We all have them, those pesky beliefs and perceptions that are holdovers from long ago. Perhaps it was something your Aunt Susie once said or that humiliating time when you were the last one picked for the softball team. The message you heard was all too clear: You're simply not good enough, smart enough, pretty enough or athletic enough to make the grade. I call these self-limiting beliefs "blinders," because they affect the way we view the world, and they sure can mess up our lives.
I know a man, John, who feels anxious about things that may happen in the future. He wakes up, he says, wondering what bad thing will happen that day. Going back to work on Monday mornings is particularly rough for him. When pressed to be more specific, John says he may not be "good enough" to stay at the top of his profession, and in fact he doesn't know how he got to where he is.
When I asked John to tell me what he believes about his himself and his role he related these perceptions:
- The world is a dangerous place.
- I'm not really all that good.
- People will find out I'm a fake, and they'll leave my practice.
- I'm worried I'm not able to make a living without someone to prop me up.
After each of those responses I asked John this question: "Is that a fact?" What he quickly discovered is that his practice is thriving with patients who often recommend him to others. Furthermore he graduated near the top of his class and deserves to be respected, and he is making a very nice living right now, with no one supporting him. So John's anxiety was the result of blinders he had been wearing most of his life. When pressed for evidence, John's limiting beliefs proved to be thin air.
John related that his father had grown up in poverty, and his fortunes had turned only after he'd married John's mother. After the marriage his father held a responsible position in his wife's family's business for the rest of his life. As a boy John had been given these parental admonitions:
- Don't risk anything; you are well off where you are.
- You may be smart in book learning, but don't get any big ideas.
- The world is a dangerous place.
- You'll never make it without the support of the family.
How could John know that the advice he was getting from his father simply mirrored his father's view of life? He had taken the advice personally, as so many of us do as children. What John was finally able to see was that it had taken incredible courage for him to enter, and indeed excel, in medical school. His talent and his ambition had outpaced his own belief in himself.
Next I asked John to take off his blinders and write a set of more freeing beliefs. "How would the world look if you held the opposite views?" I asked. Here's what he wrote:
- I am a talented and courageous person.
- I have been supporting my family, without outside support, for several years now.
- My patients and my peers hold me in high regard.
- I am perfectly capable of holding this position, because I have earned it, and evidence proves I am more than capable of maintaining and even expanding it.
John's anxiety will not go away all at once, but now he knows what's real. He knows that he needs to retrain his brain to see the truth. One way he decided to do this is to consciously think about what is true each morning, before he gets out of bed. He also keeps a calendar near his bed where he writes down one thing for which he feels particularly grateful that day. When he is with patients, he reminds himself of the help he is able to give them, and at the end of most days he jots down a few names he feels particularly good about. John is amassing evidence that is changing his belief system and the quality of his life.
What Do YOU Believe?
I don't care if you just won a Nobel Prize for physics; chances are high that you hold some limiting beliefs. What have those blinders cost you?
Why not put your self through the exercise I gave John? Here's how to go about it:
- Pick an area of your life that you'd like to improve.
- Ask yourself, "What do I believe that contributes to this situation?"
- Ask that question several times so you'll have a list of beliefs. (It helps to think about the cautions and admonitions you heard when you were young. It also helps to remember incidents that contributed to the beliefs.)
- With each belief that you produce ask, "Is this a fact?"
- Accumulate evidence to support or debunk your belief. If a belief is indeed true, then it's simply a matter of working around it.
- Ask this question about each belief: "How would life change if the opposite were true?"
- Write out the freeing beliefs that will replace the limiting beliefs.
- Develop an action plan to retrain your brain to the new beliefs immediately. Then put the plan into action.
The main reason limiting beliefs are so damaging is that we act according to what we believe. The world responds to our actions, and we begin to attract that which we find limiting. If our beliefs are negative, we get negative results. It's a vicious cycle.
If you suspect that limiting beliefs are detracting from your life, don't hesitate to ask for help in uncovering and eliminating them. This is an area where a professional coach is of great assistance. I hope you'll give me a call if you would like a free sample session.
"The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his attitude of mind." William James
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