If you have spent any length of time studying Personal Development these days, you must have heard that what you think about is what you will bring about in your reality. If you focus consistently on what you want you will start to really Believe it. When you really Believe it, you will begin to take the appropriate action that will move you closer and closer to what you desire. We often hear that Seeing is Believing, but it's the reverse that is really true. It's called the Law of Attraction and was talked about in the movie 'The Secret.'

Our brains are a magnificent store house of every bit of information that we have ever learned or experienced. The way our brains learn something new is by repetition. If you want to learn the lyrics to a new song, you repeat it over and over until you have it. If you want to recite a favorite poem, you do the same. If you want to learn any new behavior, the more you repeat it, the faster you learn. So it makes sense that if you want to believe differently about yourself, you are going to have to teach your mind by repeating what you really want to believe.

That seems logical doesn't it? If you repeat something over and over, your subconscious mind will begin to get the message and agree with you, right? So we make up affirmations about what we want to believe. Affirmations, repeated as often as possible are the mainstay of most self help programs and THE method of choice to 'Fake it until you Make it', and keep a positive attitude, because you are essentially repeating over and over what you want to believe.

OK, that makes sense too. If we all keep repeating affirmations, we'll all be rich and happy, right? Sounds simple enough. So then.... Why aren't we all rich and happy? Because we DON'T KEEP DOING THEM!! At least not long enough for them to take effect. This happens to so many people. I think there are two reasons for this:

1. If we don't see instant results, we have a hard time actually believing what we are telling ourselves, so we give up in disgust, and

2. Sometimes things happen to upset our nicely laid out plans and if we don't have an anchor to grab, or a tool to help us stop the negative downward spiral, we let it overtake us and we give up, thinking 'this stuff doesn't work.'

Probably the main reason that we stop doing our affirmations, even though it makes sense that the repetition should work is because we are trying to change deeply rooted beliefs here - some we don't even know we have. It's not like changing your vacation destination. It has been shown that most of the beliefs that we hold about how we are were planted in our subconscious before we reached the age of 7. Now, if the belief was planted in there that you have to work hard and trade your time to make money, what do you think is going to happen when you affirm "Money flows to me easily?" Your subconscious is going to come back with "HELLO!! Have you checked what we BELIEVE lately?" If that's all you hear back, no wonder most people get give up long before they even crack the surface of their beliefs.

Now if you did keep on practicing diligently, you would eventually see a change, but since you belief filters won't allow you to change instantly, most people give up in frustration far too soon. But it's really not your fault, at least not your conscious mind's fault.

You see, we really are of two minds, our conscious mind and our subconscious mind. So what it comes down to is that your subconscious mind - the one that breathes for you and keeps your heart beating - has been running the show all of these years, and it likes you just the way you are, even if it is broke, sick and miserable. It's got being YOU down to a tee and doesn't take kindly to being told that it's doing it all wrong. It has you wrapped up in the shell of your ego - who you believe you are - and it will put up a royal stink if you try to change. So you say statements like "I am a millionaire" - and it comes back at you with "Yeah Right!" This belief filter, or 'Belief Detective', as it were, ironically really thinks it is helping and protecting you. If you can't get past that filter, then your affirmations are doomed to fail.

So, what you need to do is come up with some way of bypassing your ever present 'Belief Detective'. How do you do that? One way is to make your affirmations into a song. When we sing a song, our subconscious stops being on guard, it's just a song after all. It's called suspending your disbelief, much like you do when you see a movie (Like Never Never Land), and if you can do that, you are half way home. Plus, once you get a song stuck in your head, you usually sing it over and over again on autopilot and not get bored, all the while those affirmations are slipping right in past the guard Think about it and stay tuned for Part 2 where we will talk about how you can instantly change your negative attitude.