I am so excited to share the BAT System with you. Applying the BAT alone can literally change the course of your life for the better. It is almost foolproof and applies to just about any situation and challenge that life can throw at you. However, if even one of the three ingredients required are missing then you are on shaky ground. Just like a 3 legged stool you need all three legs for stability, take any of them away and you are going to land on the floor with a crash.

Think of someone you admire. This could be your mother, father, a family member, a friend. It could be a celebrity or a sportstar or a business person.

Who is it?

Now forget what that person has manifested or achieved in their life and think of the character traits that you admire. Are they hard working, intelligent, disciplined, honourable, kind, compassionate, considerate etc.?

I personally admire the author Stephen King. He is an incredibly disciplined, creative and skillful storyteller. He also fought against adversary after he got run over by a drunk driver breaking and shattering many bones in his body. As soon as he could he began writing again enduring chronic pain to do what he loved.

But he also paid his success forward to another up and coming author called Clive Barker whose books were underappreciated in terms of sales for such wonderful writing. This all changed when Stephen King gave him a glowing comment saying, “Clive Barker is so good I am literally tongue tied.” And that was enough. Ten words from Stephen King and sales of Clive Barker’s books went through the roof and he is now a very successful author, director and artist in his own right.

It’s time to dispel a myth. The person you admire is no different to you. They don’t have a hidden energy source to tap into and they don’t have any secret knowledge that you don’t have, they simply applied the BAT system with or without knowing it. So what is the BAT System?

The BAT System stands for:

Belief

Action

Time

Part 1: Belief

Let’s start with Belief. And let’s drop in on a tpt session I once did for a lovely young woman….

“....I knew when I started it would be above my head,” Rebecca said.

“I’m sorry, Rebecca, I don’t understand,” I said. “You were consistently in the top five in your class with regards results. If it was ‘above your head’ how on earth did you manage that?”

“I felt like a bluffer. Everyone there seemed so much smarter than me. It was only a matter of time before they realised how stupid I was.”

“So you dropped out of your degree course because you were afraid that you would be found out as being stupid?”

Rebecca shrugged, “Yes, I suppose. I mean I worked so much harder than everyone else just to keep up.”

I can’t recall the course Rebecca was doing and I suppose it really doesn’t matter. But what I do remember is that as we talked more it transpired that her father had told her when she was growing up that she was an idiot and would never amount to anything. She recounted a story where her father attended his younger work colleagues graduation proudly posing with him for pictures which she saw on Facebook. But on Rebecca’s graduation day, for her diploma, her father drove Rebecca and her mother to the ceremony and then drove home to watch TV not even bothering to celebrate his daughter’s big day.

Rebecca had two of the three ingredients in abundance. She put in the Action (went to university) and the Time (studying hours upon hours) but she lacked the Belief. And this was her achilles heel that she couldn’t recover from no matter how good her results were.

You see, deep inside her she felt unworthy to get the qualification she worked so hard towards. And that lack of belief in herself had a lot to do with what her father said to her when she was younger.

Belief in yourself comes from within. It has to come from inside of you. It must come from visualising yourself at the top of your game, achieving everything you want to achieve. The beginning of any dream starts with a flicker of a flame inside yourself. You must protect this flame from going out at all costs. For this flame can become a burning, unstoppable desire which you will manifest into reality. But only if you believe, truly believe, in yourself.

There are a lot of people in the world, for many reasons, who will fill you to the brim with negativity. They constantly complain about their health, their work, their partner, their friends, how little money they have etc. But they never seem to do anything about any of those things. They may be in your workplace, your family or even your friendship group. These aren’t necessarily “bad” people, they simply have a negative attitude of themselves and project that negativity out onto the world. Rebecca’s father surrounded his daughter with negativity and a “can’t do” attitude which, unfortunately, infected her with a deep rooted lack of self-belief.

Don’t allow yourself to fall into the trap of listening to or even surrounding yourself with negative people. This type of environment sends out negative vibrations into the world and will push you further away from your dreams and desires than you can possibly imagine.

I’m not an artist but I recently went along with a painter friend of mine for a coffee with a bunch of her painting colleagues. And I had such a great time. Why? Because I was with a group of people talking, debating and discussing a common subject of which they were deeply passionate about. I felt so energised afterwards I was ready to follow my own passions with extra gusto.

When you surround yourself with positive, passionate people with a “can do” attitude it really is a tonic for the spirit.

“If you hear a voice within you saying ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced.”

Vincent Van Gogh

Belief is the expectations that you set for yourself. And you can never exceed those expectations as in the long run your life will calibrate itself to the level on which you feel you deserve. So believe, REALLY believe that you deserve nothing but the best in life. The best relationships, the best health, the best living conditions, the best income, the best work/life balance.