Thoughts to Believe

Practice beliefs that support the way you want to live.

Your brain doesn't keep a thought because it's good for you. It keeps a thought because it's familiar.

You may have practiced “I'm not good enough” for so long that it doesn't even sound like a thought anymore. It sounds like an observation. You assume you're reporting reality when you're actually repeating a sentence.

Before you practice a new belief, become aware of what you're already believing. Your brain likes its well-traveled roads. Thinking something new takes effort.

That effort is worth making. Here are ten thoughts I practice and teach because of the experience they create. You can borrow them, explore them, and practice believing them on purpose.

1. You are 100% lovable

There is nothing you can do to become more worthy of love. Your lovability was complete when you were born, and it hasn't been diminished by anything you've done or anything someone has said about you.

How much someone loves you depends on their capacity to love. It doesn't measure your lovability.

And you don't feel someone else's love. You feel the love created by your own thoughts. That makes this belief an invitation to increase your capacity to love yourself.

You don't need to earn it. You can begin with the understanding that you are already completely lovable.

2. A great life is determined by the goals you commit to

You don't have to wait until you achieve a goal to experience its effect.

When I committed to the goal of creating $100 million in one year, my life expanded before the result arrived. My imagination, anticipation, and belief changed my present experience.

Think about Christmas as a child. So much of the magic happened before Christmas morning. You imagined the presents and felt excited ahead of time.

Your goals can work the same way. The commitment and belief are available now. Don't postpone that experience until the finish line.

3. Money is awesome

I often teach “I love money,” but some students have a hard time with that sentence. “Money is awesome” gives them another way to approach it.

Money can solve problems. It can buy back time by allowing you to hire help. It can support things you want to create.

When you appreciate money, you can also become more willing to keep it. You don't have to immediately turn it into something else. You can enjoy having money in your presence.

Notice the relationship this thought creates compared with thinking money is bad or that you shouldn't want it.

4. Growth discomfort is better than stagnation discomfort

The choice isn't between growing and being uncomfortable or staying still and being comfortable.

Life is 50–50. Staying the same has its own discomfort, including the feeling of not following the part of you that wants to grow.

You can experience the discomfort of repeating the same patterns or the discomfort of evolving. I prefer growth. It gives the discomfort a different purpose and keeps life moving forward.

We have an urge to create and become. Honoring it helps us feel more alive.

5. Adults are allowed to behave how they want

That doesn't mean you have to like their behavior. It doesn't mean there won't be consequences.

It means you can stop trying to control them. You can make a request or offer a suggestion, but the decision is theirs.

People don't have to follow the manual you've written for them. Recognizing that releases you from trying to be responsible for their thoughts, feelings, and actions.

You can take responsibility for yourself instead.

6. Your spouse's job is to be there for you to love

What if you thought of your spouse as someone who gives you an opportunity to love?

I see this so clearly with my dogs. I don't need them to become different before I adore them. I want them there so I can love them.

In marriage, you can work through the thoughts that keep you from loving rather than treating your spouse as someone who has to perform correctly before you can feel love.

The story you tell about your partner creates your experience. Let their presence be an opportunity to practice loving deeply.

7. You create your experience

We describe a bad day or a terrible experience as if the circumstance delivered the feeling directly to us.

I remind myself that whatever happens in the circumstance line of the Model, I create my experience through my thinking.

My mind can make a situation worse, or I can choose thoughts that help me experience it differently. When I'm wrapped up in an interpretation, that reminder brings me back to the part I can manage.

Your thoughts create your feelings, which drive your actions and results. That is where this work begins.

8. Nothing is too good to be true

I put this sentence above my desk and looked at it every day.

I had imagined a life of helping people, reading self-help books, working from home, and building a successful business. Practicing this belief helped me stop treating a life I loved as something I wasn't allowed to have.

If you hear yourself saying something is too good to be true, question it. You don't have to limit your dream because it's wonderful.

9. The future is always better than the past

This thought can always be true because your future exists in your mind. You can imagine it better than your past.

Even if your past has been spectacular, you can imagine more growth, more depth, and more capacity. You can do it on the scale of your whole life or simply imagine tomorrow better than yesterday.

Not better because you'll finally be more worthy. Better because you're evolving and creating.

10. The worst that can happen is a feeling

This is one of the thoughts I return to when my brain offers anxiety or when I set a big goal.

I remind myself that I can experience emotion. I can walk toward it instead of organizing my life around avoiding it.

The willingness to feel keeps me growing. It helps me move through urges, other people's opinions, and the stories my mind tells about what might happen.

Choose a thought you want to practice. Explore why it could be true. Return to it each day until it becomes familiar.

Your brain already knows how to repeat thoughts. Now you can help it repeat thoughts that serve you.