7 Beliefs You Should Stop Believing in to Live a Successful Life on Your Terms

Because the mind drives the body, our way of thinking ultimately makes our dreams achievable or very impossible. Our almost entire reality reflects our thoughts and routine behavior based on what we think is true, but the problem is that what we believe is true is only sometimes valid.

Note: This article is taken from the writer “MARC CHERNOFF”, in which he talks to us about the most important beliefs that we must abandon and get rid of in order to live a successful and happier life according to our own terms.

We cannot achieve our dreams, and regret fills our lives when our misguided and wrong beliefs prevent us from being the best, and this phenomenon is repeated in our lives at a greater rate than most of us realize.

Trainees come to us almost daily with questions, concerns, and fears about the problems they constantly face and the things they regret, mainly fueled or fed by their misconceptions and misperceptions about the reality in which they live. Because their circumstances differ, there is a remarkable similarity in the essential beliefs that mislead them regardless of their circumstances.

The truth is that no matter how intelligent and educated you are, your subconscious mind will sometimes associate itself with beliefs that usually push you away from where you want to be in your life. One trainee put it another way in a training call this morning: “My mind seems to be packed and full of all those beliefs that lead me exactly in the opposite direction to achieve my dreams of living a successful life on my terms.”

Beliefs You Should Stop Believing in to Live a Successful Life on Your Terms:

1. Others determine the definition of success in your life and your path to it:

When I was young, there was an implicit but unanimously agreed definition of what success looks like in my family. Although we did not discuss that definition explicitly and publicly, it was referred to implicitly and veiledly during most conversations and decisions involving me directly or indirectly. All members of my small and large family were in one of the following two groups:

• Educated, college graduates, and have a comfortable, steady-paying job at a major company.
• Manual workers who worked hard and diligently continued to move up the career ladder in a large company.

The common denominator between the two groups was to get a salary or fixed wage from a large company, which was the definition of success implicitly agreed upon in my family. I was a failure in my life, and I am still so according to that definition. I got a university degree, but I chose to move to work between many small startups outside the university instead, and the wages or salaries I got were low. My job stability could have been more stable at best, but I was learning and gaining experience every time.

After many years on that path, I left my essential daily job amidst my collapse as a result of the accumulation of tragedies and calamities in my life to focus full-time on a new side project, the Marc and Angel Hack Life blog, which my wife Angel and I were gradually developing and working to support and endorse all the time, even on nights and weekends. Of course, my family was very skeptical and suspicious about my evolving career and decision. Still, I realized at some point that I had to abandon my family's definition of success and any other definition.

Of course, it wasn't easy at all. The definitions of success that were essential in me during my childhood and the beliefs that I carried were so deeply rooted in the stories and cultural tales that I was so used to them that they became very much the standard or performance measure that I subconsciously measured and evaluated my life accordingly. So, it took me some time to clear my mind, evaluate my thoughts, and understand what success meant.

I hope you will understand me to a certain extent. No one is exempt from this phenomenon in their life, even the most experienced and seasoned entrepreneurs and creative people I know, living on their terms in every way imaginable, still fall into the trap of believing the exaggerated idea that fame and fortune are symbols of success and spend their lives trying to achieve it.

Bottom line: Although giving up others' definition of success and stopping being influenced by it and adopting it in your life is challenging and requires remarkable effort, it frees you spectacularly from the constraints of dependence on others and ultimately leads you to express your true identity fully, so I want you to think about this carefully. Others will not have to live with the results of your decisions and the choices you make. Instead, you alone will bear those results. So, there is no reason for you to live according to their definition of success. Most of us have adopted the definition of success and beliefs from people around simply rather than thinking well about what success means sincerely and adopting their definition.

One coaching agent told us that she wanted to become a millionaire to take specific steps to succeed, but as we dug deeper into her story, reasons, and thinking, it became clear that most of the reasons that led her to want to become a millionaire did not require a million dollars to succeed. She just grew up with this belief, which led her to laugh out loud literally when she realized that after our lengthy discussion, it becomes easier to abandon faith in the definitions of others and their fabricated beliefs by understanding the essence of your goals and their basis and your true success definition, from your point of view.

Know that the point is not that one metric of success is better or worse than the other but that you can choose to define your success according to your point of view and conditions. Just realize that the more awareness and reflection about the meaning of success, your ability is strengthened to follow the path of success right for you and walk in it.

2. You should feel very confident before moving on to the next step in your life:

Most people need to understand the meaning of self-confidence. They think it is something they have to own or possess before optimally performing their tasks, so they subconsciously make a decision to wait until they become very confident before taking the next step to progress their lives, but just waiting without doing anything is not a job that leads to building or strengthening self-confidence, so they never increase confidence and never move to the next step.

Let these words serve as a warning or an alert to you. Confidence is not a prerequisite or necessary for current or future achievements. On the contrary, self-confidence is a direct byproduct of your past performance and achievements.

For example, if you start your day successfully and correctly, you will probably have better self-confidence for the rest of your day. Conversely, if you stumble at the beginning of your day, the prior performance you started your day with will likely reduce your self-confidence for some time until your confidence level returns to what it was.

