of my seat like The Alchemist.

The Alchemist is a story about a boy who is searching for his “Personal Legend”.  Essentially, a person’s “Personal Legend” is that person’s purpose, destiny, calling, etc.  The boy realizes he is being called by the world to go find his “Personal Legend”. The Alchemist tells the tale of the boy’s journey.

If you’re a fan of this timeless story, you might be interested in discovering books like The Alchemist. These books explore similar themes of self-discovery, destiny, and the pursuit of one’s dreams. Whether you’re looking for another spiritual journey or a tale that inspires deep reflection, these books are sure to resonate with you.

Summary of The Alchemist

In the beginning of The Alchemist, the boy has a dream about treasure and he goes to see a gypsy about it. The gypsy tells the boy the treasure is by the Pyramids of Egypt. After his meeting with the gypsy, in which is didn’t like, he meets a peculiar character who introduces himself as the King of Salem. The King know all about the boy’s past and present, and tells him he should go searching for the treasure. The King speaks of each person’s Personal Legend and that by going to search for the treasure, the boy can realize his Personal Legend.

In addition to speaking of each person’s Personal Legend, the King talks about language of omens. “Everything in life is an omen. There is a universal language , understood by everybody, but already forgotten.” Omens are signs of the world and if interpreted and watched for, can enable humans interact and communicate with the world and non-human beings. Omens are very important for people trying to realize their Personal Legend.

Initially, the boy is a little bit hesitant, but then he then sets off on an epic journey that spans from Spain to Egypt. Along the way, he is confronted with different challenges and has to overcome them. He has to deal with thieves, to learn about being a crystal merchant, learn the ways of the desert, and speak the language of the world. At the end, he finds his treasure, but only because he followed through in trying to find his Personal Legend.

Remarkable Quotes and Passages from The Alchemist

Here are some quotes and passages which had an impact on me:

• “It’s this: that at a certain point in our lives, we lose control of what’s happening to us, and our lives become controlled by fate. That’s the world’s greatest lie.”
• “When you want something, all the universe conspires to help you achieve it.”
• “… people need not fear the unknown if they are capable of achieving what they need and want. We are afraid of losing what we have, whether it’s our life or our possessions and property. But this fear evaporates when we understand that our life stories and the history of the world were written by the same hand.”
• “That’s the principle that governs all things. In alchemy, it’s called the Soul of the World. When you want something with all your heart, that’s when you are closet to the Soul of the World. It’s always a positive force. Everything on earth is being continuously transformed, because the earth is alive and has a soul. We are part of that soul, so we rarely recognize it working for us.”
• “Courage is the quality most essential to understand the Language of the World.”
• “Listen to your heart. It knows all things, because it came from the Soul of the World, and one day it will return there.”
• “Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams,, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
• “What you need to know is this: before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World test everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward the dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, on ‘dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon’.”
• “Your eyes show the strength of your soul.”
• “Love is a force that transforms and improves the Soul of the World. When I first reach through to it, I thought the Soul of the World was perfect. But later, I could see that it was like other aspects of creation, and had its own passions and wars. It is we who nourish the Soul of the World, and the world we live in will be either better or worse, depending on whether we become better or worse. And that’s where the power of love comes in. Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are.”
• “No matter what he does, every person on earth plays a central role in the history of the world. And normally he doesn’t know it.”

My Recommendation

The Alchemist is a must read. The takeaways for me include living in the moment, never getting too high or too low, and realizing all things happen for a reason.

Have you read The Alchemist? What did you think?

At work today, one of the higher up employees in the mortgage group was retiring. This could be in response to the mortgage business struggling to grow and continue their success, or it could be in response to his old age and wanting to be done with work. Either way, it got me thinking: will student loans be the catalyst to the next recession? How important is the student loans crisis?

Specifically, I want to think about this in terms of mortgages and buying houses. When the economy is going strong, houses are being built and bought, and families are being started. With student debt racking up, many people will have to put off buying a house or buy a less attractive house. To let everyone know, I don’t want to strike fear in anyone’s mind, or try to be a predictor of the future. What I hope to do is cultivate thought by running some numbers.

Let’s get some stats before we go into the numbers:

• The average American is graduating college with a student debt of $28,950.
• The average American makes $45,478 after graduating college.
• Mortgage companies are comfortable lending out loans as long as people stay under 36% debt to pre-tax income.
• I am going to use this House Affordability Calculator to illustrate my examples.

Let’s start by assuming a few things. Let’s assume that mortgage rates for a 30 year mortgage stay at about 4.5% for the next few years, student loan interest rates are about 7%, and wages grow at roughly 3% each year. Also, we require at least 5% down payment. We will also assume no prepayments of student loans.

First we need to calculate student loan payments. Most student loan payment plans are over a 10 year period. The estimated payment for a 10 year repayment plan is $349.49 a month. Next with a salary of $45,478, we have $3789.83 in pre-tax income per month. In addition, we are assuming no auto loans, no credit card debt, and no other debts (which most people have a least 1 or more of these).

So, our average American is already sitting at a 9% debt to income ratio the first year out of college. Let’s plug some of these figures into the House Affordability Calculator. Below are the results:

This analysis is slightly concerning to me. In Minnesota, a nice 3 bedroom/2 bathroom house in a nice area goes for at least 250k. For the average single person to afford a $250k house, you would need to save up a 20% down payment of $50k in cash and have an income of $55k. This wouldn’t happen until at least year 8, or when the average single person is 30. However, with the national personal savings rate hovering around 5-6%, good luck to the average single person getting to $50k in cash in 8 years!

