The Thirty Day Year

The Achievers-Part 5–Open The Success Floodgates by Tapping Into Your Burning Desires and Beliefs

photo credit: ewedistrict

Ed. Note: This is Part 5 in the series The Achievers, in which some pf the best writers on the web answer the question; What has made the biggest difference/had the most positive impact, in your life?

This week’s post is by Aaron Potts. Aaron writes about personal development, health, and fitness for his websites, Today Is That Day, and Fitness Destinations. He is a health and fitness coach, and is the founder of the Personal Development Partners social networking website. Aaron’s motto is ‘Create Life in YOUR Image’ and he spends most of his time teaching people how to do exactly that.

Open the Success Floodgates by Tapping Into Your Burning Desires and Beliefs

In the book Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill states that the single biggest key to achieving all that you desire in life is to first identify that desire. It seems like a simple enough thing to do, yet many people struggle with it for their entire lives, never completely tapping into their true, raw power by using their burning desires as fuel for their success.
At the same time, however, even a burning desire is a flame that can be snuffed out if it is not also backed by an iron-clad belief that it is possible to attain whatever it is that we desire. Our actions are fueled by not only our desires, but our belief that - some how or some way - those desires will come to fruition in our lives.
Although Napoleon Hill was 100% correct that desire is the first and most important key to success, without an iron-clad belief backing up those desires, our own doubts will often keep us from ever seeing those desires actually turned into reality.

Desire

There are many reasons why people struggle with determining what their burning desires are, and more often than not, the struggle itself is grounded in inconsequential beliefs or facts:
  My desire does not serve others
  It is wrong to desire extreme wealth
  I don’t have the skills to attain my desires
  I am not educated enough to live my dream lifestyle
  I was not raised in an environment that taught me to be successful
  It is too late to get involved in the business that I want to be in
  I am too old to start the type of project that would bring my desires to me
  I don’t have enough money to finance my dream ventures
Those are just a few examples, and you can probably think of many similar thought processes that you have experienced yourself. The popular name for these road blocks is “self-limiting beliefs“. In other words, as the name implies, these beliefs are given life by the people who hold onto them, rather than by the actual circumstances.
In truth, with the exception of something that is physically impossible (by today’s understanding of that term), there is nothing that can’t be done if enough time, effort, and mental activity go into finding a way to make it happen.
In order to find your burning desire - one of the two keys to success - you must let go of these self-limiting beliefs and truly ask yourself what it is that you want to accomplish. Do not limit yourself by what you presently believe is possible, or by what you think your friends, family, co-workers, or the world in general thinks is appropriate.
Burning desires are not born of other people’s beliefs. They belong 100% to you, and you are the only person who can truly know what your burning desires are.
To use myself as an example, I struggled with this for a long time until I came to terms with the truth. I had to learn how to tell the difference between the “how’s” of attaining my burning desire, and the desire itself. A “how” is just a task, such as creating revenue. A “how” is merely a stepping stone, while the burning desire itself is what you are stepping towards. That is an important distinction that you would do well to remember.
What I truly want to be able to do in the world is to travel, experience all that the world has to offer on a global scale, and to frequently spend time with my friends and family. In addition, I want to do all of that without financial or time limitations of any kind. In short, I want to adventure.
It’s a pretty tall order - especially the time and financial freedom bit - but one that I have every belief that I will attain. Without the belief, those desires would never come about.

Belief

The belief that it is possible for you to attain your burning desires is a critical part of you doing so. No matter how much you want something, if you don’t truly believe that you’ll get it, then you will taint your own efforts at attaining it. 
The example that Napoleon Hill uses in Think and Grow Rich is of a man whose burning desire was to go into business with Thomas Edison.
photo credit: judy_breck

The man, Edwin C. Barnes, believed with his entire being that he would someday be a business partner with Mr. Edison. He was not even willing to accept employment with Mr. Edison - he would not stop until they were partners.
Mr. Barnes had no reason to believe that Thomas Edison wanted to partner with him. Barnes did not have the skills, the experience, or the business acumen to work with someone like Edison. However, he believed in his heart that - some how or some way - he would find or create an opportunity to be a partner with Thomas Edison.
You can read the book for the entire story, but I’ll give away the end of that chapter. Barnes ended up distributing an invention that Edison had created, and at the time of the original printing of Think and Grow Rich, that partnership had been in place for more than 30 years, and Edwin Barnes had become rich as a result.
Note the important parts of this story:
  Barnes had a burning desire to go into business with Edison
  Barnes believed that he would find or create a way into a partnership with Edison
Other success factors such as patience, perseverance, observation, etc., all played a role as well, but without the belief that he would someday be successful, Barnes would have jumped ship long before his partnership with Edison ever came about.
In today’s world, belief is - unfortunately - in fairly short supply, and the landscape of our world is changing rapidly on every conceivable level. Inasmuch as those changes create unlimited opportunities, they also create an unlimited amount of doubt. The less “proven” something is, the less belief we have that it can be used for our own success. However, that again is nothing more than a self-limiting belief.
The belief part of the success equation cannot be taught, however, no more so than it is possible for one person to tell another person what their burning desires should be. It is up to each person to find their own ways to instill an unyielding sense of belief in their ability to attain their most fervent desires. Belief can be born of sheer will, however, so keep that in mind.

Conclusion

Make note of the fact that the two crucial success factors discussed here were desire and belief. There was no mention of:
  Education
  Experience
  Opportunity
  Upbringing
None of those things matter.
Is it possible that some of those factors could be a part of your success story? Sure it is. However, you could have none of those things, and still be wildly successful.
Find your true burning desires, and back them up with an iron-clad belief that - some how or some way - you will attain those desires, and that is exactly what you will do. I guarantee it.