“I had a rough childhood.” This is a statement you hear from many people, but especially people with an average mindset. Please don’t misunderstand. I am not minimizing your childhood or what happened to you. What I am telling you is that a world-class thinker leaves their childhood in the past after they have processed it. That is one of the major mental habits of world-class thinkers compared to average-minded individuals—their belief system.

Since average-minded people hold on to their past, they tend to hold onto the belief systems programmed into them as a child. Unfortunately, since the people who shaped their belief system were also more average-minded, choosing to agree with false limitations, they, too, became limited. The manifestation of an average person accepting the belief system of other average people leads them to develop and live by a set of beliefs that reinforces they must survive and cannot afford the luxury of thriving or success. The blind really do lead the blind.

Like an elephant tethered by a string, unaware that their physical power could snap the twine in a nanosecond, average people are tethered by a set of belief systems that whisper in their minds, “Avoid pain at all costs, focus on what you don’t want to experience, and this is why you cannot achieve” whatever it is they deeply desire to do.

Unfortunately, this type of belief system only leads to depression, unhappiness, limited potential, and playing a not-to-lose game. Of course, when one plays the game in a way of not wanting to lose, they are indirectly and directly not thinking about winning but surviving, thus creating a glass-room mentality. Let me know in the comments if this makes sense.

World-class thinkers, on the other hand, spend years intentionally reprogramming and upgrading their identities. If you remember identity comprises your perspective, mindset, self-talk, and language, core beliefs, and programming.

World-class or champions also usually come from a “rough childhood” but choose to do the work to move past it, realizing that it’s never too late to have a great childhood. Champions understand that their beliefs, perspectives, mindsets, and language will make or break them; therefore, they spend a great deal of energy and conscious bandwidth reprogramming their minds to develop empowering, optimistic, and can-do beliefs. They reinforce these beliefs through their own self-talk.

Champions have worked to become aware of what limiting beliefs and thoughts direct them away from their potential. Intentionally capturing that thought, speaking the new belief over it, and then choosing to go that ideal way. World-class thinkers are willing to go against the path of least resistance, especially regarding their thought lives. They spend time working on their mindset and consistently maintaining their champion mindset by hiring coaches and mentors and participating in personal and professional development. Additionally, they are conscious of their words as the world-class thinker understands that there is power in the words they use because it reflects their core beliefs.

The average-minded person does not want to do the work to continuously reprogram and adjust their thinking. The world-class thinker understands that working on their mindset and reprogramming their mind is a never-ending habit that must be done every second of the day. The fact that they have to continuously and consciously work on their mindset is a fact that average-minded people cannot accept, which is why they are limited.

Average people declare world-class thinkers to be brainwashed by toxic positivity, but the champions know that the healthiest and most successful people have an overly optimistic mindset.

Average-minded people do not believe that they can program themselves to believe whatever they want. It is ironic when one stops and thinks about it because they have programmed themselves to believe what they want to believe—that it’s not possible. World-class thinkers know and believe that whatever they can imagine, they can do, and whether they think they can or cannot, they are right.

Champions intentionally reprogram their beliefs to be anything they want. Then, they do the work to make that belief become their dominant synaptic nerve connection, which is done through conscious self-talk and visualization to name two techniques. It’s by repeatedly telling themselves what they want to see and experience and leveraging intentional self-talk that their new beliefs override their old beliefs.

World-class thinkers did not start off as world-class thinkers. No. They chose to reprogram their average-minded beliefs into believing that all things are possible and that they could and would reach their fullest potential through having self-believing self-talk accompanied by optimism and perseverance.

While average-minded people make themselves feel better by saying the world-class thinker is more intelligent or affluent than they are, the world-class thinker understands that anyone at any age, intellect, or financial level can transform their belief system and mindset. The truth is that money, age, and intellect play a minor role in the process of transforming into a world-class thinker. Instead, the main character is the power of belief, a character that every human has available to them.

Action plan

• Identify what you believe is possible with your life.
• What excuses are you giving for why you can’t do something?
• Where do you limit yourself?
• What behaviors do you need to examine?
• What toxic or fear-based mindsets are hindering you?
• Where do you need to upgrade your identity?