What this analysis shows me, is that owning rental property will be important in the future as more people are forced into renting (lenders may not want to give loans to younger people due to higher debt-to-income ratios). However, you never know, a correction may happen, rates drop, housing prices drop, and many people could start buying houses!

A few questions I’m pondering on after doing this analysis:

• Will smaller lenders loosen their lending policies to keep mortgage origination going even if the prospective borrowers are less than optimal?
• Will property prices start to come down slightly as more people go to renting?
• Will the economy start to perform well due to new policies put into place by the newly elected politicians, pushing houses higher as people have higher wage growth?

There is a lot that can possibly happen. I guess we will have to wait and see.

What do you think about this analysis and topic? Will student loans weigh on the economy significantly? Will the benefits of student loans outweigh the negatives? Let me know what you think in the comments; I would love to know what you are thinking.

Erik

What is growth? What is learning? How can we become more intelligent in life to know more, be more and do more? Being smarter, being more intelligent, and knowing more can help us reach out goals and dreams faster. How can we do this? In this post, you will learn 15 ways to become more intelligent in life.

What if you could easily solve any problem you encountered? How would it feel to know more, and be able to navigate difficult situations with ease? What would you do if you were smarter and more intelligent?

Becoming smarter and more intelligent in life has many benefits.

Whether you are trying to reach a specific goal, or just looking to become more well rounded in life, becoming more intelligent will help you on your journey to success.

Being able to comprehend complex ideas, understanding how things work, having the ability to show empathy, and having a good vocabulary are all parts of being smarter and having a higher level of intelligence.

All of this is great, but, how do we become more intelligent? What is intelligence? Why does being smart matter?

In this post, we will talk about what intelligence is, why being smart is important, and you’ll learn 15 ways to become more intelligent in your life to improve your chances of becoming successful.

What is Intelligence and Why is Being Smart Important?

First, let’s talk about what intelligence is, and why being smart is important.

Intelligence can be defined many different ways.

To me, intelligence is the ability to learn, the ability to understand, the ability to problem solve, and the ability to grow.

There are many types of intelligence, and some common ones could be described as practical intelligence, creative intelligence, emotional intelligence, and analytical intelligence.

Practical intelligence is “street smarts” or “common sense”, creative intelligence is “abstract thinking”, emotional intelligence is “handling the emotions of yourself and others”, and analytical intelligence is “book smarts”.

Why is being smart important?

This might be obvious, but being smart and being intelligent:

• can open many doors in life
• is attractive to potential partners
• is attractive to potential employers
• unlock new skills and abilities in your day to day activities
• can help you reach your goals

With this in mind, let’s now move on to the 15 ways you can become more intelligent in your life.

“Your level of success is rarely exceeded by your level of personal development, because success is something you attract by the person you become.” – Hal Elrod

 

15 Ways to Become More Intelligent in Life

Do you want to become smarter? How can you become more intelligent in life?

Growing, improving, and learning are all pieces of becoming more intelligent.

However, there is also a mindset shift that must happen if you want to become smarter.

Through this mindset shift, you will start to change as a person, change your daily habits, and grow – not only your brain, but also as a person in many ways.

Becoming smarter will help you unlock new avenues and opportunities in life, and bring success as you get to your full potential.

Below are 15 ways to become more intelligent in life. If you want, you can click on a link below to go directly to the section with that step, or you can scroll down to read them in order.

1. Stand on the Shoulders of Giants
2. Redefine Learning
3. Become Curious in Everyday Life and Ask Questions
4. Get Enough Sleep and Rest Every Night
5. Spend Time Exploring a New Place
6. Conduct Experiments and Get Outside Your Comfort Zone
7. Do Something Creative Each Day
8. Exercise
9. Eat Healthy Foods to Give Your Brain the Necessary Energy it Needs
10. Surround Yourself with Books from Different Eras and With Different Topics
11. Do What You like and Try to Get Better at it
12. Learn a New Language and Learn in that Language
13. Live Intentionally and Take Responsibility for Your Life
14. Teach Others How to Do Something
15. Make Learning a Part of Your Every Day Life

Let’s dive into the details of each of these steps to become smarter below.

1. Stand on the Shoulders of Giants

“If I have seen further than others, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.” – Isaac Newton

First and foremost, if you want to become smarter, it’s important to recognize those who have came before us who have achieved great successes.

The quote above from Isaac Newton refers to the fact that when we are just growing up and becoming more knowledgeable, we are like dwarfs – we aren’t very tall and we cannot see very far. This is similar to when we are kids – we don’t know much and have much to learn.

However, if you stand on the shoulder of a giant, you can see for miles. If we read from those who were successful, we can gain insight into how we can become more successful in our lives.

If you want to become smarter, read about some of the amazing people of our past and present, and you can gain a piece of their experience for yourself.

For example, a few years ago, I read about Jeff Bezos and some of the story of Amazon. 20 years of events, information, and thoughts were condensed into a book which I read in just a few weeks.

Before, I didn’t know anything about the inner workings of Amazon and how Jeff Bezos thought on a short and long term basis.

However, after, I now understood more about their business and what it means to become one of the biggest and most influential companies in the world.

