Mind Over Fear: How To Squash Your Fears, Overcome Anxiety, and Boost Your Self-Esteem In Just 30 Days (6 page)

To determine how your brain is wired right now we are going to use global metaphors. They are the same as regular metaphors, but only on a larger scale. Specifically, we are looking for metaphors about life. For example, “Life is an open road,” or “Life is war,” or like the metaphor from the movie “Forest Gump,” “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.”

At this point, I would like you to come up with a few global metaphors on your own. Keep in mind that you must be one hundred percent honest with yourself, and don’t try to think of something that sounds good even though you don’t actually believe it. In fact, the first thing that instinctively comes out of your mouth is most likely how you see life around you. There is a good chance that you won’t like whatever comes out of your mouth first, and you may want to start rationalize it.
 
You might think that it makes no sense; therefore, it can’t be your metaphor about life, but you can’t run from the truth. Usually whatever will come out of your mouth first is exactly the way you naturally see the world around you on a subconscious level.
 

So remember, these metaphors shouldn’t be something cool that you heard somewhere else. You have to come up with something original that comes from you. Don’t over analyze it even if you don’t like it, or if you think that it doesn’t represent who you are. Also, be sure to write your metaphors down on paper.
 

Quick hint: To make this process easier, I suggest that you start your sentences in the following manner:
 

“Life is like…” or “Life is…”

Another great way to determine how your brain is currently wired is by exploring your beliefs about your identity. In other words, all you really have to do is answer the following two questions:

How do I see myself?

How do other people see me? (This has to be from your own point of view.)

Just like any building, your beliefs also have a structure, or a hierarchy. There is always a master belief that serves as the foundation for all other beliefs that you have. The closer the beliefs are to this foundation, the more important they are.

The previous exercises should help you shine some light on your current master beliefs. You might not be able to pinpoint exactly what these master beliefs are, but you should have a basic idea.

Although your master beliefs are never set in stone, they are usually pretty solid by the time you are in your teens. After the master beliefs are set, they determine the type of supporting (smaller) beliefs that will get attached to them. This is why your master beliefs will always have a huge impact on the quality of your life.
 

But there is a good side to this. Changing your disempowering master beliefs will start a chain reaction, perpetuating into a total transformation. A small change to your master beliefs will start changing your smaller disempowering beliefs that were clipped on to the old master beliefs. It’s a similar process to the way a virus spreads.

Before I reveal the kind of master beliefs that are needed in order to have total self-confidence, I would like to remind you of the following:
In general, people don’t like to change their beliefs.
Most people will do whatever it takes in order for them not to change their beliefs. It’s a form of subconscious defense mechanism that we all have. As soon as we feel that our beliefs are being challenged, we immediately try to come up with an excuse for why we are correct, and why we don’t need to change anything. Keep this in mind because it will be very beneficial to you later on.

All the self-confident people that I have ever studied have a master belief that says: “You must take full responsibility for everything that happens to you in life.” This belief allows them to take full control over how they feel and live. Remember, every action leads to a reaction. If you are always in control of your actions, you can control most of the reactions that will occur.
 

This belief is like an invisible, impenetrable shield that protects you from things that would normally have a negative influence on you from the outside world.
 

There is a great quote by Benjamin Disraeli, which says: “Man is not the creature of circumstances, circumstances are the creatures of men.” I believe this quote truly represents what I am trying to get across to you here.

Just imagine for a second that on a subconscious level you believed that you could do and achieve anything you want. Like an invisible shield was protecting you from any kind of physical or mental harm such as rejection, embarrassment, or failure. What would that feel like? Well, once you make this belief a part of your subconscious mind, you will have that confidence.

The next most important master belief is: “There is no such thing as scarcity or lack of something.” If you acknowledge that there is some kind of scarcity. If you feel like you will miss out on certain things, it will create fear. Therefore, your self-confidence will begin to dissipate.

If you have these two master beliefs compose the foundation of your belief hierarchy on a subconscious level, then you will never have paralyzing fear or anxiety again.

So far you have been exposed to two new master beliefs that will help you achieve a high level of self-confidence. At this point, these two master beliefs only exist in your conscious mind; therefore, they are nothing more than just two thoughts or ideas.
 

Now you must strive to make these two master beliefs a part of your subconscious mind. Let’s first explore what the conscious and the subconscious minds are.

The conscious mind is responsible for sensations, perceptions, memories, feelings, and fantasies inside your current awareness. The conscious mind is what allows you to rationalize things.

The subconscious mind serves as the storage for your conscious mind. It stores pictures, sounds, sensations, memories, and beliefs. Your subconscious mind serves as your autopilot.
 

If you want to make a belief a part of your subconscious mind, you must use the power of “Evidence Stacking.” Remember that a belief is a thought or an idea that you perceive to be true based on plenty of evidence.
 

