Henry David Thoreau sadly told us, “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to their graves with the song still in them.”

Why is this? Why is it that so many of us go through life unfulfilled because of our own self-imposed limitations?

And some of us do achieve fulfillment but only by convincing ourselves that it is necessary to lower the bar of expectations in order to do so. Why?

What is it that resides deep within so many of us that prevents us from becoming who and what we really want to be?

Many times over the past few years we have discussed the reason behind these questions. We have talked frequently about how everything we believe to be true is true and this includes every limiting belief that we have not only imposed upon ourselves but have embedded deeply into the core of our own DNA thanks to unrelenting repetition over many years.

My work life has been blessed by providing me the opportunity – many opportunities – to witness the near miraculous changes that occur in people who are successfully able to take those limiting things that they believe to be true of themselves and change them.

A fascinating thing happens when we change what we believe to be true. The moment this occurs everything changes and as those “everything’s” change our new beliefs become strengthened – emboldened by the conviction brought about through repeated experience of victorious moments.

And yet so many of us pay only lip service to changing our beliefs or, at best, make only feeble, half-hearted attempts before giving up and reverting to those deeply held beliefs that we will not let go of.

And even more sadly, for so many people, after repeated failures to permanently install new changes in themselves they simply quit trying.

And the reason they quit trying is because those repeated failures have in fact brought about a huge success.

They have successfully installed a deeply held new belief: the belief that having failed so many times, it is pointless to try again, it is hopeless.

Learned helplessness is a belief brought about by the failure to install new beliefs – ironic isn’t it that in our failed attempts to bring about positive change we successfully are able to bring about a powerful change that will keep us imprisoned under that governance of those very beliefs we were trying to dissolve.

There are powerful and effective ways of embedding and solidifying new beliefs into our very core. To do so always requires effort and hard work and many of us give up before success reaches us, forgetting how hard we worked earlier on in our lives to install those very beliefs we are today trying to change.

And each time we give up we revert to working hard at strengthening those very beliefs we were trying to change.

Strange, isn’t it?

I cannot describe the remarkable sense of freedom that I witness when in the presence of those clients of mine who set out on a course of change, never break their own commitments to themselves and stay the course until they reach the success they set out to achieve.

There is a question each one learns to ask of themselves at those times when the strong, almost overwhelming, temptation to revert to their old ways presents itself. The question is, “Am I worth it?

Everyone who has successfully brought about massive change in their lives has tackled that question head-on repeatedly and each and every time the answer has been a resounding YES.

I has to be.

 Gimalle, my wife, tells me that several years ago L’Oreal had the tag line, “Because I’m worth it.”

 So, are you?

 And if not you, who?

 Till we read again.

P.S. My book Life Sinks or Soars – the Choice is Yours has its very own website. Please visit us at www.lifesinksorsoars.com  and let me know what you think.

My company, Strategic Pathways, recently introduced our newest Personal Coaching experience called Set Free the Champion Inside. Please click here and take a peek at our Ebrochure