What have you been programmed to believe? Throughout your life, you have been programmed by your parents, your friends, your siblings, and yourself. Programming occurs as a result of repeated actions or messages. This programming creates your beliefs, your beliefs guide your actions, and your actions create your reality.

Positive programming results in optimistic beliefs and gratifying realities. For instance, if you were programmed, when you were six years old, to think the tooth fairy would give you a quarter for your tooth, you probably believed it. The result of this belief was most likely a gratifying experience. You were programmed by your parents, friends, or siblings to think there was a tooth fairy and you believed it. This belief guided your actions and you put your tooth under the pillow. This action created the gratifying reality, (i.e., you got your quarter!)

Unfortunately, not all programming results in beliefs as benevolent as the tooth fairy. Negative programming results in detrimental beliefs and disappointing realities. If you were programmed by your parents, friends, or siblings to think it is too risky to start your own business, you probably believe it. This belief guides your actions and you stay at your job. This action creates your disappointing reality, (i.e., you get a limited paycheck and give half of it to Uncle Sam.)

You’ve probably received a lot more negative programming than positive in your lifetime. You may have been told you weren’t very good at something, or you’d never make a living if you chose a certain career path, or you’d never get a good job if you didn’t go to college, or you’d poke your eye out if you ran with a stick. In addition, as if all that wasn’t enough, you managed to impose your own self-limiting beliefs as well. You may have taken on the belief that you’re too fat, too tall, too dumb, too skinny, too uneducated, or too lazy to pursue and accomplish your dreams.

Beliefs are such an important factor of success that you must learn to get rid of the negative, self-limiting ones and create positive, self-enabling beliefs. If programming creates your beliefs, and your beliefs guide your actions, and your actions create your reality, wouldn’t it make sense to get rid of the negative programming?

So, what have you been programmed to believe? If you are letting negative programming create your reality, you must learn to rewrite the program!