For you, if you want to become smarter, it’s time to read and learn from the giants of the past.

2. Redefine Learning

“I keep challenging myself. I see life almost like one long university education that I never had – every day I’m learning something new. – Richard Branson

What is learning? Is it something you do at school? Is it something that stops after college? Is learning something that needs a textbook, or is it anything that stimulates our brains?

To me, learning is something anyone can do. Learning does not require a book, and certainly continues after school.

The most successful people in the world are continuously learning – they are constantly reading, coming up with new ideas, talking with other successful people, and growing.

To become smarter, you need to redefine learning.

First, learning is not something that need a teacher for and you definitely do not need a book to learn. Learning can happen anywhere and at any time!

Second, learning is a process that will bring both successes and failures. Learning is not a linear path to becoming an expert.

Rather, learning is the process of going from not knowing a lot to becoming knowledgeable and proficient in a certain area. Learning takes time, but, through experimentation, you can become more intelligent in a subject.

 

3. Become Curious in Everyday Life and Ask Questions

One of the first steps to becoming smarter is to realize that their are gaps in your knowledge and improving your understanding of various things will be beneficial for you in the future.

Being closed minded and living in an echo chamber is not helpful for achieving your goals.

It’s okay to say “I don’t know” and look to answer the questions you have.

Having a growth mindset and looking to learn a little bit each day is critical if you want to become more intelligent.

You cannot know more if you don’t poke around curiously for the answer.

Realize that in each interaction you have, you can learn something or pick up a new tip. If you stay doing the same thing everyday, that’s all you are going to get.

If you change things up, you can start to make improvements and correct the mistakes you’ve made in the past.

Even if these questions are just clarifying a situation, they can make all the difference in your understanding and lead to becoming more intelligent as you now know of more of the full picture.

4. Get Enough Sleep and Rest Every Night

Getting enough sleep and rest each day is a key part of growth and learning.

Just like your muscles, you need to allow your brain a rest and time to grow.

There have been many studies looking at learning, memory and the quantity and quality of sleep a person receives.

When we get enough sleep, we are able to perform at a higher level, but if we are sleep deprived, we are more forgetful and do not perform at our best.

When trying to learn, it’s important to get enough sleep – whether this is 6 hours, 8 hours, or 10 hours is up to you to figure out.

The point here is that your brain is just like your muscles. You need to mix it up and give it a rest to see optimal gains.

5. Spend Time Exploring a New Place

When you were a kid, did you ever go to a new place and have the best time of your life? Exploring, making new connections, and discovering this new place were some of the best times and always very fun.

As an adult, I’ve done this as well from time to time in my own city and state, and think it’s still as exciting and stimulating as when I did it as a kid.

Going to a new place and just walking around, exploring, and leaving all expectations at the door can be freeing. Doing this can allow your brain to make new connections and exercise in different ways.

I’ve also experienced this by going to new stores or restaurants in different areas of the city I live in. For example, just going for a coffee at a different coffee shop (pre-COVID) and sitting there watching those around you interact can be something different and new.

The point of learning is to give you brain new stimuli and to allow it to grow over time.

With exploration and experimentation, you can will challenge your brain to grow.

 

6. Conduct Experiments and Get Outside Your Comfort Zone

Here’s something to internalize: the only way you are going to grow is by getting outside your comfort zone.

Testing your assumptions, making mistakes, and correcting your errors will lead to more successes over time.

However, without those experiments, you will not have learned what to do in situations that require change and adjustment, and for this, you will be lacking intelligence in that area.

What do I mean by conducting experiments?

Conducting experiments could be as easy as reading a book about communication and testing some of the greetings in the book on people in real life to see their reaction.

Maybe you read about a new way to say “what’s up” (this is a dumb example, but it’s still an experiment!)

You say this new way to say “what’s up” and the person talking to you lights up with excitement and proceeds to tell you about their life.

This would be positive feedback to your experiment and if you want to continue to see success, you can keep using this phrase.

Again, this is just an example. However, for you, you should figure out which areas of life you want to improve in, start experimenting and learning, and over time, you’ll become more intelligent in those areas.

7. Do Something Creative Every Day

Becoming smarter involves activating different parts of your brain. As mentioned above, intelligence comes in different flavors, and creative intelligence is one of those different flavors.

Doing something creative each day will help you become smarter and more intelligent.

Whether that’s:

• making music
• writing in a journal
• designing a website
• painting a picture
• doing photography
• cooking a meal
• sewing a new piece of clothing

all that matters is you are activating and exercising the creative part of your brain.

8. Exercise

Just like diet, exercise is another important piece to becoming smarter.

For me, I try to do a little bit each day. I enjoy doing bodyweight exercises, biking, walking, rock climbing, and playing basketball with friends.

I don’t have a gym pass, and don’t subscribe to the thought that you need to be a meat head to be getting the full benefits of exercise.

Instead, doing a little bit each day, 30-60 minutes of activity will be good for your health and wellness.

Getting your blood pumping will help with brain activity – and through this, you’ll allow your brain the necessary stimulation to help you with your learning goals.

9. Eat Healthy Foods to Give Your Brain the Necessary Energy it Needs

Have you ever heard of the saying, you are what you eat?

Putting garbage into your body will result in having a garbage physique and mental state.

If you want to become smarter, giving your brain and body the proper nutrients and energy it needs to very important.

