The Magic of Believing Starts in the Mirror

What you believe in your bones, you begin to live. Here’s how to plant it there.

There’s a moment every morning.

You’re at the sink. Water running. The day hasn’t asked anything of you yet.

And there you are in the mirror.

That moment is a doorway. Most mornings we walk right past it.

In 1948, a journalist-turned-businessman named Claude M. Bristol wrote a small book that turned that ordinary moment into a practice. He called it The Magic of Believing. Generations of athletes, artists, and dreamers have kept it on their nightstands ever since.

His whole message fits in one breath.

What you believe, deeply and daily, becomes the life you live.

The short version. In The Magic of Believing (1948), Claude M. Bristol taught that a belief held constantly and persistently shapes what we do and what we become. His two signature practices are the mirror technique, affirming your goal while looking into your own eyes, and the card technique, writing your goal down and reading it often. He paired belief with action, calling success the result of “Mind Stuff and energized action.”

Start Early Today

Everything Is Possible When You Believe

Bristol’s big idea is simple and bold.

“Every thought held constantly and persistently sooner or later materializes after its kind.”

Claude M. Bristol, The Magic of Believing, 1948

After its kind.

Thoughts of courage grow courage. Thoughts of abundance grow abundance. Thoughts of love grow love.

We make things real when we choose to think them. So choose wisely. Only make real of things that nourish.

It’s an internal game, and you get to learn how to play it. I wrote about that years ago in Everything is possible only if you believe, and I keep coming home to it.

Apply it today. Name one thought you’d love to hold constantly this week. Write it somewhere you’ll see it ten times today.

What thought are you ready to let grow after its kind?

Look Into the Very Depths of Your Eyes

Here’s the practice that made Bristol famous.

Stand in front of a mirror. Breathe deeply a few times until you feel strength rising. Then meet your own gaze.

“Look into the very depths of your eyes, tell yourself that you are going to get what you want.”

Claude M. Bristol, The Magic of Believing, 1948

He asked readers to do it twice a day, morning and evening, like brushing their teeth. A ritual of self-belief.

And he promised something beautiful would happen.

“Develop eyes that bespeak confidence. The mirror will help you.”

Claude M. Bristol, The Magic of Believing, 1948

Eyes that bespeak confidence.

That’s everything we explored in You Are a Beacon; Let Your Eyes Say So. The light behind your eyes rises when you tend it. Bristol handed us the daily practice.

Apply it today. Tonight at the sink, take three deep breaths, look into your own eyes, and say your goal out loud, in the present tense.

Believe It Into Your Blood and Bones

Bristol said the practice works best when you keep it going until the belief becomes part of you. Until you feel it, in his words, “in your blood, your bones, and in every tissue of your body.”

That’s the shift from knowing to embodying.

You already know. The invitation is to embody it.

From the image embodied from within, all things fall into place. Be too busy being in the feeling. Carry it in your posture, your breath, your walk to the train.

Science is catching up to this, too. In a 2016 brain-imaging study, researchers at the University of Pennsylvania found that people who affirmed their core values, especially while imagining their future, showed more activity in the brain’s reward and self-related systems. That activity predicted real changes in how active they were over the following month (Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience).

The future you picture lights you up. And what lights you up moves you.

Go deeper with Be too busy being in the feeling and The Words You Repeat Become the Life You Live.

Apply it today. When you say your affirmation, add one sentence about what your life looks like a year from now. Feel it in your chest before you move on.

Where in your body do you feel your biggest dream?

Write It Down and Carry It Close

Bristol’s second practice is even simpler. He called it the card technique.

Write your goal on a small card. Several cards, even. Put one in your wallet, one on your mirror, one by your bed, one on your desk.

Read them often. Every glance is a tiny act of faith.

What we intend, we become. The card keeps the intention in front of your eyes until it lives behind them.

It’s the same spirit as Designing Your Life with Intention and the practice we built into The Self You Get in the Morning.

Apply it today. Write your goal on three index cards. Place them where your eyes will land at morning, noon, and night.

Belief Opens the Door; Action Walks Through

Here’s the part people skip when they talk about Bristol.

He was a practical man. He said the results come from belief joined with movement.

“Money comes as a result of combining Mind Stuff and energized action.”

Claude M. Bristol, The Magic of Believing, 1948

Mind Stuff and energized action. Believe, then move.

Belief gives you the eyes to spot the opportunity. Action is how you step through it.

This is the power you’ve always had. It lives in the morning mirror and the first brave step out the door.

Pair this with If It Is to Be, It Is Up to Me and The Power You’ve Always Had.

Apply it today. Pair your affirmation with one bold action before noon. One email, one call, one page, one rep.

What single step would the believing version of you take today?

Try This Today and Let the Magic Begin

1. At the sink this morning, take three deep breaths and look into the depths of your own eyes.
2. Say your goal out loud, in the present tense, like it’s already on its way.
3. Add one sentence about your life a year from now, and feel it.
4. Write your goal on three cards and place them where you’ll see them.
5. Take one energized action toward it before noon.
6. Repeat the mirror practice tonight before bed.

Your Questions About The Magic of Believing, Answered

Believe, Then Begin

Back to the sink. Back to the mirror.

That ordinary moment is a doorway.

Walk through it. Look into the depths of your eyes. Say the thing you’re becoming.

Feel it in your blood and your bones. Write it on a card. Then take one energized step toward it.

Everything is possible when you believe. And everything becomes real when you begin.

Start today. Start early. Start in the mirror.

Keep Going

• The Giant in You Is Already Awake; Here’s How to Let It Stand
• You Are a Beacon; Let Your Eyes Say So
• Your Inner Life Is Writing Your Outer Life and These Three Teachers Proved It
• The Way You See Yourself Is Quietly Writing Your Whole Life

If this made you want to meet your own eyes tomorrow morning, join us here. We’d love to keep sending you your daily dose of GOOD.

With love,
Paolo

Sources

• Bristol, C. M. (1948). The Magic of Believing. Goodreads; quoted passages via N.S.B. Psychology text
• Cascio, C. N., O’Donnell, M. B., Tinney, F. J., Lieberman, M. D., Taylor, S. E., Strecher, V. J., and Falk, E. B. (2016). Self-affirmation activates brain systems associated with self-related processing and reward and is reinforced by future orientation. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 11(4), 621–629. Oxford Academic