But it is worth mentioning that the day will be passed tomorrow. Your confidence in starting to live tomorrow straight depends on your following positive behaviors and behaviors today and then learning and gaining experiences from them. It means you can benefit from your current actions and activities and invest them in strengthening your future confidence and forcing yourself to move to the next step in your life because it is the first step toward gaining more self-confidence. So, whenever you find yourself waiting to gain great confidence before completing the task in your hands, remind yourself of how to succeed in gaining confidence and its impact, and then force yourself to start working before you feel ready for it.

My wife and I started a blog in 2006. We didn't know how to create or design a website and had no idea what a blog was. We weren't skilled writers, and our knowledge was limited to five things:

• We recently lost two loved ones to sudden illness and suicide.
• We suffered and faced many difficulties in our personal and professional lives.
• We need an expression to express our emotions and feelings.
• Our passion and enthusiasm for writing and improving ourselves with it.
• We don't practice writing enough.

We must have learned to design a website or create a blog, and we found the confidence to do so in the same way as everyone else; that is, gradually slight by slight, step by step, and by writing one page after another. You have to start reading and learning to make decisions and actions, and then you will make mistakes that you learned from and gain more experience and try again.

Here, you will find yourself a better and more confident person, and then you will learn more, make more decisions, and take more actions and activities. This process is the essence of all efficient and successful initiatives to build confidence and achieve goals. It is one of the crucial and necessary skills you must develop to succeed.

It doesn't matter if you aspire to become a blogger, entrepreneur, artist, or CEO of a large company; all you have to do is start working on your achievements before you feel ready to do so, and then you will be able to learn how to succeed gradually before you even realize that you are good enough to achieve that achievement or success.

Today is the day. It is time to start putting your plans into action and build a daily ritual or routine that manifests by making small achievements and gains for yourself. I assure you that those gains will accumulate quickly through this, which will gain you greater confidence and bring you closer to the goals you want to achieve with the passage of each day.

3. More planning and thinking will lead to better results:

Just as you don't need more self-confidence to move on to the next most minor step in your life, you probably don't need more planning and overthinking either: “Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, while the rest of us get up and go to work,” the American author Stephen King once said.

I posted this quote with a ribbon over my work desk. It reminds me that proper planning, strategy, and a mastermind are essential while working on a project, as it's easy to go on indefinitely.

When our significant ideas are still just concepts and perceptions hovering in our minds without taking any action to implement them on the ground, we tend to be ambitious, self-confident people who think about remarkable and significant initiatives and things, and although this is not inherently bad, the downside of that way of thinking is that it often amplifies the barrier that prevents us from taking action and moving on to the next step in our lives.

In other words, we often tend to overthink the projects and tasks we want to carry out. They seem more complex and challenging than they are, so we resort to procrastination repeatedly to give ourselves more time to prepare for the next step.

To avoid the paralysis of the analysis caused by the previous way of thinking, minimize your thoughts and break them down into tiny activities that can be tested immediately. My wife and I, Engel, applied this through our experimental testing of the idea of holding our large-scale conference called "Think Better, Live Better" by hosting and organizing a series of smaller local events.

Also, when we took the idea of our book titled 1,000 Little Things Happy, Successful People Do Differently and tested it by writing several publications related to our blog, the idea was briefly about your ability to draw something before building it and pro to typing your achievements before doing it. Once you test your thought and try it on a smaller scale, you will have the insight, understanding, and data you need to take your idea and project to the next level.

The concept of taking action may seem gradually very intuitive. Still, we all get caught up in the moment and forget ourselves at some point to over-plan and think about things, which makes our minds struggle and work hard. At the same time, we do nothing on the ground, which my wife, Angel, and I have witnessed happen hundreds of times over the years with the recipients of our training.

For example, someone wants to achieve a significant goal in their life, but still, they can only choose one or two essential steps to focus on, so they can only accomplish something worthwhile. Let it be a reminder to you, so you remember that your abilities are limited and you cannot carry 1000 kg at once, while you can easily carry 1kg 1000 times.

You will be able to reach your goal in the end by making a bit and repeated efforts and increasing them gradually, and this may not help you achieve your aim at a glance, but it will enable you to reach it quickly compared to not achieving it at all.

4. Focusing more on your goals is the solution:

My wife, Engel, and I have mentioned this many times, but it is worth mentioning it whenever the opportunity arises because of its importance. Goals do not lead to positive changes, but daily rituals or routines are responsible for this, so you should seriously think or meditate on this for a moment because we are often concerned with the significant goal in our lives or the influential result that we will get more than necessary to become an obsession for us, while we never focus on practicing the daily habits or repeated steps that we must commit to lead us to achieve that goal in the end. So the weight of this great, impossible goal paralyzes our thinking and slows our progress.

If this sounds familiar, it's time to shift your focus away from your goals. Suppose you deliberately ignore one of your goals over the next few weeks and focus instead on rituals or daily routines that promote and support that goal. In that case, you must continue to achieve remarkable results. You will gradually move closer to achieving your goal little by little without even thinking about it, such as focusing on eating healthy and exercising only daily and ignoring your aim to lose about 11 kilograms if you are trying to lose weight.

