You May Be Planning To Fail!
Based on the book, Why Not You?

By Mary Blakely

“My financial situation has totally bottomed-out and I'm considering filing for bankruptcy.”

“I'm so desperate that I 've even had suicidal thoughts.”
”Nothing I do seems to go right. "

“How can I stop the nightmare?"

Statements such as these are uttered by many of my clients whom I coach through what I refer to as their "learning opportunities" or
"growth spurts" of life. As a learning and behavioral specialist, hypnotherapist, and stress counselor, I help people understand why
they do what they do and assist them in the process of taking charge of their lives. Most of the clients I coach are intelligent people with strong desires to succeed. Since I am not a financial advisor, I don't offer advice on how to balance their budgets or where to invest their money. I simply serve as a guide to help people align with their authentic self.

Each client comes to me with a “game plan” that he or she may not be consciously aware of as they go through life.. This plan involves the rules and regulations they learned to believe in as a child in order to survive emotionally and physically. Because these beliefs have been a part of their thought processes for such a long time, people often become attached to them. They use these rules to form their opinions about themselves and the world around them. These rules , govern the choices they make and determine their life experiences. Thus, the belief systems people construct in their childhood can ultimately shape and control the course of their lives.

We all buy into many beliefs without even knowing it. In order to demonstrate this fact, I always start off asking any audience to,
"Raise your hand if you can sing?" Out of an audience of sixty, I usually see only five to eight hands raised. What about the rest of the audience? Why aren’t they raising their hands? They all have vocal chords and can sing. However, most of them are
afraid to participate due to their belief that they are not good singers. At some point in their lives they bought into believing that they can't sing - - at least not well enough to say they can sing in front of other people. Perhaps, their brother or sister teased them when they sang in the car, or maybe, as was my case, their choir director told them how much he missed their "face" after telling another student how much he missed their voice after an absence. Whatever the reason for them not raising their hands, the belief, I can't sing well, had the following rules and regulations in the game plan for their survival:

I am not a good enough singer to sing in front of people and I will make a fool of myself if I do. Therefore, I do not sing alone in front of anyone. If I do not raise my hand, I will not have to sing and I will be safe.

Just imagine how many unconscious beliefs we all have inside us that dictate our life experiences. Behind every experience is a belief. For example, let’s look at Joe and Jill. Joe is always struggling with his finances. Joe believes what his parents always told him, "money doesn't grow on trees". He believes that he will never have enough money. Until he changes that belief, he will repeatedly experience not having enough. Jill never seems to do well even though she tries very hard. Jill grew up believing that no matter what she did, it was never good enough. Because of her belief, she creates experiences where she is always less than enough.

Whatever we believe - whether it is a positive or negative based belief, we will continue to feed that belief with our experiences. We always feed our beliefs and we always gain from the satisfaction of feeding a belief. Have you ever heard someone say," See, I told you I couldn't do it." That person is pointing out to everyone how strong his/her belief is by reminding you that he/she even predicted the negative outcome correctly.

It is my passion to help people identify their hidden game plans by helping them define the major beliefs behind their experiences. After they see the connection between their beliefs and their experiences, they can look at the belief patterns they are using to survive. When people appear to have all the ingredients necessary to accomplish their goals in life, yet find that they are repeatedly losing their money, relationships or jobs, they usually have a negative belief that is behind the repeated experience of loss. This belief has to be identified and owned before they can choose to change the experience. Repetitive negative experiences red flag a negative belief. A belief based upon fear almost always creates a negative outcome that can block success.

If a runner believes that he will never be fast enough to win a race, he will always be too slow to win. If a woman says, " No matter where I go, if there is a man in the area who's needy, he'll find me !" That woman attracts needy men who need her help based on her
belief that she is loved when she is needed. Since she doesn’t believe that she is enough to attract and be loved by a healthy
man, she attracts needy men who she can fix. If a businessman has a deep childhood belief that wealthy people can't get into heaven, he will not allow himself to acquire financial success. By continuously feeding his belief, he may repeatedly lose his clients or discover his employee's are stealing from him just when it looks like his business is going well. These are examples of how we can sabotage our lives. Being unaware of the beliefs behind our experiences can be very frustrating. Yet, the more we are aware of the connection between our beliefs and experiences, the easier it is for us to see the game plan and change some of our survival rules.

Our authentic self is always trying to get us to turn our focus away from fear and concentrate on our truth by presenting experiences that we can choose to see as life’s challenges or life’s punishments. We can also choose to own and take charge of our lives or we can choose to stay stuck in a victim role and see life through the eyes of fear. Our authentic self doesn't know fear. Fear comes from our personality or ego.

When we know and understand that we are enough, and that what we believe we create, we can look at our repetitive patterns and identify the beliefs behind our actions. If they are based on a fear of not being enough, it's time to connect with our inner coach-our authentic self, and align with our truth. It’s never too late for us to change our game plan. Sometimes, we have to risk leaving our comfort zone of outgrown childhood beliefs in order to find our truth and start living out our dreams.