Is their assessment of reality any more valid than yours? If so, why?

Do you find these beliefs useful? If so, in what ways?

Do you find them limiting? If so, in what ways?

If you could identify and change the experience that created the belief, how would you change it?

What would stop you from changing it?

For the following questions you can substitute the words "is true" for the words "do you believe."

What do you believe about competition?

What do you believe about taking money from other people as a result of your superior trading skills?

What do you believe about losses?

What do you believe about other peoples opinions?

When are they valid? When arent they valid?

What do you believe about being wrong?

By answering these questions, you will begin to gain a sense of your own particular behavior and the range of choices you allow for yourself, or do not allow for yourself, as a result of your beliefs.

Sometimes it is easier to identify a belief by trying to notice what you specifically believe is not true. You could also look at your beliefs as if they belonged to someone else. If they did belong to someone else, think of an experience in which this other person responded to certain life situations in very typical ways (because of your beliefs). Then think of ways he or she could respond if he or she had different beliefs

When you discover some beliefs that arent particularly useful or are inconsistent with your goals, then use an affirmation or collapsing technique to decharge the energy out of it.

mental conflict between the validity of one belief expressing itself only at the direct expense of another belief.

What are some examples of conflicting or contradictory beliefs? I have to win./I may be undeserving. I am a winner./I am a loser.

I am successful./Ive missed my chance to be successful. I deserve more./I am guilty.

I am a perfectionist./I believe humans are inherently imperfect.

I am trusting./I am untrustworthy or people are generally untrustworthy.

1 believe there is no middle ground of satisfaction between winning and failure./I am pleased with myself and my progress.

1 am honest./I am dishonest or people are generally dishonest.

I believe working is the honest way of making money./I believe trading is easy money, not work.

Asking Yourself Questions

Here are some questions you can ask yourself that will help you to identify some beliefs that may argue against your giving yourself more money.

What do you believe about guilt? How do you know when to feel guilty?

Under what conditions would you not feel guilty, even if someone else wanted you to?

Is it possible to transfer those same standards to areas where you would feel guilty?

What would stop you?

Who or what out of your past says it is wrong and you cant do that?

Building a for Understanding Ourselves

WRITING AS A TECHNIQUE TO EFFECT CHANGE

Every movement we make alters the physical landscape in some way. The more dramatic or expressive our movements, the greater the alterations. By the same token, every thought alters the mental landscape in some way. The more expressive our thoughts, in other words, the more energy we generate in our willingness to think, the greater the potential to effect some change. The change comes from what we are willing to think. Wanting to direct your conscious thought process toward a specific intent is what effects this change. I have found writing is one of the most powerful tools available to focus my thinking and effect some change I desire.

When we write it is a physicalized version of what is going on inside of our mental environment. Your willingness to write about certain issues directs your attention and gives the rest of the parts of your mental environment instructions. What flows up or out of your consciousness is what is there. Once you find out what is there, you can then direct any changes by writing back instructions into the mental environment. This can be a very powerful technique, depending on how much power you put into it.

If I were to do a schematic of the process it would look something like this:

Consciousness-* to-* Mental environment (instructions

for certain information).

The information flows to consciousness (maybe not right away). Consciousness physicalizes the information by writing it; this makes it real and tangible. Consciousness becomes aware of the information (self-discovery). Consciousness makes the connections between the nature of the information and the life conditions one has been experiencing. Consciousness assesses the current structure of the mental environment for its usefulness. Consciousness wants to create new conditions. Consciousness asks, "What beliefs do I need as resources to be more effective or create the conditions I desire?" This is the beauty and essence of the creative process-to ask yourself a question and wait for the answer to pop into your consciousness or allow yourself to be directed to the answer. Consciousness

hntoue for Effecting Change

will know when it has found the most appropriate answer because it will ring true in your mind or you will feel the truth of it in your body. Consciousness then formulates these new awarenesses into instructions for change. Then consciousness writes these changes back into the mental environment, giving yourself instructions to accept these new awarenesses as truth. The act of writing forces us to focus our thoughts in a manner that is consistent with what we want to create, and those thoughts alter the mental landscape.

