Moving Beyond Limiting Beliefs
Once Your Beliefs Shift, the Rest is Easy
We all grow up with a set of beliefs that are uniquely our own. We believe we’re good at math or bad at kickball. We believe we’re disorganized or selfish or funny.
These beliefs become the blueprint for the way we live our lives. Our beliefs control the actions that we do or do not take on a daily basis. Love to start your day with an invigorating run? There’s a belief that’s behind that. Make it a point to call your mother every Sunday? There’s a belief behind that as well.
These beliefs serve us well in our lives. They allow us to operate on “auto-pilot” much of the day. We don’t have to burden our conscious mind with all the minute-by-minute decision-making of the day. Instead, our subconscious can operate on autopilot, driven by these core beliefs.
It’s a system that serves us remarkably well, most of the time. However, the problem arises when we decide we want to change something in our lives. Maybe we want to make more money. Or be less stressed. Or release some extra weight.
We set out, full of enthusiasm and with the best of intentions. Only to hit a brick wall. Our conscious mind is now at odds with our subconscious mind, which is a battle the subconscious mind will always win.
That’s why shifting your beliefs MUST come before you go after any big desire or goal in your life. It’s why you’ve been disappointed so many times in the past. Your limiting beliefs are standing in your way.
The answer isn’t to do battle with them; they’ll only become more entrenched. Instead, you need to gently release them into “the nothingness from whence they came”. This becomes easy to do once you realize that a belief is nothing more than a thought you’ve heard or repeated enough to believe it.
When limiting beliefs surface, just ask yourself if this belief is still serving you. If the answer is no, in that moment just gently redirect your focus. Take a two-minute mental vacation. Take your dog for a walk. Take a nap. Whatever will get your attention shifted off that belief. Eventually, it will stop being so active in your thoughts, and you’ll have space to replace it with a belief that better serves you given the person you’ve know become.