Getting your diet right is a piece of learning because food is what fuels you to take action on your goals and to continue to improve in life.

Everyone will be different in what kind of food they can eat, but getting your diet right involves eating healthy foods and drinking a lot of water.

For me, eating healthy means eating a high fat, high protein diet with a lot of fruits and vegetables mixed in.

Also, for my health, I’ve experimented with fasting and do intermittent fasting, and also I’ve had to figure out if there was any additional supplementation that I needed to obtain the proper mix of vitamins and minerals.

Eating right will help you get to your peak performance in learning and action, which will in turn help you become smarter and more successful.

10. Surround Yourself with Books from Different Eras and With Different Topics

Would you rather be an expert in one subject, or a jack of all trades?

Some of the smartest people in the world are so smart because they can pull from their experiences in a wide range of situations and apply a different solution to the current problem.

Reading both fiction books and non-fiction books with different topics will expose you to different ideas and help you become more intelligent.

I’ve found that some of the best life messages came from books where I didn’t think I’d get much value out of it before reading the book.

With this, it’s important to not live in an echo chamber and read about things outside your usual area of expertise to fill in your gaps of knowledge.

11. Do What You Like and Try to Become Better at it

I have a question: would you rather spend time doing things you like, or do things you don’t like?

The answer is clearly that you would rather do things that you enjoy doing…

Becoming smarter can be done if you approach the things you like doing with the thought of “how can I get better at this?”

For example, I love playing golf. Over the past few months, I’ve been researching how I can hit the ball straighter wen I want to hit it straight, or how I can add spin if I want the ball to curve.

This has taken a lot of practice and time to learn how my body can affect the swing of the golf club, but over time, I’ve become more self-aware of my hands, arms and body when I swing, and I’ve improved.

While I’m still improving, I’ve become smarter in golf and now I’m better than I was before.

What do you enjoy doing?

If you love cooking, how can you make your food taste better? If you love running, how can you get faster, or run more without causing injury?

Through answering these questions, you’ll become smarter in what you are doing, and become more intelligent.

12. Learn a New Language and Learn in that Language

It has been proven that bilingual people are smarter, and through learning a second language, you will challenge yourself to use your brain in different ways.

However, if you learn a new language, and then learn in that language, you will be stimulating your brain in two different ways at the same time!

Over the past year, I’ve learned how to communicate in Spanish. After 2 years of high school Spanish 10 years ago, I didn’t have much of a base of knowledge, but through dedication, studying and practice, I’m now able to discuss many topics in Spanish comfortably. I’m not perfect, but my Spanish is very good for a non-native speaker.

It has been a lot of work, but now, I watch videos on YouTube in Spanish to further practice, but also to learn more about different subjects.

For you, even obtaining a level of A2 or B1 on the CEFR scale can be achieved in less than a year, and after this, you will continue to grow and build upon your successes.

13. Live Intentionally and Take Responsibility of Your Life

Taking responsibility for your life is one of the fastest ways to become smarter.

If you don’t know something, who’s fault is it?

If you think it is your fault that you don’t know something, then that is the first step to knowing it.

Once you make the decision that you are going to learn a subject, and you start learning, you are on the way to becoming smarter.

Living intentionally is better than living unintentionally, and once you make the decision to live intentionally, your life will change for the better.

14. Teach Others How to Do Something

It is said that true proficiency in a topic is when you can teach someone else how to do something.

When you are able to teach someone something, you are showing you have the knowledge and skills to back up that teaching.

Think for example of a time when you taught someone something… were you able to make sense of the problem or situation at hand, and guide them to a solution?

If you didn’t know the topic or situation at hand well enough, you wouldn’t have been able to help them.

Instead, you had the knowledge and the information in your brain, and with this knowledge, you were able to help them.

Teaching can come in many forms: tutoring, blogging, creating a course, volunteering, etc.

The point here is that the more you teach, the deeper your knowledge of a subject becomes, and through this, the smarter you become.

15. Make Learning a Part of Your Everyday Life

“I don’t believe anyone can be “improved” by buying and reading a book. They can only be “improve, if that is the word, by their own actions.” – Felix Dennis

Becoming smarter is not something you can accomplish just by saying you are going to become smarter.

While yes, in theory, you can start making smarter decisions from this moment on, but changing the way you think and your mindset towards life will take some work.

Learning needs to be an part of your life everyday; you need to turn into a learning machine if you want to become more knowledgeable and smarter in life.

Consistent efforts and action will be key on your journey. Reading a little bit , answering unanswered questions you might have, listening to podcasts, and watching instructional videos each day will add up over time.

Through these efforts, you will be able to accomplish your goal of becoming more intelligent, and you’ll be on to amazing things.

Will You Become Smarter this Year to Help You Achieve Your Goals?

Decide today that you are going to become better in life, and decide today that you are going to become smarter.

Whatever the reason, the decision to improve in life is always a noble one, and through your actions, you’ll set yourself up to do amazing things.

It might not happen tomorrow, it might not happen next month, but over time, by following the steps above, you will become smarter and you’ll be on the path to achieving your goals.

I know you can do it and I know you can reach your full potential in life.

Readers: which steps will you take first to becoming smarter? What’s your favorite book? Who have you learned more from in your life?