AN EXERCISE TO DEVELOP SELF-DISCIPLINE

Self-discipline is a word used to describe a process of learning how to take conscious control of your actions. It is not a personality trait or something you are born with. It is a specific thought methodology, a mental resource, that allows you to change a belief or belief system when it is in conflict with some goal or objective. Self-discipline is a more direct method of effecting some change because you would be purposefully acting in a manner that is in direct conflict with whatever you want to change.

So I would define self-discipline as willfully behaving outside of the boundaries of some belief (dealing with the emotional discomfort your actions will produce) to accomplish a certain goal or task that is inconsistent with that belief. If you work outside of that belief long enough, it will eventually de-energize. The rate at which the underlying belief will de-energize is really not a function of time but rather intensitv. In other words, the greater the intensity of our willingness and resolve, the faster the conflicting belief will lose its power.

For example, lets say you want to quit smoking or lose weight. These are conscious goals. Your beliefs (at least some of them) will be in conflict with these goals. The belief system supporting the smoker definition will probably have a great deal of power in your mental system. You can gauge the power of these beliefs or any beliefs by paying attention to how much discomfort and resistance you feel when you attempt to act (a conscious decision) in a way that is inconsistent with them. It is very difficult thing to do. Its as if beliefs take on a life of their own and demand expression both in our thoughts and behavior.

You can change these or any other definitions of* yourself. However, you must first identify them and then determine how useful they are in helping you get what you want. You could ask yourself, "Is this belief a resource or obstacle to the successful fulfillment of my goal?" One way you can change these definitions is to build a mental resource for the sole purpose of changing beliefs that are not useful. I am going to call this mental resource "self-discipline."

Here is an exercise that will help you learn specifically how to develop and use self-discipline in your life. The purpose of this exercise is to help you learn how to use your mind in different ways. Youll be training your mind to stay positively focused on what you consciously want. You will also learn how to gauge internal resistance from belief systems, and how to build mental resources for taking conscious control of your life.

1. Make a list of several things you dislike doing, feel you cant do, or would like to stop doing or some things you have never done before and think you might enjoy. You could start a jogging or exercise program or take out the garbage on a regular basis, for example.

2. Once you have your list, look it over and pick a task that has a very low priority in your life or one of the least important items.

3. Next, tell yourself in the most positive way that doing this new task you have consciously decided upon is something you now want in your life. Dont say you are going to try and do it. A commitment to try to fulfill a goal is not strong enough.

4. Set up a rigid schedule for yourself to accomplish this new goal.

5. With each attempt to adhere to your schedule, keep track of your thought process or stream of thoughts by writing them down. At this point you might be saying to yourself, "How do I keep track of my thought process?"

In the physical environment we are constantly being bombarded with all sorts of information competing for our attention. We are aware of many things going on around us simultaneously. In effect our consciousness is split in many different directions at the same

moment. Use a part of your consciousness to pay attention to what is going on inside of your head. You will be using a part of yourself to monitor your stream of thoughts as if they didnt belong to you. If you can temporarily act as if you were monitoring someone elses stream of thoughts, it may be much easier to gather the information you need to make this exercise meaningful.

6. As you attempt to adhere to your schedule, do you find yourself experiencing resistance, excuses, or rationalizations? If so, notice how these thoughts divert your conscious attention away from your goal. This is a classic example of a conflict between the conscious goal you have set for yourself and your belief system that doesnt have a belief or definition that corresponds with what you consciously want to do.

7- At this point you need to redirect your attention to the task you have chosen for yourself. What is most important is that you understand the necessity of directing as much energy toward the fulfillment of your goal as possible. You w4ll have to generate more power toward keeping your attention focused on your goal than the amount of energy being directed through the beliefs that distract your attention away from your goal.

However, there is one aspect to this exercise I must caution you about. Redirecting your attention away from what distracts you to what you consciously want, does not mean that you suppress or deny what may be distracting you. Acceptance and acknowledgment of what exists within you will allow you to work with it. Suppression and denial require a lot of energy; this has the effect of supporting the beliefs you are trying to suppress. Be gentle with yourself.

Each time you set out to accomplish your task, and do so, you create a resource that helps you do it again. Each success will draw some energy away from the beliefs that acted as obstacles. With each success you will also be allocating energy to the new definition of yourself. This new definition allows you to start the task each time with greater and greater ease until the definition becomes a fundamental part of your mental system. When that happens, your actions concerning this task will seem automatic.