Don't Stop Believing

1981 was the year that Ronald Reagan became the 40th president of the United States of America, Prince Charles married Diana Spencer at St Paul's Cathedral, the first ever London Marathon took place, Space Shuttle Columbia was launched on its maiden voyage, Pope John Paul the 2nd was shot and wounded in the Vatican City, Bob Marley passed away from melanoma, and Muhammad Ali took on his final fight, losing to Trevor Berbick. It's staggering to think this all took place now 40 years ago. It was also the year that the American rock band "Journey", headed by Steve Perry at the time, released their hit song "Don't Stop Believing", which climbed up to as high as number 9 on the Billboard Hot 100 charts in the US. 40 years on from its release, and the song has gone on to achieve a Grammy Hall of Fame Award. Although there are some different opinions around the meaning behind the lyrics to the song, in summary, they actually refer to the fact that we live in a big world, and despite the times of loneliness we can experience at stages throughout our life, there is someone actually out there for us, who is our true love, and we shouldn't stop believing in that. Is it believable that our life partner is actually out there, waiting for us to discover them? Does that person to whom we are completely compatible with, exist? It all comes back to our individual belief, doesn't it? Personally, I think it is believable that our life partner indeed exists, and is out there somewhere for us, waiting for us to discover them. Whether we discover them or not is yet to be determined.

As it is, I think the word "belief" itself is a powerful positive emotion. The word itself resounds with immense positivity, because it's a characteristic based on trust, confidence, and faith. It's the acceptance that something exists, or is true, even though there is no proof or guarantee. With Journey's song, that belief is about finding that someone who is right for us, someone who is special, someone who we would love wholeheartedly and receive that same love from them in return, and someone who is indeed compatible with us. When we are starved of love, when we have had our heart broken time and again, when we constantly are rejected, and when we continually have relationship breakdowns, it's easy to become disconsolate, doubtful, and distrustful in finding that soul mate we are longing for, or even in just finding love at all again. Love is a funny thing though. Even despite how often and how badly that love hurts us, for most of us, we are gluttons for punishment, and we go back for more. We do so because love is the most powerful emotion of them all. We may know how painful it is for love to be stripped away from us, but despite that, we also know how amazing that love can be also, and we yearn for it. Love is the perfect example of what we place our faith in, as many of us do believe that true love is indeed out there for us, proven by the fact that we go from one relationship to another, even despite the number of times we say we have had enough. We believe in true and everlasting love, even though we have never experienced it for ourselves. It's having that faith and trust in something, even though it's not guaranteed for us. It's the belief of success despite the number of previous failures. We don't stop believing that we will find our true love, our soul mate. Even when we stop looking for it, love has that ability to find its way to us, and all of a sudden, someone special walks into our life. Because that feeling of love makes us feel so warm, happy, and satisfied, we quite often give into it again.

It's interesting that so many of us believe in true and everlasting love, even though we've never experienced it for ourselves, plus the fact we continually get hurt by it, but we never give up on it. No matter the previous failures, breakdowns, heartaches, conflicts, and emotional pain, we still believe in it, and we have that trust and faith in that it will come to fruition in our life. Why can't we apply this perseverance, determination, and belief to other areas of our life? Love brings happiness, absolutely it does, but there are also many other characteristics, behaviors, and emotions that can bring about the same result. One area in which so many people place their trust and faith in, to bring them happiness in life, is money. As a result, they spend their life chasing it. Money is what triggers selfishness, selfishness leads to greed, and it's greed that leads to destruction. We believe that money will make us happy, and therefore we chase after it, when all along, happiness and fulfillment is found in the opposite direction. It's in the act of giving, in being generous, supportive, kind, caring, and compassionate to others, where happiness and fulfillment are found. To be contributing to uplifting and positively changing people's lives, that's what brings about happiness. As powerful and positive as the characteristic of belief may be, it can also highlight that when we believe in the wrong things, such as money, we can be led down a destructive path. Belief needs to be positive, it needs to be motivating, it needs to be inspiring.

One of the biggest things in life that we need to believe in, is ourselves. Too many of us underestimate the potential that lies within ourselves. We turn our back on some wonderful opportunities, all because we don't believe we have adequate knowledge, or we don't believe we have the skill, or we don't believe we have the talent, or we don't believe we can succeed, or we don't believe we have the patience, or we don't believe we have the courage, and so on. We have all these self-doubts about our abilities, so much so, that we often don't even give things a try. How do we know what we can achieve if we don't try? Even in trying, just because we fail at it once, twice, ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times even, it doesn't mean we still cannot succeed in what we are pursuing. We can truly amaze ourselves in achieving some of the things that we initially believed we were never capable of achieving. We have so much potential and talent within us, but it remains dormant because we don't allow ourselves to showcase it. We don't step out of our comfort zone and place ourselves in situations where we are forced to act, forced to survive, and forced to fight for something we so desperately want, so we can unleash that potential. We are constantly playing it safe. When I think about believing, I also think about goals. Talking of stepping out of our comfort zone, taking risks, and fighting for something we desperately want, they are exactly what is needed when it comes to pursuing our goals, especially the life transforming ones.

I talked above of our lack of self-belief and doubt around our abilities, but fear also plays a huge role in preventing people from achieving their goals. The fear of failure, fear of financial loss, fear of embarrassment, fear of judgement by others, fear of criticism, and fear of ineptitude. Here we have these wonderful goals in front of us, that we are longing to achieve, and we know will enhance our life, and bring us great joy, satisfaction, and happiness, and yet we allow either our fears or our doubts to prevent us from achieving them. How can we expect to achieve something if we don't even believe we can achieve it anyway, or believe in our ability to achieve it? That's the difference right there. We can either allow the positive thoughts of belief, trust, confidence, and faith, to dominate our mindset and help guide us to success, happiness, and accomplishment, or we can allow the negative thoughts of fear, doubt, and uncertainty, to deny us from achieving these same rewards. It's all about belief. Belief needs to be enduring however. It's easy to have that acceptance in believing that something exists, or is true, even without proof or guarantee, especially at the beginning, but when certain events and circumstances happen, belief can easily be overtaken by the destructive emotions of fear and doubt once again. When we have that one life changing goal that we are so desperate to achieve, first thing is first, we need to believe that goal is actually achievable. If we don't believe in the goal itself, we instantly dismiss any chance we can achieve it. Secondly, we need to believe in ourselves. We do indeed have the potential, the talent, the skill, the knowledge, and the capability, to achieve anything we set our mind to achieve. It's as simple as that. You are an individual with amazing potential and talent, it's about time you started to acknowledge that! Believe in your goal, believe in your dreams, believe in your abilities, believe in your potential, and believe in success. What you believe, you can achieve! Throughout that journey to your goals though, don't stop believing!

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