Many people want to find a way to create a success and live the best life they can live – a life with success, money, strong relationships, or some other dream. Getting on the path to your dreams sometimes requires a shift in mindset, and one such shift is removing limiting beliefs. In this post, I’ll share how you can change your limiting beliefs and mindset to help you get on the path to living your dream life.

Having control of your mind and living with a positive outlook on life is so helpful on the path to success. Working on your skills and abilities is important for success, but having confidence in yourself is equally, if not more, important.

How to you become more confident and how can you have confidence in yourself?

One thing which always limits us is our limiting beliefs. Do you believe you are enough? Do you believe you can do it? Or, do you think you can’t do it?

If you believe you can do it, then you’ll be in a better position to accomplish your goals. Having confidence in yourself is so important, but it’s very hard to grow confidence when trying to reach a huge goal.

So, how can we overcome our limiting beliefs and achieve our goals? First, what are limiting beliefs, and how are they holding us back? How can we grow and reach success?

In this post, I’ll answer these questions and by the end, hopefully you’ll have an action plan to gain confidence and overcome your limiting beliefs.

What are Limiting Beliefs and How Do They Hold You Back?

The realization that it is your subconscious that contains all those memories, is what helps you to have a greater consciousness and to make a change in thoughts and behavior that prevents our false beliefs, negative emotions and self-destructive behaviors from directing our destiny. Our destiny is now determined by knowing each other well enough to take effective action in our daily lives.

These negative ideas translate into limiting beliefs, which are those things that you inadvertently say to yourself to justify what is happening in your life, to stop yourself from making a change or simply to settle for what you currently have. This is all an internal dialogue, something now called the inner critic or your negative inner talk.

Most of these limiting beliefs begin with the phrases “I can’t” and “I’m not.” They are based on our dreams, emotions and relationships. Limiting beliefs are irrational and prevent us from living our lives better! Do you want to live that life that you admire and dream of?

11 Simple Ways to Change Your Limiting Beliefs and Create the Life You Want to Live

Creating the life you want and deserve is not easy. I’ve been trying to create a life for myself that is full of success for many years and still am in search of what is right for me.

However, creating a life which is fulfilling and full of promise and hope is easier with the right mindset.

Getting into the right mindset can be done by changing your limiting beliefs, using the power of positive thinking and affirmations to affect change in your life, and living intentionally.

Below are 11 simple ways and strategies you can use to change your limiting beliefs and create the life you want and deserve to have. You can click on the links below to go directly to a detailed section of the strategy on this page, or continue scrolling to read the sections in order.

1. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others
2. Change the Way You View Errors
3. Believe in Yourself
4. Love Yourself
5. Drop the Victim Mentality
6. Stop Blaming Others
7. Replace Negative Thoughts with Positive Thoughts
8. Recognize Your Strengths
9. Set Goals for the Future
10. Pursue Your Goals and Dreams with All Your Might
11. Understand Failures Will Happen

Let’s dive deeper into each of these steps to change your mindset and limiting beliefs.

1. Stop Comparing Yourself to Others and Start Appreciating Yourself

It’s human nature to look around and compare ourselves to our peers. One of the most common beliefs is that you need to keep up with your peers, and if you aren’t, then you are failing at life.

Comparison is a theft of happiness, and constantly comparing yourself to others is a recipe for disaster.

This habit of continually comparing yourself to other people arises from low self-esteem, from not knowing your own worth, and from lacking self-confidence. These constant feelings make us fail to recognize our true potential, and make us feel defeated even before starting the race.

One of the things that can help you eliminate this belief is working on yourself, developing a confidence in yourself that prevents you from constantly comparing yourself to others.

Realize that everyone is on their own path and you are able to write your own story. You can create the life you want, and it will be different than everyone else.

Start celebrating yourself!

Remember all the things you have accomplished, focus on your own successes and on your own path. Regardless of whether or not you are celebrated, the most important thing you can do today is to start celebrating yourself.

Accept and celebrate your own achievements, successes and even your own failures. When you are happy with yours, you can be happy with the success of others.

When you are happy for the success of others, you won’t be worried about comparing and you will be able to continue to improve and go down your own path.

2. Change the Way in How You View Errors and Mistakes

One of the worst things you can do is to tell yourself you are a failure. Thinking you are a failure based on something that happened in the past is one of the simplest ways to take away the power to create your life as you wish.

We are humans, and humans are not perfect. Mistakes will happen – it’s part of the process of growth and accomplishment.

How you view mistakes and errors will determine how you proceed – are they barriers and the end of the road, or are they just a speed bump?

We need to see mistakes as opportunities to grow. Making mistakes is something we should avoid, but if they happen, it’s time to take advantage of the situation to analyze what went wrong and what went right.

After an error, give yourself the opportunity to find out if there are things you can do to change or take advantage of that event.

It is this reflection where growth happens because you will know that after this mistake, you’ll be back on the right path.

3. Believe and Trust in Yourself

When you say “I can’t,” “I’m not capable,” “It never works out for me,” “I never can…”, “I’m not meant to be happy or successful…” you’re limiting yourself to everything you can do. You are telling yourself who you are and that you are not capable of being, doing or having.

These negative thoughts are affecting your subconscious mind, and they restrict you from getting to your goals.

If you instead replace those negative thoughts with positive thoughts, you will start creating a persona within who accomplishes everything in life.

