THE LAW OF BELIEF

A young man from a small town who graduated from high school with straight A’s. He then    applied to the state university for admission. As part of the admissions procedure, he had to take the Scholastic Aptitude Test, like all the applicants to universities nationwide. A few weeks later, he    received a letter from the admissions department informing him that he had scored in the 99th percentile on the test and he was accepted for the fall semester. He was happy to be accepted but there was one problem. He didn’t know about percentiles and he concluded mistakenly that the  99th percentile was his IQ score. He knew that the average IQ  is 100 and he felt he could never do university-level work with his “limited” intelligence.

                     For the entire fall semester he failed or nearly failed every course. Finally, his counselor called  him in and asked him why he was doing so poorly. “Well,” he said, “you can’t blame me.    I’ve only got a 99 IQ.” The counselor had the student’s file in front of him. “Why  do you say that?”    he    asked. “That’s what it said in my letter of  admission to the university,”    he replied. When the counselor realized what had happened he explained the difference between an IQ and a percentile.
                “A 99th percentile means that you scored equal to or higher than 99 percent of all the students in America who wrote this test. You’re one of the brightest kids on this campus.”
When the young man realized his error and changed his belief about his intelligence, he became a different person. He went back into his classes and went to work with  a new sense of competence    and confidence. By the end of the semester he was on the honor roll and he eventually graduated in the top ten of his class.
               This story holds a valuable lesson for you, as it did for me.We too easily accept that we are limited in some way. Then we ignore or reject any evidence that contradicts what we’ve already decided to believe.
               A teacher asked a young boy, “Can you play a musical instrument?”  “I don’t know,” he replied. “I haven’t tried yet.” In a way, you’re like that young boy. You don’t know either what you can really do. Don’t be so quick to sell yourself short. Refuse to accept limitations on your potential.You can probably do far more than you’ve ever done before. Most of your self-limiting beliefs are not true at all. They are based on negative information that you have taken in and accepted as true. Once you have accepted it as true, your belief makes it a fact for you.

As Henry Ford said,

“If you believe that  
 you can do a thing,   
 or if believe you cannot,
in either case, 
you are right.”