00:00:00 Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 48 on the power of belief. I'm RJ Jackson, the courage giver. I encourage you to have the courage you need to live your calling. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this. The inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott made her Believing you're a writer and writing are two different things,
00:00:36 but it becomes a feedback loop. If you begin to say that you're a writer and then you actually sit down and write, then you are affirming that affirmation and making it sink in deeper. If you say that you're a productive person and then you actually get up early and do the hard work and get things done and you become more productive. Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts.
00:01:03 If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calm in the inspired stewardship podcast who learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you impact the world. And tonight, Saturday night special. I talk with you about the power of belief,
00:01:32 why affirmations and belief do actually have a backing in neuroscience and why belief comes from action. Not the other way around now. One area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really, really tough. I've got a course called productivity for your passion.
00:02:03 That's designed to help you do this, and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done. What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality.
00:02:29 Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type. But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that and productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com
00:02:52 slash launch belief has power. You know, the truth is that we both limit ourself and we make ourselves Excel in part, by what we believe about ourselves. We, we limit the way we interact with others in part, because of what we believe about them, the power of belief, what we believe about the world has an extreme influence on what we do,
00:03:24 what we say, how we act and exactly what we do in the world and what we accomplish. I think most people would agree with that statement, at least at a logical level. But the truth is that this idea, the power of belief and how it affects us affirmations and how they affect us. When you get up in the morning and you say,
00:03:45 I am a writer, does that make you more likely to become a writer? And these things are actually things that are studied in psychology. There there's actually research around whether or not the power of belief and the power of affirmations have a true effect on us or not. And the research says that they do now don't get me wrong. This isn't it.
00:04:09 It sounds so. Woo. Woo. It sounds so, you know, it's like the secret. If you put it out into the universe, it will all come back to you. And I will tell you the truth is I don't believe that in that sort of way. I don't believe that the world works or God works as a cosmic vending machine,
00:04:27 where if we put good things in only good things come out for one thing, I've seen way too many people who struggle despite the fact that all they do is put good out into the world. It's entirely possible for that to happen. And I don't believe that we're somehow cursed by our own sin or the sin of our parents to always struggle. And this karma,
00:04:50 this idea that the universe works that way is too simplistic for me. But at the same time, the idea of having positive affirmations actually has some research behind it. And I've seen it myself where both because I use them myself and because I've used them with clients, I've seen their positive effect. The truth is that we all have negative unhelpful beliefs. We all have negative thoughts about ourselves.
00:05:17 From time to time, we all have negative thoughts about others and about how the world works and positive as affirmations and practicing. These can begin to break that down and help motivate yourself and bring up your self esteem and your self talk and turn it more positive. You can begin to unconsciously, break down those subconscious patterns and replace them with much more positive ones,
00:05:44 positive affirmations, make long lasting change in how you think and feel. But it's not by magic. It's by psychology. It's the way our brains work. So there's a theory called self-affirmation theory and there are empirical studies about it. You can go look them up and it's basically relates to our ability, our beliefs and our abilities of controlling who we are and what we believe about ourself.
00:06:16 See the truth is if you believe that you're a good person, then you tend to try to tell yourself a story in which you're the hero, where you're the good person. If you believe you're a bad person, then you tend to tell yourself a story where you're the villain. You're the bad person. And the truth is when your self concept is threatened.
00:06:36 When something shows you that maybe you aren't a good person, even though you believe you are. We try to move back in alignment with our self identity, either by denying the truth of it or by changing our behavior and our actions. So the self-affirmation theory believes that we have this global story. We tell about ourself. We tell ourselves who we are and that self identity is instead.
00:07:08 Basically, you know, it, it can have flexibility. It can change. We can, we can define ourselves in different ways, which is good because it means we can change how we feel about ourselves. It's being in integrity with who you think you are. It's not about being exceptional. It's not about being perfect. It's not about being excellent in any way.
00:07:31 It's just about being adequate and competent in certain areas. And it believes in its authentic nature, it believes that we act in a way that is authentic with ourself. And the truth is that when you begin to affirm yourself, a certain role, your, your neurochemistry begins to change. The, the neurons make new connections. You begin to break down old connections.
00:07:59 And over time, the stress of saying, I am a writer. I am a writer. I am a writer begins to build up until when you do things that are not in alignment with being a writer, it causes you stress and strain. And so it's easier to then write and be the writer. If you want to say, you know, I am productive,
00:08:20 I am productive. I am productive. It helps you become more productive. But the truth is in all of these things, you want to know what reinforces that affirmation it's action. Because saying I'm a writer and writing are two different things. Believing you're a writer and writing are two different things, but it becomes a feedback loop. If you begin to say that you're a writer and then you actually sit down and write,
00:08:51 then you are affirming that affirmation and making it sink in deeper. If you say that you're a productive person, and then you actually get up early and do the hard work and get things done and you become more productive, then it begins to sink in that you're a productive person and you continue to snowball in a positive way. On the other hand, if you sit down and you say to yourself,
00:09:16 I'm lazy. Then over time, if you sit around and do nothing, that affirmation becomes solid and firm and you get lazier and lazier and lazier. See the truth is we can change the direction that we're going in part based on the affirmations that we make about ourselves. But only when we actually put them in action. That action leads to belief which leads to action,
00:09:44 which leads to belief and belief can lead to action, which leads to belief, which leads to action. It's a big circle. It's not a line. So as you sit down on this holiday weekend, I hope you enjoy some time with your family. If you're in the United States, this is the 4th of July. And I hope you're enjoying some time with your family.
00:10:04 Maybe eating some good barbecue or some good food or watching some fireworks, but wherever you are, I hope you stay safe. And I hope that you can begin to affirm who you are and change your identity little by little, in a positive direction. Thanks for listening. Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener,
00:10:34 we challenge you to not just sit back and passively, listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode, please, please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate. All one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed until next time,
00:11:13 invest your time, your talent and your treasures, develop your influence and impact the world..