By Jodie Bruce-Clarke from Rise Women

Limiting Beliefs.

Do you have limiting beliefs?  Not sure?  Well, here’s a clue.  Your limiting beliefs about yourself and your life are usually hiding out in the areas where you’re not producing the results you want.

The thing is that limiting beliefs can do SO much damage – to ourselves, to our potential, to our business – as they seriously hold us back in life.  These ‘limits’ control our thoughts and behaviours, which we know shape everything that we do.  The scary part is that sometimes these limiting beliefs are totally undetectable!  You believe them as the truth but let me tell you, there NOT!

Many limiting beliefs are installed during your childhood but they are also easily formed by your opinions – whether it’s about something or someone.  Opinions are EVERYWHERE!  Most of us only have to look at a book cover and we instantly form an opinion as to whether we’re going to like it or not.  Research suggests that, when meeting someone, it only takes six seconds before an opinion of them is formed.  Only six seconds before we’ve read the book by its cover!

 Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy.

-Anthony Robbins

 

Opinions (whether we hear them from someone else or form them ourselves) form the basis of all beliefs in our lives.  Limiting beliefs are beliefs which constrain you in some way and are often driven by fear. They are usually generalisations about the past based on our own interpretations.  The challenge comes when we need to identify these beliefs as just that – beliefs!  Beliefs that we created and not the truth.

When I work with coaching clients 1:1 it is easy to discover which limiting beliefs are stopping them.  How?  Because they usually simply tell me.  They don’t say – ‘Oh hey Jodie, my limiting beliefs are X, Y & Z’ but as we work through the actions to move them to their goals, I start to hear the limits they put on themselves coming through the language they use.  I start to hear the ‘this can’t happen for me’, or the ‘I can’t achieve that’, or the ‘I’m not ready because of …’.

Do you identify with any of these limiting beliefs?

• I’ll never make it in my career;
• People only want to buy my product if it’s cheap;
• I’m not as good as they are;
• I’m so unlucky;
• I don’t have time;
• Success / Business is hard;
• There is never enough money;
• Failure is a bad thing;
• I’m too young / old;
• Change takes time;
• You can only make it so far working from home;
• I’m not smart enough, pretty enough, thin enough, motivated enough……
• I don’t have the confidence to do that.

Try to identify your limiting beliefs by listening carefully to the words that come out of your mouth and paying close attention to your thoughts.  Limiting beliefs usually start with phrases like this:

I can’t …….

I must….

I mustn’t …..

I have to ….

I am or I am not …

Limiting beliefs can be focused around what you think you can achieve in the world, the class system you believe you exist in, your rights, your abilities and everything else wrapped up in your self-identity.

It is important that you challenge your beliefs constantly and are always questioning what you believe.

If a belief doesn’t empower you then change it!!

Here’s how to CRUSH limiting beliefs:

1.FIND the belief

If there is an area in your life that isn’t working the way you would like it to, then it is likely that there is a limiting belief in there somewhere.  The very first challenge is to find out exactly what the belief is. Think about that area and write down your thoughts and the usual things you say to yourself in order to try and achieve an insight into what might be stopping you

2.STOP identifying with that belief

If your limiting belief is that you are unmotivated, then the next step is to stop identifying with yourself as an unmotivated person.  Accept that that is NOT the truth but merely a BELIEF that you think has become your truth.

What you think is what you create so you must change the thought first.

 3.TRY on the opposite

Start by telling yourself that the opposite is true.  The best way to do this is to write the new, more empowering belief as an affirmation or a power mantra then start saying it over and over and over.

I am a motivated woman.
I am confident.
I am a good sales person.
There is always enough money!
Success if flowing to me easily.
There is plenty of time.

Failure is awesome as I’m one step closer to success.

4. STRENGTHEN the new belief

Now, you need some results so it’s time to move into action!  With your new thinking now in place it’s important to strengthen this new empowering belief.  In my book, I talk about thoughts being like super-highways in your mind.  You may have been driving on that old, negative super-highway for years so it is probably going to take some time to strengthen this new, more empowering road you’re building.

Think about what you can do to help strengthen this new thinking.  Some ideas might be:

– What new actions would I take?
– What habits or rituals could I set up around this new belief?
– What quotes or inspiration could I find to remind me of this new thinking?

If you think you can’t do something, ask yourself why and what hard evidence you have for that view.  I guarantee that most of the limits we place on ourselves have no real evidence or truth to them.

Challenge them all and you will change the way you SEE your world AND how your world APPEARS!

Oh yes, and please give someone more than six seconds to impress you.  You just never know who you might meet!

Jodie Bruce-Clarke
Rise Women.com

Want more of Jodie? You can check out the awesome podcast I did with here here:

https://tracyharris.wpengine.com/podcasts/mwh-044-confidence-tips-for-mums-in-biz-with-jodie-bruce-clarke-rise-women/

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