In a previous post, Building Belief with a Burning Desire to Succeed in Whatever You Set Your Mind To, I touched on the concept of faith.

I’m not a theologian by any stretch of the imagination, so this is my bare-bones, working man’s (or shall I say Lab Rat’s?) definition of the word:

Faith is believing, and even seeing in your mind’s eye, something you cannot physically see or sense.

It’s believing something to be real and true, even if it is contrary to or conflicts with what you are experiencing. There is no evidence that it is true but you believe it is true.

This is probably where we get the term “blind faith” from.

I think most people are introduced to the idea of faith in conjunction with some type of spiritual belief, however I don’t believe that any religion has a corner on the market when it comes to faith. I believe it is available to anyone for the taking.

One of the top songs in my daily ritual for success is “Faith” by a Swedish artist named Leana. It’s another one of those songs (and yes, there a LOT of those songs) that really resonates with me.

The lyrics are very simple. Here’s a sampling…

I didn’t want to know you
Didn’t want to show you
Who I was

What if I told you?
What if I showed you?
Would you see? Maybe, baby

‘Cause when I open the door
I just want to make sure
I won’t need to close it again

Faith
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life
‘Cause I’ve been waiting such a long time

I’ve found it extremely easy to live in and believe that the only reality is the reality that I experience today with my physical senses. That includes beliefs I’ve come to adopt over time.

Beliefs about my value, worth, abilities, talents, skills.

Beliefs about my relationships, family, friends, income, job.

Beliefs about what I can accomplish in life.

Beliefs about what I can give in life.

But what about faith?

If I, David, want to make any kind of change in my life, to some degree I have to believe it is possible before receiving any kind of evidence that it is.

About ten years ago I was taking a medication that caused my weight to balloon out 25 pounds. To this day I can’t stand looking at pictures of myself from that time. When I spoke with the doctor about my concerns, she told me to get used to it because it was a known side effect and nothing could be done to change it.

For awhile I believed her.

Then I heard about a book called “Body for Life” and I saw all these Before and After pictures of people who’d transformed themselves physically in 90 days.

My mind went to the possibility of believing something else.

I followed the principles and steps laid out in the book, even though I had NO EVIDENCE that it would work for me.

I would call that faith.

I would also call every day I worked out and every meal I ate and every glass of water I drank and every supplement I took mini steps of faith throughout the whole process.

I lost the 25 pounds.

Here’s the best part: when that doctor saw me, she couldn’t believe it. Now how’s that for irony!!!

There is a real dance with faith when it comes to pursuing goals and dreams. And it can be tainted with a lot of ambivalence at times…

I didn’t want to know you
Didn’t want to show you
Who I was

What if I told you?
What if I showed you?
Would you see? Maybe, baby

‘Cause when I open the door
I just want to make sure
I won’t need to close it again

So, on the edge of making any kind of decision to move forward in anything in life (new career, new relationship, new body, new business, new habits), faith stands willing to take its believers across the bridge into that new reality.

And honestly, I believe it even has the capability of carrying us all the way across until our feet are firmly planted in that new reality.

Here are the lyrics (at least my stab at them) for “Faith” and if the play button has disappeared (a known issue!) you can listen to the song here.

Faith, Leana

Faith…
Faith…
Faith…

I didn’t want to know you
Didn’t want to show you
Who I was

What if I told you?
What if I showed you?
Would you see? Maybe, baby

‘Cause when I open the door
I just want to make sure
I won’t need to close it again

Faith
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life
‘Cause I’ve been waiting such a long time

Faith
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life
‘Cause I’ve been waiting, waiting such a long time

Faith…

Faith…

Faith…

I didn’t want to go there
Didn’t want to know there was something else
Higher than the mountain
Higher than the sky far over my head

‘Cause when I open the door
I just want to make sure
I won’t need to close it again

Faith
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life
‘Cause I’ve been waiting such a long time

Faith
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life
‘Cause I’ve been waiting, waiting such a long time

For this…

Faith
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life
‘Cause I’ve been waiting such a long time

Faith
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life
‘Cause I’ve been waiting such a long time

Faith
Welcome to my life
Welcome to my life
‘Cause I’ve been waiting, waiting such a long time

I’ve got faith

I’ve got faith.

This can be a tough one, especially if you’re an analytical thinker like me.

How do you really set your mind in a way that’s lined up with that burning desire? What is burning desire anyway?

A few clues from Becoming Unstoppable by Ruben Gonzalez:

Belief…

“Belief is the driving force, the power behind all great accomplishments…Once you believe, you are ready to commit to taking action.”

Burning Desire…

“You have to have a dream - something you’re shooting for…How badly you want it will determine whether you’ll realize your dream because how bad you want it determines what will make you quit.”

Hmmmm…

Which came first…the chicken or the egg…belief or burning desire?

For an overly analytical person this could be a real nightmare, but I believe it takes faith in something completely unseen to make that kind of leap in your mind…the kind where the two (belief and burning desire) are not linear, but really free-form.

It’s like planting a seed in the ground. You have no idea if it will grow into anything. You just take it on faith (and sometimes someone else’s word) that it will.

Let’s take this empowering ritual for success. Who’s to say that it will work? That’s kind of tricky: if you stop, you certainly will never know. If you continue, well, you could know…maybe.

It’s like praying for something. You might never know if, when, or how the prayer was answered. You could know, but you have to be okay with perhaps not knowing. The prayer itself doesn’t hurt…just like telling yourself something that’s good or positive doesn’t hurt either.

Again, this could drive an overly analytical person crazy. But when the results start happening, who’s to say the beliefs, the desire, the ritual for success aren’t working?

While I think I’ve probably raised more questions than I’ve answered, I also feel (personally) great relief that having all the answers isn’t necessary. Taking the actions that build both the belief and the burning desire are.

And those truly are steps of faith.