What you say about yourself and what you think you can achieve is what you constantly see in your life, because you are constantly creating it. The moment when you justify and accept that you cannot stop making the effort to change your situation.

Don’t let these limiting beliefs run your life and keep you from achieving what you really are capable of.

4. Love Yourself Because You Deserve Love

I firmly believe that the relationship you have with others is a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.

If you don’t love yourself, you can’t expect others to love you. If you don’t respect yourself, the others won’t.

We cannot go through life looking for love on the outside, when it’s first very important to love yourself deeply. After you love yourself, you can then share that love with someone else. Through this self-love, we create healthier and deeper relationships with other people.

The only way we can free ourselves from this limiting belief of not loving ourselves is to work on personal development and growth.

Through working on yourself, you will develop love for yourself and begin to affirm that you deserve love, you deserve respect, and you deserve the best that life has to offer.

5. Drop the Victim Mentality

Here’s a belief I have which I will never let go of: I’m in control of my life and I’m the only person who can make positive changes for myself.

The government, my boss, my friends, my family – no one can change my life for the better. I can ask for advice, I can ask for help, but these actions need to come from ME and from believing in myself.

I’m responsible for my life and I need to be the one out there taking action. I’m choosing to be the VICTOR, not a VICTIM in any moment.

When you put yourself in a victim role you take away the possibility of solving or changing your life. Personal development is about accepting that you have the responsibility

You are responsible if you decide to suffer, you decide if you want to stay in the situation you are in right now. No matter what happens to you in life, remember you always have total control over how you feel, how you react to the situations that arise. When you accept this power, you discover that your outlook on life will change dramatically.

People are quick to blame others for their misfortune. They tell themselves that they cannot do something because of an external condition.

For example, they say “I can’t get a job because companies aren’t hiring.” This is simply blaming other conditions on your own sad situation. This is a limiting belief that quickly becomes a habit. The way to eliminate it is to stop it at once.

Take responsibility for your situation and if you don’t like it, do something about it.

6. Stop Blaming Others for Your Failures

Sometimes in life, accidents happen. Unfortunate situations arise where we had nothing to do with it, and now we have to clean up the mess.

In some cases, you have to suffer for something due to the action or inaction of someone else.

This leads to another very common false belief – “It’s not my fault – it’s everyone else’s fault!”

While it might not be your fault, how you deal with the situation is completely on you.

Constantly thinking that someone else is to blame for something that happens in your life becomes a habit that takes away the power to make a change.

No one else can change your situation, no one else can decide for you. Only you have that power.

7. Replace Negative Thoughts and Beliefs with Positive Thoughts

The way we think affects the way we see the world. Any limitation in our mindset and thoughts results in limitations in our reality.

The way we think is determined by our past experiences, but it’s completely possible to rewire and realign your thoughts to drive results and accomplish more.

Doing affirmations, practicing positive self-talk and celebrating your successes are all ways to think in a positive way.

Saying “I’m a success”, “I can do anything”, “I can learn to become more”, “I can do better”, are all great first steps in positive thinking.

Mindset is everything and you can do it.

Be brave enough to chart your own path and you will find your fortune there.

8. Recognize Your Strengths and Work on Yourself and Abilities

What are your strengths? What are you good at? Are you an expert in anything?

We are all good at something.

The problem is many times, we want to focus on our failures and weaknesses.

While it’s important to improve the things we aren’t good at, we need to celebrate and work to maximize the time spent doing what makes us great.

If you paid more attention to what you like, what you are capable of doing and all your skills, you would be able to feel much better about yourself, feel confident and sure of yourself.

Being more self-aware is very important in life, and while it’s good to work on your weakness and become more well rounded, you also have to understand that your strengths are what will take you the farthest in life.

9. Create Goals and Live Intentionally

Living intentionally is how you will create change and become the person you want to become in life.

First, it starts with asking yourself a number of questions:

• What do you want in life? What would make you happy?
• Who do you want to spend your time with?
• What’s keeping you from living your best life? Is it money, a job, a house, a car, etc.?

After figuring out what you want in life, it’s time to set goals and start working on your dream.

There are many people who simply don’t have the life they want because they don’t know it or don’t want to. It is as if they are afraid of being disappointed for not achieving it, or for fear of being rejected and then they get used to not asking. This results in a life where you are not satisfied with yourself or with life.

Make a habit of asking yourself what you want, what you want to achieve right now. Set objectives and goals that gradually open up the horizon for you.

10. Pursue Your Goals and Dreams With All Your Willpower

Once you have your game plan, it’s time to attack it will all your willpower.

Are you going to be average, or are you going to be great? Are you going to be a victim, or a victor? Do you have what it takes?

The answer to these questions is YES – you can accomplish your goals and dreams.

You have the energy, power and potential to do anything you want in life.

If you don’t give it your all, you are letting yourself down. If you don’t go for greatness, you’ll be settling for average or worse.

Accepting mediocrity affects you deeply, because inside you know that you want to be, do or achieve something else in your life.

Eliminate this belief by being aware that your dreams can come true, of course you will have to do something to achieve it, change your beliefs, believe in yourself and motivate yourself along the way, but trust that you can achieve it.

If you fail, if you fall, trust that it is part of the way. No matter how long it takes you, just chasing your dreams will make you feel much more fulfilled than if you stayed where you are. Failures are only part of the process. When you fall, you get up again, and try again with even more desire. This is how we reach the goal.

