Research indicates we think 60,000 thoughts a day and around 90% of those are repeats, which makes sense since our brain has to selectively filter out much of what comes our way to stop us from suffering overload. However, have you thought about where your 90% come from, and should they be examined for expiration dates?
I mention this because recently I stopped doing/changed three areas of my life that had given me a fair amount of grief, and I might add I’d worked very hard to stop doing versions of these things before. The limiting, suffocating ideas came from specific voices in the past, and when I actually realized where they came from, I decided I no longer had to listen or believe what someone told me years ago. I now had the maturity to decide for myself what I would choose to believe. It really was that simple.
Years ago I had a neighbor who started singing her voice mail greeting, much to the chagrin of her family. When I asked Phyllis why she started doing it she said she had just turned 40 and decided she no longer had to listen to the teacher who told her she couldn’t carry a tune.
Where can you examine the expiration of an idea/belief that has hovered around you too long and gotten in the way of your happiness and success? It’s never too late to decide to delete expired beliefs, and the results are usually quite liberating. Just because we’ve thought something doesn’t make it true.
