There are no limits to what you can accomplish,
Except the limits you allow to remain in place,
Kept in play by your thinking.
Inspired by Brian Tracy
Hello, My Friends
What a week I’ve enjoyed! Business meetings, client consults, writing and journaling. Creating beauty, peace and style within my home, enjoying the fresh daffodils that spring is producing. I love the way my home feels, inviting and homely. What are the high lights of your week? Do you get enjoyment from them? Tell me in the comments below.
We all have a mindset, every second of every day, we are receiving and reviewing information. That is what our brain does, it receives input from all our senses, it decides what is important and what isn’t.
Sometimes our brain tells us something is more important than it really it, or neglects to pass on a message that is really important.
Underneath our conscious mind is the sub-conscious mind, this is the mastermind that runs the show. The mastermind determines what we actually do and believe. This sub-conscious mind has been given programmes based on our history and often the beliefs of others. If we are unaware of who is in the drivers seat we sabotage ourselves, and don’t know why.
Today’s topic is about investigating what is stopping you from getting, doing and being what you want. It is always, always, always a thought. Finding this thought may take some digging, usually the thought was laid in the very foundation of your life before you could walk, talk, or even know you have the ability to think. You see, as infants your sub-conscious mind is wide open to all the stimuli around you, you are an emotional being, you feel with your emotions, your intuition and perceptions, as a baby, you don’t have a filter, you gain this at around the age of seven or eight. So everything that happens around you and to you is gobbled up into your subconscious mind, without any view of right or wrong, This comes when some-one else teaches you how to think.
Okay, today. Lets have a look at Limiting Beliefs.
These are the beliefs that hold you back, stop you from moving forward into the life you’d really like to live.
A limiting belief shows itself as an action, or a lack of action.
Procrastination, Boredom, Overwhelm, Anxiety and so many more.
Each of these are created by a thought.
8 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF.
What is limiting me from achieving what I really want?
What do you really want? If you don’t know what you’re not getting, or doing then how can you work out what is stopping you?
You may need to ask yourself “What is stopping me from …?” a few times. Write down your responses until you to get to the true core of the situation.
For the example I’m about to share with you, I’d been ‘busy’ doing everything except what actually needed doing. The word for that is procrastination. I had to dig deeper, yes procrastination was the action, but, what was I thinking? Sitting under the procrastination was the feeling of being bored and overwhelmed at the same. (Could these two be the opposites of the same coin?)
I’m not normally some-one to be bored, as I always have some-thing on the go, and I’ve learned to overcome overwhelm by picking one thing, beginning, and sticking at it till it’s done. So for me, this was a bit of a flag.
What is limiting me from achieving what I really want?
What did I really want? To complete a written task that had a deadline.
What was limiting me?
Boredom and Overwhelm.
When I asked this question, this statement popped into my head, randomly, so I decided to go with it and see where it led me.
My limiting belief statement was, ‘Lazy people sit around and do nothing all day.’
Please do not be offended, I am using a real event from my life, to show how confronting and sneaky a limiting belief can be.
Acceptance and awareness are key to acknowledging a belief that may be limiting you. The louder your inner critic talks the more likely you are to have hit the nail on the head. My inner critic was in shock and disgust, “I am not a lazy person, “I hardly ever stop to rest or have fun.”
Whose voice is this?
Whose voice do you hear saying this statement? What is the background to the statement? This is not the time for judging the speaker, you want to be aware of who is speaking with curiosity and interest.
For me, this was my mother’s voice ,in judgement of her mother. “Sitting knitting is not working.” As a child I heard this comment only once, we were visiting my grandparents. There is a back story to this, which I won’t go into now. My perception of this one statement, was that sitting around meant you were lazy, and this was to be avoided, which explained a lot of my behaviours as I was growing up. My interpretation in this event was, “Sitting writing is not working.”
Is it true?
Is the statement of your belief true? Yes or No
For my situation. No! Not all people who sit around all day are lazy. “I am not lazy”
Is it helpful?
Does this statement help you to achieve your goal? How does it make you feel? How do you show up when you are feeling this way? Do you like how you show up?
In my situation it was not helpful. I was feeling militant, I would show up with gritted teeth and sheer determination, to “show them I was not lazy.” This was not the attitude of love and respect I wanted to come from.
What is my identity with this belief?
Does this belief feed into other beliefs? How have you lived from this belief? Is there a pattern to your life, stemming from this statement?
In my situation, this belief sat along side the belief of having to work hard for a living and that pleasure always comes after work. My belief was that work was hard, body breaking labour, and writing was not that for me, I enjoy writing, it comes easily to me, so then it can’t be work. Right! Hence the limiting belief. Also resting and fun were not options if I wanted to succeed. What I really wanted, was for pleasure to be my drawcard, to find love and pleasure in everything I did or didn’t do. My pattern was, the work was never done, so there was never time for love, fun or pleasure.
Why is this belief so important to me?
This is usually where we find the thought that is hiding behind the belief, the driver of what is actually going on. When you find this thought, Ask yourself, Why is this so important to me? What would happen if I changed this thought?
In my situation, my reply was working hard and not resting was so I wouldn’t be judged. (That opened another can of worms for another time). I asked myself, “Why is the judgement of others dominating my thoughts and actions? What would happen if I knew I was worthy of downtime, pleasure and relaxation. What would it mean if I did nothing but sit?
The secret to this question is to write down all the sub answers, these are the arguments for your belief being around, these answers are what your sub-conscious mind believes to be evidence that this belief is true.
It is in changing these sub answer thoughts, that the belief can be changed. Use this system to dissect each of your sub answers, getting closer to the real truth of how they came to be in your life in the first place. Remember no self judgment, only interest and intrigue about how they came to be.
What is your solution? What thoughts do you need to think to live in your solution?
If you responded with “I don’t know?” “What if you did know? What is your intuition telling you to do?” This is the thought you must act on. Build a positive, present tense affirmation around this thought. Write it onto a card to carry it in your pocket, or make it a screen saver on your phone, to remind yourself of the belief you are putting in place, to remove the redundant belief.
In my situation, I had to plan downtime, to figure out the attitude behind having to fill every moment with activities. To include pleasure tasks that don’t involve action or movement. Sitting drinking a cuppa, just because I could. To find the value of pleasure in everything, whether in activity or in rest.
The final step: Is to safely burn the piece of paper that the limiting belief is written on.
For some reason this cements into the sub-conscious mind that this limiting belief is done with, and gives freedom to build a new thought pattern to replace the old pattern. As we build evidence of the new belief with our actions our brain recognizes that this is now, our new operating system and transfers our thoughts and actions to this system. Giving us permanent success.
Learning to allow more pleasure into my life has had many far reaching benefits. One is that I no longer procrastinate over sitting and writing. I do what needs doing as it is required to be done.
Use these 8 questions to unravel what is stopping you from getting the results you want from your life, in a way that makes you happy.
Until next time, live into your authentic self.
If you require help to unravel your tricky limiting beliefs, you can connect with me, my contact details are below.
oxox Linda
#authenticlivingwithlinda
Email me at authenticlivingwithlinda@gmail.com
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