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One of my mentors, the great personal development teacher Bob Proctor once said this about beliefs: “It appears there are guards commissioned by a higher authority to arrest any progress in a person’s life beyond the person’s level of belief”.
We all have our belief system, developed since we were born, through our experiences, what we were taught, and what we heard from our family, friends, teachers, and environment. We carry those beliefs with us throughout our lives, and most of the time, we’re not even aware of them.
For example, I constantly heard “money does not grow on trees” from several family members and friends from a very young age. I saw the difficulties my family had in earning money. I grew up believing that it was challenging to make money, that money is scarce, and that I need to work extremely hard to earn money and live a content life.
I only realised that I had these beliefs when I started conveying the same messages to my son when he was little and wanted to buy everything when we entered a shop.
Like myself, we all have some deep-seated, limiting beliefs about the world, society, others, and ourselves. We have old negative stories we keep telling ourselves that are holding us back and crippling our lives.
Today my beliefs are entirely different! Why? Because once I become aware of a limiting belief, I take action to change it.
Here is the formula I use whenever I need to shift a limiting belief into a more empowering belief. It’s simple and can be applied by anyone:
Remind + Pay Attention + Check + Reframe + Create + Persist
We’re usually more comfortable blaming others and external situations for our circumstances. This might be true on many occasions, but if we continue this blame game, we’ll never be able to take control of our lives. Allowing others to be the drivers of your thoughts, feelings, behaviours, and stories is disempowering, so take your power back by taking ownership of your life.
Being able to recognise your limiting beliefs is crucial. Reflect on what is happening and what triggers those beliefs, and the emotions associated with them. The best way to do this is by being present, stopping and being self-aware.
Once you identify the limiting beliefs, challenge them! Engage in a critical and constructive discussion with yourself and decipher what is true and false.
Try this exercise to dismantle your negative beliefs:
Once you identify your limiting beliefs and do the work to determine them to be false, it’s time to ingrain the new paradigm into your subconscious mind. One of my favourite ways of doing this is through affirmations.
Try the following:
While you change your paradigms by repeating your affirmations frequently, create experiences where you can see your new belief in action. Be bold, get out of your comfort zone and push yourself to do the uncomfortable. When you start to act, you will create new habits supported by your new belief, which will deliver the results you want.
All the above might seem straightforward, but it’s not! Our minds are powerful and have embedded beliefs that are difficult to change. The secret to being successful in changing them is to be consistent and persist with it.