5. You should always be right:

You should not be wrong in the short term if you want to become successful according to your criteria or conditions. You must take a specific position, test your opinions and views, examine them to check their validity, and then admit they are wrong if you realize it. The process of experimenting and making mistakes helps you discover the right things in life, which is much more essential than always being right.

The process of experimenting and making mistakes is also an essential part of the life of any successful person. When a person implements an idea for the first time, the result is rarely fascinating or dazzling, but what is more important is to collect the lessons learned during that process to improve and refine the initial idea, create a new and improved strategy or plan, and enhance ritual or daily routine to support that process.

Expecting to master things and do them the right way the first time is pointless. Prototyping, testing, experimenting, and repeating are critical to turning a decent idea into a valuable outcome. So, instead of feeling hopeless and losing purpose because of your failed attempts and failures, you have to keep a close eye on them and try to benefit and learn from them. Then, invest the lessons you have learned in achieving a somewhat better achievement and repeat that process in simple and small steps. Sooner or later, you will attain the success level you have always imagined and dreamed of.

6. You are forced to say the word (yes):

Besides the clever art of doing the right things, there is also the often-forgotten art of letting go of doing the wrong things. You must practice saying no even if you feel it is strange or unfamiliar to you because your energy and time are restricted, so you must invest them in what benefits you. Successful, experienced people who have achieved remarkable achievements and live on their terms know they must take care of their time, energy, and focus.

We don't want to brag about ourselves, but Angel and I have done well in our lives over the past decade-our writing and coaching business has thrived far beyond our wildest expectations and dreams; we've sold nearly 40,000 copies of our first book, Getting Back to Happy: Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Reality, and Turn Your Trials into Triumphs.

Hundreds of trainees are actively enrolled in our training course, "Getting Back to Happy." We have succeeded in holding very successful conferences to promote self-growth, which sold out and returned us with great positive feedback. Our experience, ideas, and knowledge are very desirable. However, despite our ability to smoothly increase our business offerings and take them to the next level to develop them, this will not leave us enough time and energy to focus on our personal and family goals, which are higher on our list of priorities and more important to us. Also, it will not leave us more time and energy to have essential and intimate communication with our current readers.

So, always remember that you don't have to accept all the great opportunities that are invited or presented to you, and when you are in the process of implementing your plans and goals, remember that new and unexpected opportunities can also mean a distraction that distracts you from your core goals and priorities. Saying (No) is an essential part of being able to effectively and successfully live your life on your terms.

7. You have enough willpower to overcome the obstacles and temptations of an unhealthy environment:

Suppose you remain in an environment that negatively affects your good intentions. In that case, you will eventually surrender to that environment and be integrated into it regardless of your determination and freedom, leading most of us to make mistakes and missteps that change our lives. When we find ourselves working hard to achieve progress in an unhealthy environment, we somehow think that we have no other choice and that moving to a more supportive and encouraging environment, even for short periods, is impossible.

So, instead of working in a supportive and encouraging environment that drives us to progress and develop in our lives, we drain all our energy by putting pressure on ourselves to try to harmonize and adapt to the obstacles and problems of that unhealthy environment, only finding that we have run out of energy despite our best efforts.

The essential and most important thing to remember here is that the environment around you affects you as a human being to a high degree; therefore, one of the best uses of your energy or benefits is to invest it consciously in the selection and design of environments, especially those in which you will work, that will support the results and goals you have set for yourself and facilitate their achievement.

For example, if you are trying to quit smoking, you should :

1. Spend less time with smokers.
2. Spend less time in social environments that encourage smoking.

Because if you do not implement the two previous conditions, your will collapse and weaken in the end, no matter how strong it is, so you have to draw clear boundaries for yourself and adhere to them and not exceed them at all costs, and then redesign or adapt your surrounding environment to be able to achieve your commitment.

So, let's think about some other examples:

• If you want to lose weight, your best option is to spend more time in healthy environments with people who eat healthily and exercise regularly.
• If you want to become a professional comedian who does the work for them- which was the goal of one of the people in the audience of our conferences and has achieved recently- the best thing you can do is surround yourself with professional comedians, partner with them, share experiences with them, and direct your life and work environment towards achieving that goal.
• If you want to overcome your difficulties and live a happier life, the best thing you can do is spend more of your time connecting with people who share your goals and intentions, which can be achieved through local support groups and self-development conferences such as our "Think Better, Live Better" conference, or online through support groups and training such as our Getting Back to Happy course.

In conclusion:

Persistence, determination, and independent will alone will enable you to progress only to a limited degree. Suppose you want to make a significant, positive, and long-term change in your life. In that case, you will also have to change your environment gradually based on this, which is the basis for how we grow and develop as human beings, as we enhance ourselves and adapt to the environments around us. So, conscious growth and development involve your firm choice of rich environments that enrich you or create for yourself, forcing you to adapt and gradually develop yourself into a better person.