How to Build Belief with Evidence
You could build a house. If you had the right tools, the right help, the right attitude, and the right amount of resilience and patience, you could do it. It’s just a matter of using the tools, following the instructions and not giving up when it gets uncomfortable.
You can also build beliefs. With the right tools, instruction and attitude, you can build your own belief in you, your worth, and your potential. Then you can use the same tools in different ways and build the belief of people at work, at home, and everywhere you go.
The ability to build beliefs is a skill you can learn. But no one has ever taught you to do it. No one has given you the tools or the instructions. There is a Blueprint for Building Beliefs. I have it. When you have it, you can change your life.
Your beliefs create your reality. When you change your beliefs, you change your life.
If you believe that you’ll never make more than six figures, you’re unlikely to break that ceiling. But if suddenly, your belief changes, and you see that you can make more money, it is far more likely to happen. If you believe you will never be healthier than you are today, chances are you won’t get much healthier. But if you believe that you could run farther, sleep better, lose weight or get healthier, you’re much more likely to achieve that result.
Over twenty-five years ago I lost 100 pounds. Before I lost it, I didn’t believe it was possible. However, I did believe I could lose ten pounds. So I did. And then I believed I could lose ten more. Once I’d lost 50 pounds I certainly believed I could lose 50 pounds. With the right tools, instruction, and attitude, I lost 100 pounds and have kept it off for over twenty years. My ability to build my belief changed my life.
The same is true in relationships. If you believe you’re never going to find someone, chances are you won’t. If you believe that you’ll find the love of your life, chances are you will. You change your results when you change your beliefs. The power and the ability to change your beliefs and then to change other people’s beliefs is really and truly a power. It’s magic. When you learn it, you have the power and you are the magic.
How do you build the belief? Consider the things you believe. When your alarm goes off in the morning, you believe that it is set to the right time and that it’s actually time to get up. You go to brush your teeth and you believe the toothpaste is going to make your mouth healthier and not less healthy. You drive to work and believe your car is going to get you there. At work, you believe your boss is going to pay you for being there. On the way home, you listen to the radio. And when you turn it on, you believe that you’re actually going to hear something, whether it’s a podcast or music. You make dinner and you believe that the food isn’t going to make you sick. When you go to bed that night, you believe that the alarm you set will wake you up the next morning. You have so many beliefs.
Our lives are completely based on our beliefs. And if we’re going to believe in alarm clocks, toothpaste and cars, bosses, food and radios, why not believe in ourselves?
How did we establish all those beliefs that we just talked about? Well, there were a couple of things that happened. First, there was someone who told you a story about alarm clocks, toothpaste or bosses, or food. You heard a story. Then you collected evidence. They shared some evidence that they had always used an alarm clock and it had gotten them up in the morning. With toothpaste, you might have heard in a TV commercial two out of three dentists recommend this toothpaste. That’s evidence that you’ve been collecting throughout your life. But then, most importantly, you created evidence for yourself. So you tried the alarm clock and it worked. You tried the toothpaste and it worked. Your boss paid you for the work you did. You made the food and you saw that most of the time, it didn’t make you sick. You created evidence for yourself, that proves to you that it actually works for you. Then you repeated it. And the more that you repeated it, the greater the belief became.
Stories, evidence, repetition and the energy of belief. These are the tools you used to build belief in alarm clocks and toothpaste. They’re the same tools you’ll use to build a belief in yourself and then share that belief with other people.
What do you want to believe? What belief might change your life? Recently I believed that I could completely change my identity. I had been an attorney for twenty years and I wanted to let go of that identity and start being an author and a speaker. The belief that I could change my identity scared me. And it was very out of my reach at first. But I began with the blueprint. I started collecting evidence, creating evidence, and repeating evidence. I started to intentionally bring the energy of belief. Most days, I believe that I am here to spend the next 30 years sharing the Blueprint for Beliefs with as many people as possible.
The 3 main tools we use to build beliefs are energy, evidence, and empathy. We’re focused on evidence here. Evidence is anything that you use to prove something. Facts, stories, feelings, thoughts, actions, and words are all evidence. And each story, feeling, thought or action could be evidence of a host of things. Take the action of getting up at 4am. That could be evidence that I’m determined to meditate every day. It could be evidence that I have an early flight. It could be evidence that I’m a morning person. Every action can serve as evidence of many different things, and with practice, you can learn how to use actions as evidence to help you and others believe.
It’s helpful to start with what you want to believe, or what you want others to believe, and work backward. You can ask yourself “What action would be evidence that that thing is true? What feeling would be evidence that that thing is true? What result would be evidence that that thing is true?” You learn to play with facts, actions, feelings, and results so that you can turn them into evidence.
Here’s a fun secret – you are evidence for others. When you eat well and work to stay healthy, you are serving as evidence for your children that it’s good to eat well. When you are kind to your partner, you’re evidence to your partner that kindness is a priority. When you’re good to your staff, and include them and decisions and information and are authentic and transparent with them, you are evidence of what a good leader and a good team member do.
Your vibration is a very strong piece of evidence. I often say “Your vibration is the foundation” of the blueprint for building beliefs. Your vibration is the foundation of their belief. When people see you vibrating at a frequency of love, joy excitement or enthusiasm, that is evidence to them, that they could feel love and joy and enthusiasm and excitement for the thing that you are vibrating about. And if you’re vibrating with frustration, resentment, fear, anxiety, or scarcity, that is evidence for them, that they might need to be vibrating at that same frequency. When you’re trying to build other people’s beliefs and trying to be evidence to them of the things that you want them to believe, you must be really clear on your own vibration. I want my vibration to be evidence for others.
My life’s mission is to be evidence of what could be. I want to be evidence of what could be when you leave a career that you have spent your entire life building to start a completely new career when you’re 50 years old. I want to be evidence that you could build a huge career in your 50s from scratch with no real knowledge of entrepreneurship.
In the past, I wanted to be evidence that you could lose 100 pounds and keep it off. I want to be that evidence for someone who thinks that’s impossible. I wanted to be evidence that it could be that as a woman you can dominate a field like trial law, where there aren’t many very successful women. I wanted to be evidence for young lawyers of that.
I recently talked with a woman who had seen me speak to her law school class years ago. At the end of our call, she told me she’d reached out to many women for advice and I was the only one who responded. I’m so glad I was evidence for her that reaching out is worth it.. I want to be evidence that people who you think are too busy for you aren’t always too busy. I want to be evidence that women want to help women.
Start considering what you want to be evidence of, for your friends, family, colleagues, mentors, and mentees.
But remember that when others look to you for evidence, or you look to others for evidence, that’s collecting evidence. And it’s usually not enough. Usually you have to create evidence as well. There’s a huge difference between the two.
In the book The Garden Within by Dr Anita Phillips, she makes a distinction between hope and faith that I’ve expanded on. Faith is believing something is possible. Hope is believing it is possible for me. When you collect evidence, you build the belief that something is possible. When you create it, you build the belief that it’s possible for YOU.
Creating evidence is harder and riskier, but the return is so much better. You can collect evidence that it’s possible to lose 100 pounds by looking to me and others who have done it. But to create evidence that it’s possible for you, you have to begin. You have to try, fail, and try again. It’s much more uncomfortable. But if you want to build beliefs, it is your greatest tool.
When you know how to build beliefs, you can build your own. Then you have the energy, evidence, and empathy to build others’. You’ll know what you want because you believe in your discernment. You can ask for it, out loud and with delight because you believe in your worth and your resilience. And you can master the art of the ask because you know how to build beliefs. You’ll ask for what you want and get it, time and time again.
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