Give it your all and you’ll be closer each day to your goal.

11. Understand Failures Will Happen, But You Can Bounce Back

Without failure, there is no success. If you achieved success in everything you did, where would the growth be? How would that be a great story?

Failure and struggle is part of human nature, and overcoming that struggle is how you grow and become better.

Being honest with you, setbacks happen and they suck. I’ve had injuries in sports where I had to sit out for some time – it sucked and it made me thankful for the times I was able to play. It made me reassess my game and be smarter with my head.

However, when I recovered, I was rested and ready to give it my all, and I started playing better than before.

You can bounce back from any mistake and get back on the road to success. You are capable of achieving anything and it’s important to understand that failure is temporary.

Get on the Path to Success and Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs

Do you want success in your life? If you are like me, you do and you will be willing to work and grind for your goals.

Gaining confidence in yourself is one of the steps to achieving these goals and to do this, part of it will be overcoming your limiting beliefs and replacing those beliefs with positive thoughts.

You are enough and you are capable of doing anything you want in life.

I hope this article has given you some good food for thought and has given you a game plan for improving your mindset.

Readers: what are some limiting beliefs you have? How are you overcoming those limiting beliefs? 

Are you mentally strong, or do you have doubts that you can achieve more? Are you able to break through barriers, or does your mind let you down? In this post, you’ll learn how to break through mental barriers, how to improve your mentality, and how using these new superpowers of mental strength will help you achieve anything you want.

Wouldn’t life be easy if you could achieve anything you set your mind to? How would it feel if you could attain any position or receive any reward you set out to receive?

The questions above are pretty interesting, in that I’m guessing you would love to achieve many things in life.

For me, I’d love to go full time as an entrepreneur. I’d love to workout every day and attain a physique like a model. I’d love to become better at rock climbing, golf, and other hobbies I have. It would be awesome to travel the world, learn new languages, and learn more about other cultures.

However, as I start to dream, plan and get on the path to crushing my goals, my pesky inner voice starts to intervene.

“Are you sure you can make it as an entrepreneur?”

“You don’t have good enough genetics to become super fit.”

“You aren’t talented enough to become better at your hobbies.”

“Do you know how much time it takes to learn a new language? What are you thinking?”

Maybe you’ve had the same experience with your inner voice.

During these times, and times when you are on your journey to getting what you want, having a strong mental game is incredibly important for staying on track and not getting stressed.

Being able to take these negative thoughts, and turn them into positive, motivating thoughts is critical and a skill you can develop.

Saying “Yes, it’s hard to achieve X, but I can do it by surrounding myself with the right people” or “Talent can be beaten by hard work and I’m going to work as hard as I can to reach my goals” can make all the difference when we get discouraged.

Getting through tough times and setbacks requires grit and determination, and in this post, you’ll learn how to better control your emotions, understand your powerful brain, and develop a strong mental game for success.

Your mind is a powerful thing. When you fill it with positive thoughts, your life will start to change.

Your Mental Ability is Highly Critical for Success in Life

In sports, often times, the difference between the winner and a loser will be the winner’s ability to block out distractions, focus on the task at hand, and stay positive through adversity.

Cultivating a strong mental game comes from many hours of practice and preparation, and helps us build confidence in ourselves.

What many people don’t realize is that outside of sports, having a strong mental game is equally as important.

In the workplace, being able to get through stressful periods successfully can help us overcome any obstacle and lead to promotions, more responsibility and a higher salary.

At home, if you are constantly getting upset and not being able to resolve issues, you’ll become frustrated and angry.

But, being able to bounce back, communicate if someone has hurt you, and move on to spending quality time with your partner, everything can be back to normal and you’ll be happier.

As we have discussed briefly here, having a strong mental game is important, but what are some of the differences between being mentally tough and mentally weak? How can we become better mentally?

Let’s dive into those questions now.

The Differences Between Being Mentally Tough and Mentally Weak

There are a few differences between being mentally tough and being mentally weak.

In particular, I want to focus on a few situations where the difference between being mentally tough and mentally weak are apparent.

Situation one is being happy vs. sad. In this case, I’m not talking about clinical depression – I’m talking about in a game, business or around the house. Mentally tough are able to move on quicker from a setback and get back to being positive about the situation at hand. Mentally weak people dwell on the current situation and let it affect their energy and day.

For example, if the boss comes to you with negative feedback on a mistake you made, a mentally tough person will take the feedback and work on doing better next time. They don’t waste energy on things they can’t control (the past), and welcome the challenge of doing better next time.

A mentally weak person might blame themselves, blame someone else, be afraid to take the next assignment, and become discouraged at work.

Another example is with relationships. I’ve hard to learn this one the hard way many times, but sometimes two people are not meant for each other.

There have been relationships in my past where I spent weeks and months getting over an ex, but as I became more mature, I’ve learned that sometimes people aren’t truly perfect for each other, and everything happens for a reason.

As I’ve become more mature and mentally strong, I’ve been able to move on and not waste time on feeling sorry for myself – I realize that even though it didn’t work out this time, there is someone else out there who I can make happy and can make me happy.

Now, let’s get into the 7 steps for you to work on to break through mental barriers and improve yourself.

7 Steps to Breaking Through Mental Barriers and Improving Yourself Mentally

What are the steps and things you can do to becoming better mentally? Like any skill, you can take a number of steps and actions to improve.

