“If you are going to think anyway, why not think big?”

– Donald Trump, US Real Estate Billionaire

Isn’t it true that we are constantly thinking? Whether we want to or not, thoughts flow through our mind day and night. We are not in control of that but we are in control of which thoughts we allow into our mind.

You might say “But thoughts just happen. I am not in control of them.”

And you are right. Normally we are not in control of them BECAUSE we have that belief; the belief that they just happen. But that is not true.

Thoughts are created through our background, culture, past experiences and our interpretation of these experiences. This mix forms our beliefs. Most of these were created during early childhood and we are not even aware of them.

However, the consequence is that we are living by values and beliefs that served us as children but might not serve us anymore today.

Let me give you an example from my own life. Because we were very poor after we fled from Communist Germany, I had “Financial Security” as one of my top values. But I have been financially secure for many years now so whenever I made a chunk of money, I somehow lost it again. It was really frustrating until I realized that it happened because of my value about finances. I changed that to “Financial Freedom” and things started changing. My eyes were opened to false friends and I became much more careful and clear in my investment strategies.

Another example. In elementary school my niece was told (by a really incompetent teacher) that she would never be any good at math. She adopted that belief and even though she was brilliant in all other areas she disliked the subject of math and gave no time or attention to it which eventually really made her a bad math student.

What we believe is what we live. Our beliefs create our automated responses to certain situations in all areas of our lives. Changing our core values and beliefs can totally transform our life.