 Belief
We previously looked at how our beliefs are shaped and how powerful our limiting beliefs can be in preventing us from achieving our desired goals. Let us take a closer look at how we pile on these limiting beliefs and how we can get rid of them. As the old saying goes: “The pen is mightier than the sword” couldn’t be more accurate; words can ignite or extinguish our feelings of guilt, shame, weakness, joy, excitement, love or motivation. Words are a collection of letters that simply formulate a name or meaning. However, the power that words have on our conscious as well as unconscious mind can be quite underestimated. Words such as: Sicily, Mondays or Divorce may have totally different meanings to different people. To some, Sicily may mean a beautiful island with rich history and fantastic food, whereas to someone else – organized crime. Likewise, Mondays may mean the start of the working week and lots of work to some people, but to most hairdressers, it’s their day off. Divorce, may ignite feelings of liberation for some, and to others – heartache. It is our experiences that make us think a certain way. Our experiences include our upbringing, education, social life and even the friends we socialize with. It is our experiences that mould our beliefs into what we are. Our beliefs are the windows we see the world through. Naturally as time goes by, this window gets smudged and may very well influence our outlook on the world we live in. This does not mean that we are not capable of seeing clearly, it simply means that we have the power and capability to cleans our beliefs from time to time. As a species we are only born with two natural instinct: a) Our reaction to a laude bang (or sound) and b) Our reflex when we fall. Everything else is learned. We learn to adapt to our culture, we learn and develop our values that give weight and importance to different things around us and we also learn to limit ourselves. This limitation is an accumulation of things we hear and see in the world around us that make us feel a certain way. If you’re 14 years old and you come home with an “F” in history, and the immediate comment you hear is: “You stupid lazy idiot” from a parent or sibling ; your unconscious mind will store that and accept it – remember that your unconscious does not negate. Or the way the media systematically bombards you with horrible headlines such as “Woman Stabbed Two Blocks From Her Home ! “ install fear in your heart and drain your gusto for life. We grow to think and behave the way we do because we learn to think and behave the way we do. So when we run into a very insecure man who lacks the confidence to look people in the eye, we have to realize that this man was not born this way. He simply learned that he’s unworthy and small from the world he lives in. He probably was a very loving, happy and positive young man one day, but through his experiences and exposures he simply shrunk into believing his worth. The result of this behaviour is his belief. And as mentioned above, our beliefs take shape based on the outside influences that shape our outlook. Our beliefs dictate how well we perform, interact, grow our businesses and spot opportunities. Ironically, what we believe has a greater affect on us than the truths that surround us, and this is precisely why we see very attractive people who believe that they aren’t. They lose more weight, they have more plastic surgeries and buy the latest fashion in order to convince themselves that they are sexy. All they really need to do is change their beliefs. On the other hand there are lots of extremely confident, charming and well spoken people who have an excellent sense of humour who aren’t necessarily endowed with facial beauty, but they are described as sexy and attractive by their opposite gender. Our beliefs govern the quality of our lives. It is our beliefs that can propel us into achievements and successes, or hold us back. The great news is that since beliefs are learned, they can be unlearned, and re-learned in new ways. A beliefs can be so powerful that they can actually influence our bodily reactions. Think of Shaolin Monks who lie on sharp spears, think of people with multiple personality disorder who can shift from person to person convincingly using their body, tone of voice and preferences. The power of human potential and limitation lies within the beliefs that they have learned. Our unconscious has an unbelievable amount of information to deal with every minute – 2,000,000 pieces of information to be exact. As such, it creates filters to sift through all that is coming in, in order to process information more efficiently. Thus the unconscious mind deletes, distorts and generalizes some of the many information that it has to process. So when Mr.X wants to give directions to someone else, he may leave some information out that that Mr.Y might have included, or vice versa – deletion. I recently had client of mine who saw Tom Cruise and was shocked to find him so vertically challenged. Now we all know that Mr. Cruise hadn’t shrunk, my client simply became aware of how she distorted the information that she saw on film. Moreover, If you travel to Greece and have a horrid time, chances are you’ll avoid Greece on your next holidays. Reason being is that your unconscious mind generalizes to protect you from a possible repeat experience. This is exactly why when some people try once or twice and get a bad result, they give up because their unconscious mind associated that task to bad emotions. They simply focused on the short term outcome rather than the goal in mind, or the belief in their vision. The perspective we use determines the outcome of out actions, and our perspectives can sometimes limit us as they are co-dependent on out beliefs. This brings us back to whether the glass is half full or half empty. Reality is a rather funny thing, as there never really is just one reality. Some may say that London is an overpriced city with rude people and terrible air quality. Others may say that London is a very vibrant city with lots to do and opportunities on tap. It is the reality we choose to focus on that can influence our beliefs either positively or negatively. If I am about to start my own business in London, and start to feed myself contaminated language about the city; chance are that I won’t be very motivated and fired up to get my business very far. On the other hand, if I continually remind myself about the vast opportunities that exist around me, my outlook will shift. Remember, clean language = clean beliefs. The pre-requisite to identifying one’s limiting belief successfully is honesty with one’s self. To begin with ask yourself what it is you wish to achieve, in other words what’s your goal? It could be anything, whether losing a stone, starting your own business or meeting your targets at your sales job. Write down your goal on a clean sheet of paper. Look at what you’ve written, make sure it’s a realistic goal. What I mean by realistic is that if you’re a restaurant manager today, and your goal is to buy a Beverly Hills mansion in 12 months – chances are you won’t achieve that unless you win the lottery. Keep it realistic and doable. Next, ask yourself the following questions and answer after careful processing and honesty with yourself. Remember, no one is judging your answers, and nor should you. Simply allow the answers to flow and let the awareness occur with ease rather than resentment. What’s stopping me from achieving this goal ? Where did this belief come from ? Who gave you this belief ? How do you feel about that person? Do you regard them highly and respect them? What does this belief do for you? What is this belief costing you? How will your life be different if you were to let go of this limiting belief? What concrete evidence do you have to back this belief ? What is the positive intention behind keeping this limiting belief ? How else can you satisfy this positive intention without relying on this limiting belief ? These 10 questions are designed to help identify limiting beliefs and their roots to help you gain the clarity you need in order to understand how you’ve come to believe what you do. Just because you’ve been believing something for years doesn’t make it true, nor should you hold on to it for purposes of habit. It is habit that has been holding you back, and it is habit that nurtures your limiting belief. To achieve this simple change, you must be determined and take the decision to change as quick as you order a Lasagne in a restaurant. A decision can happen in a fraction of a moment and place you on a new path to winning – and “winning always starts with beginning”. © 2006 Guiding-Light.Biz |
