Imagine how great you’ll feel when you stop pretending to be limited. Think about what it implies, that we only assume we’re limited because we’ve been conditioned to believe it. Author Richard Bach said argue for your limitations and you get to keep them. And think of how many people almost brag about their limitations. I can never get up to speak in public, I get nervous. I’m never good at leading a meeting, I get frustrated.
Most of us don’t even think we could be fooling ourselves into being limited in any way, but here’s the thing. Each day we are bombarded with millions of bits of information, and to keep us sane our brains filter out most of the things we deem inappropriate or unusable, and that’s based on our subjective beliefs… on what we think we can and can’t do.
Think about it, have you ever felt like everyone saw you as powerful on the outside, but you felt inconsequential on the inside? You see, it doesn’t matter our abilities or education, it’s what we’re feeling that counts, and naturally our feelings are based on what we believe about ourselves. Change our beliefs—have a vibrant and positive conversation with yourself, and opportunities start opening up to you that you haven’t seen before.
For years I felt like I wasn’t equal to other people. I may have looked confident but I had a whole pile of beliefs that kept me tied down to my inadequacies. Now I’m guessing all of you are past where I was then, but the point is we all can get hijacked,–we’re not looking, we’re busy preparing for something, we’re surviving COVID and everything else that’s going on–and suddenly we start to feel inadequate or unsure about something. It’s our belief in our limitations that get us into trouble.
And by limitations I’m referring to our absolute belief in our inabilities based on conjecture and assumptions, not facts. And those beliefs stop us from trying or force us to give up before we even start, because we’ve preprogrammed ourselves to believe we can’t accomplish what we want.
I was speaking somewhere and a woman came up to me and said I had inspired her. She had wanted to be a veterinarian and it was too late for her, but she hoped her daughter would be able to do what she wanted with her life. I asked her how old she was and she said 32.
The rules that are in place in our lives are rules we’ve created. Want to feel more confident? Ask yourself what belief is getting in the way. Remember, it’s just a belief, something you’ve thought about over and over until it gained credibility, became reality. Who created that belief? Did a boss or professor say something that you’re still holding onto? When we can ferret out the voice/mentality behind the belief, then we can begin to change it. Let me give you a great example of conditioning.
There’s a great book called The Daily Coyote. And in the book the author describes her cat as one good morsel for the coyote, easy to kill without even exerting a sweat. However, when cat and coyote were walking together and coyote accidentally stepped on cat, cat bounced up to coyote’s eye level and swatted him. The cat was alpha and wouldn’t let coyote forget it. This is because when she adopted the coyote pup the cat was full grown and would swat the meddlesome pup if he got too annoying.
What was happening was a simple example of our PCC’s, our premature cognitive commitments. A belief slips in when we’re young or unaware or just not paying attention, and it becomes our reality, whether it’s logical or the least bit realistic. For the coyote it was the memory of being bossed around by the cat when it was a young pup and so cat would always remain alpha.
The late great Dr. Wayne Dyer said “Your limits are defined by the agreement you have made about what is possible. Change that agreement and you can dissolve all limits.” I use his quote often because I love to think about the power behind it and what it means to all of us.
When we fall back on limiting beliefs masked as realities, it wreaks havoc with our careers, lives and ability to create what we want no matter how hard we work And right now there are so many false beliefs out there floating around about our futures and what is and isn’t possible.
So how do we stay alert to limiting beliefs that sabotage our confidence and sidetrack our successes?
1. Question your beliefs and don’t take either your or someone else’s interpretation of reality as necessarily true. Example: You don’t apply for a job opportunity, or call a client because on some level you feel it won’t do any good or someone tells you not to bother, with COVID no one is going to be interested. Examine your beliefs. The brain distorts reality all the time and our job is to be aware of it and argue in favor of what we want: Why can’t I get that promotion? Why shouldn’t I call the client? Go back to when you felt successful and savor that feeling. Then use that feeling when you take any kind of action; you’re preparing yourself for success.
2. Play your video each and every day. In reprogramming how we think and what we attract, we need to set ourselves up for success. Our brains are programmed to continually produce simulations of negative mini-movie clips, reinforcing negativity. So if we screwed up on a major report, the brain isn’t going to let us forget it unless we counter with our own positive images. Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps became–according to his coach Bob Bowman– the mentally toughest swimmer in the pool because he conditioned himself to succeed by seeing the end result the way he wanted…swimming to win each and every time he got into the pool. He visualized his successes before he ever got in the pool.
3. The past doesn’t equal the present or the future. Every day when we acquire different information it will enable us to create different results. The person you were when you got out of bed this morning is not necessarily the same person you’ll be when you go to bed tonight (what an exciting thought). One thought, one idea, can change how you think and start a landslide of good luck.
4. Pick one thing to focus on and watch the results. Every thought matters. The brain’s ability to learn and change itself is called neuroplasticity, and as we focus our thoughts, enabling neurons to fire together by strengthening their existing synapses and forming new ones that “wire” together, our thoughts get stronger. Pick a belief that you want and focus on that for a week, with feeling. Notice if you hear an internal argument on what you can and can’t do; that’s not reality it’s simply an old thought that isn’t happy about getting rooted out. Be tenacious; you have control over your thoughts.
“Whatever you’re thinking about is literally like planning a future event. When you’re worrying, you are planning. When you’re appreciating you are planning…What are you planning?” Our job is to continually pay attention to what we’re thinking and change the language, if it is not aimed toward getting us what we want.