Below are the 7 steps you can take and try to break through mental barriers and improve as a person mentally. You can click on any of the links below to go directly to the section, or continue to scroll down the page.

1. Realize the Importance of Mental Strength
2. Practice with Intention
3. Do Affirmations
4. Visualize Success in Your Life
5. Do Breathing Exercises to Manage Stress
6. Read about Exercises to Improve Mentally
7. Realize that Setbacks Will Happen, but You Can Overcome Anything

Let’s dive into each of these points in greater detail.

1. Understand that Mental Strength Will Get You As Far As Any Other Skill

As discussed above in the opening few paragraphs, your mental strength and fortitude will keep you going and get your farther than any talent or ability alone.

The ability to stick with something, to be positive, and to continue to work until the job is done is more important than having the talent to do something.

Mental toughness is the gasoline which fuels your actions and abilities. Without gasoline, it doesn’t matter if you have a 500 horsepower car or a 50 horsepower car – you aren’t going anywhere.

With gasoline, and with a strong mental game, anything is possible.

Understanding that mental strength is something that you need to work on and is a skill that can be improved is s

2. Practice with Intention to Gain Confidence in Yourself

Deliberate practice is a great way to improve your skills and grow as a person.

Instead of going through the motions, using deliberate practice for improvement can help you become mentally stronger.

Over time, through practice, you can gain confidence. This confidence will work to your advantage when you get into situations where you need to be at your best.

In sports, the best players don’t worry about taking the last shot because they have practiced thousands of times for that moment.

For them, it’s not the first time they have done that, and as a result, they have the mental fortitude and confidence to perform to the best of their abilities.

Practicing and making sure you are doing the best you can do in any moment will lead to confidence, and through confidence, you’ll have the belief in yourself to do whatever you want in life.

3. Do Affirmations to Tell Yourself You are Enough

Our minds are incredibly powerful and can quite literally create its own reality.

Using positive thinking can manifest itself in living the life you want to live.

Telling yourself you are a positive person will result in you becoming a more positive person.

You are what you say you are.

Saying, “I’m a negative person who can never accomplish anything” is a reinforcing trap. Saying this sort of thing will result in you being a negative person who will never accomplish anything.

Likewise, telling yourself, “I’m a positive person who can accomplish anything” will lead to accomplishments beyond your wildest dreams.

Using positive thinking can help guide you on your path to becoming more mentally strong.

4. Utilize Visualization to Live the Moment Before You Experience it

Similar to affirmations, you can use visualization to experience your desired outcome before it happens.

When you visualize a situation, you are tricking your mind into thinking you’ve already experienced it, and with each visualization, you become more confident.

Visualization helps you activate your subconscious into working it’s magic and helps you build your internal motivation to do your best when the time comes.

Sit in a quiet room and think about your goals and future situations you want to find success in. Try to think about all of the possibilities and try to fully experience the moment before it happens.

See yourself succeeding with that important speech, in the test to help you gain a new qualification, or winning the race you’ve been training for forever.

With visualization, you can gain confidence in your abilities and when the time comes, you’ll be ready to rock and crush your goals.

5. Learn about Breathing Techniques to Help Relax when You are Stressed

Slowing down and focusing on our breathing has many benefits.

Breathing relieves anxiety, stress and tension in the body. Also, breathing can help our mental state by helping stop panic attacks, freezing or choking under pressure and lowers our stress levels.

I try to do deep breathing a few times a day to keep myself centered and focused on the task at hand. It’s helped me a lot in keeping my cool, and has served me well.

Here’s a link for 10 breathing exercises to try: 10 Breathing Exercises

6. Read Books about Mental Strength and Overcoming Adversity

Reading books from experts in mental strength can help you develop habits to become better mentally. Having an edge in your ability to overcome things will help you achieve any goal you set, and help you separate yourself from the rest of the world as a world class individual.

I love reading, and some of the books I’ve read on mental strength have been eye opening. Reading about Olympic Gold medalists and top performers is interesting, but at the highest level, mental preparation is what separates the gold medalist from the bronze medalist.

In particular, I’ve read and reviewed the following three books which I think will help you with working on your mental game: With Winning in Mind, Unbeatable Mind, The Slight Edge.

Learning from experts is always great – we need to stand on the shoulders of giants to be able to see far!

7. Realize Mistakes Happen, But You Can Bounce Back

Without failure, there is no success. If you achieved success in everything you did, where would the growth be? How would that be a great story?

Failure and struggle is part of human nature, and overcoming that struggle is how you grow and become better.

Being honest with you, setbacks happen and they suck. I’ve had injuries in sports where I had to sit out for some time – it sucked and it made me thankful for the times I was able to play. It made me reassess my game and be smarter with my head.

However, when I recovered, I was rested and ready to give it my all, and I started playing better than before.

You can bounce back from any mistake and get back on the road to success. You are capable of achieving anything and it’s important to understand that failure is temporary.

Are You Going to Become Mentally Strong in the Next Few Weeks?

I hope you’ve enjoyed this article on mental strength, and I hope that you are now interested in pursuing some of the exercises above to become more mentally strong and crush your goals.

Improving in any skill takes time, but with consistent actions and intentional practice, you can get to a point where it’s automatic and you are a rockstar.

You are on to living your best life and through these actions, you’ll be closer to your goals each and every day.