Therefore, evidence stacking means that you must stack enough evidence to support a thought or an idea until it becomes a belief. On average, it takes approximately thirty days of consistent effort for the changes to take place. You will find a diagram and description of the entire thirty-day transformation process below.

The process of changing your beliefs is similar to that of a space shuttle taking off from the ground and making an attempt to reach the orbit. Whether you are trying to change your beliefs or habits, the first ten days are always the hardest. Using the space shuttle analogy, your first ten days are equivalent to the challenge of defying gravity for the shuttle. At this stage, it has to burn most of its fuel just to get off the ground.

The next stage is called “Resistance.” For you, this is another ten days. This is where things get a little bit easier, but it’s very important to stay committed because if you stop too early your brain will revert back to its original state. This phase can be very deceiving because you might start to feel like you are making great progress, but don’t forget that it is not automatic for you yet. Just imagine what would happen if the space shuttle would shut down its boosters before reaching the orbit. It would just fall back to the ground. The same applies to your brain.

The final stage is called “Acclamation.” This is where things become a lot easier. At this point the shuttle enters the orbit. This should be a fun stage for you because you will begin to notice yourself behaving very differently without much effort. It’s kind of like that first realization that you are tipsy after having a little bit to drink. Make sure that you don’t slack off now because it will play a huge role on how much you will transform.

There are two types of evidence stacking. They are: Internal and
 
external.

Internal evidence stacking means that you will look for evidence that supports the new master beliefs in your personal day-to-day experiences (past and present).

External evidence stacking means that you must look for evidence that will support the new master beliefs based on the experiences and results of other people. In other words, look for evidence in other people’s experiences. Specifically look for experiences that validate the two new master beliefs.

Once you finish reading this book you will be responsible for consciously seeking out evidence that will validate your new master beliefs on a daily basis. I want to remind you that the whole point of this process is to make yourself subconsciously believe that you are in full control of your life. The more you remind yourself of a thought or an idea on a conscious level, the sooner it will become subconscious.

Whatever is important to you and whatever you consciously decide to focus on, you will start seeing everywhere. At this point I am specifically referring to the fact that if you consciously decide to focus on finding evidence to backup your new master beliefs, you will find it.

The process of evidence stacking will require you to start a journal where you will record all the pieces of evidence that you will find, in great detail. You will do this for the purpose of using your five senses to relive these experiences every morning by reading through your evidence list.
 

If your feel a bit confused or overwhelmed at this point, don’t worry because I will Break it down into simple actionable steps in a second, but first let me give you a few examples of what evidence stacking is.

Remember, you are looking for evidence that will validate the following two master beliefs:
 

1. You are responsible for all the circumstances that occur in your life.

2. There is no such thing as scarcity and lack.

Evidence for these two beliefs could be anything from metaphors such as the ones that we have covered in the book so far; it could also be simple daily experiences and true success stories. Here’s one example of evidence that validates our two master beliefs and how I would describe it in my journal so that I could relive the idea every morning:

Note - my observation:
I was watching an Interview with Will Smith where he explained how most people live in a negative state, and how they will almost never tell you that you will succeed at something that they don’t believe they can do themselves. However, if we had always listened to people who told us that we couldn’t do something, we wouldn’t be living in the same world that we live in today. We live in a world with “impossible” things like electricity and airplanes. What also really resonated with me was that he said, “There is a certain delusional quality that all successful people have to have if they are going to be successful.”
 

Here’s the way I recorded this piece of evidence in my evidence-stacking journal:

Most people don’t know the true power of delusional people - Your best friend, and those closest to you might not know any better. This is why you must always believe in yourself before anyone else will believe in you.

Here are a few metaphors that I have written down in my journal that help validate my new master beliefs.

1. Life is a magic playground.
 

2. Life is a magic menu.

Practically any idea, story, thought, metaphor, concepts, circumstance, situation, personal experience, and the experiences of other people can be used for evidence stacking, as long as it proves the master beliefs to be true from your perspective. Keep in mind that there is almost no way that you could be wrong in stacking evidence as long as you follow these simple guidelines.
 

The following is a clear breakdown of what you will need to do:

1. Start a journal and write down all the evidence you find that supports our two new master beliefs.

Belief One:
You are responsible for all the circumstances that occur in your life.

Belief Two:
There is no such thing as scarcity and lack.

2. Reread the list of evidence on a daily basis; in the morning and at night. Make sure that you use all five senses to emotionally relive the excitement, and re-experience the realization of the truth that this piece of evidence holds.

If you are concerned about not having any evidence to start filling out your journal today, don’t forget that you can start out by reminding yourself of all the great information and tools that we have covered throughout this book. Repeating the tools and techniques that put you into position of power over your life will help you condition your subconscious mind. This is why I would like to encourage you to go through this book multiple times from beginning to end.

Harnessing the power of focus is arguably one of the most important things that you can learn to do. Amongst many things, the power of focus or concentration can start a fire. If you take a magnifying glass, and use it to focus the sun rays onto something like a piece of paper, you will get fire.