Recently a prospective client told me a little story. He had attended a party in his industry, that is, the industry, he wants to be successful in. As he drove there, he began feeling jitters and a general sense that he didn't belong. There were going to be several influential people in the field, and he started out telling himself he was a nobody.

We've all had these thoughts and emotions, especially when it's about something important. Simple insecurity in any situation is certainly no fun, but when it's in the face of something we really want, it can be debilitating. As he pulled up to the party, he reflected on the fact that he was driving his snazzy, albeit old sports car, and was dressed with a bit of flash, so he decided he'd act as if he was already a success, since he had the trappings anyway.

While he shook the hands of these "high-powered" people, something shifted in him, that he never expected. A tactic to make himself feel better about being afraid, turned around his whole perspective on the possibility of his success in his business. Just acting the part, made him realize he had what it takes to make it.

Of course, this all goes back to that bit of wisdom that has become cliché in recent years: that whatever you believe, you can achieve.

The difference here is that you don't need to sit and think great thoughts in order to change your beliefs. You simply need to open yourself to a different way of acting, even if it's only for a few hours, and then see what happens.

Think of it this way: you've heard the idea that what you're capable of is only limited to your imagination. You probably believe it's true. So why don't we always act as if it's true?

It's because we're deluded; we look around and decide that what we see is true. "I live in an apartment I can barely pay for." "I don't have that special person in my life." "I'm in a dead-end job." Blah, blah, blah.

Your conscious mind is focused on those things, and we have all agreed to call them reality. They will be your reality if you allow them to be.

The problem there is that those thoughts are boring, and you're boring yourself by thinking them. If you don't believe me, go out and tell someone all the details of your "reality," and see how quickly their eyes glaze over.

What if we allowed our dreams and desires, the things our hearts long for, to be just as valid? What if we decided those things that live in our imagination were just as much a part of our reality as the things we take in empirically?

In fact, your unconscious mind makes no distinction between them. For that part of you, your memories, your current experience in this moment, and what you imagine about the future, all hold equal weight, all expressions of the same thing.

This is why our beliefs are so powerful. It's why people who have opened their minds to what is-and what can be-make such huge progress.

And it's what I believe the Buddha meant when he said, "We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world."

So take some time to pay attention to your imagination. Just as importantly, act as if the things you find there are already true.