Do you feel or have you ever felt like you are stuck in a loop? Like you are experiencing the same things over, and over again?
Many people spin their wheels, they feel stagnant, like they are not progressing in life.
Why does this occur?
Because they keep putting in place the same patterns and behaviors.
They won’t be able to change them unless they change their identity and beliefs first.
So, if they don’t achieve their goals, they shouldn’t put it down to the lack of resources - money, time, skills, education, etc.
If other people, in the same situation as them, break through and achieve their goals, this provides evidence that being successful has nothing to do with having enough resources.
It is undeniable that having resources may enhance the chance of achieving your goals, yet, it’s not what makes or breaks your success in life.
It all comes down to what you believe is possible or impossible because beliefs and thoughts control your behavior!
“As you think, so shall you become”. - Bruce Lee
Successful people think in an empowering way, while unsuccessful people think in a limiting way.
Ways of thinking determine actions and in turn results.
These results reinforce the initial beliefs.
That's why your beliefs create or destroy your life.
The only way you can change your outer world, i.e. the results you get is to first change your inner world, i.e. your beliefs.
Remember: your outer world is a reflection of your inner world.
WHAT IS A BELIEF?
A belief is a feeling of absolute certainty about what something means to you.
Let me clarify what I mean with an example.
If you believe without a shadow of a doubt that because you belong to a family of obese people, you are hardwired to be like them forever, how likely are you to go to the gym and have a healthy diet?
If you are certain that you are going to be obese, why should you bother to work your ass off and eat vegetables when you can opt for lying on the couch while you enjoy a slice of pizza?
Even if you started working out and eating healthy, how long do you think you might last?
Probably not too long, and do you know why?
Because to validate your primary belief, i.e. - “I am doomed to be obese” - you would subconsciously sabotage yourself.
You would either stop doing your workout, or start eating junk food again, or even worse, you would engage in both unproductive behaviors.
Let me give you another example, maybe like many other people you have heard your parents or role models saying to you:
“Money is the root of all evil, money doesn’t grow on trees, you have to work hard to make money, if you make a lot of money people will stay around you only for that reason, rich people are greedy and end up feeling lonely, etc”.
When you are brainwashed this way, how can you ever become wealthy?
When you link up money with something bad, your subconscious mind will prevent you from making money; and this holds for everything in life.
WHERE DO YOUR BELIEFS ORIGINATE FROM?
Your beliefs originate from the information you have stored in your mind.
Where does this information come from? It comes from your past conditioning.
Your past conditioning, whether it comes from society, your family, or your friends, determines all thoughts and beliefs that dwell in your mind.
Needless to say, limiting past conditioning leads you to think in a limiting way, which leads you to limiting feelings.
As a consequence, you act in a limiting way, which results in lousy outcomes.
Therefore, by becoming aware of how disempowering your past conditioning can be and by replacing it with an empowering one you have the opportunity to change your results in life.
THREE WAYS IN WHICH YOU CAN BE CONDITIONED
There are three ways through which you can be conditioned.
Verbal conditioning: What did you hear from your family or role models - about health, money, career, relationships, etc - when you were young?
Modeling conditioning: How did you see your family or role models behave concerning health, money, career, relationships, etc when you were young?
Incidents conditioning: What did you experience about health, money, career, relationships, etc when you were young?
HOW CAN YOU CHANGE YOUR PAST CONDITIONING?
There are four key factors to take into consideration:
1) AWARENESS - it’s impossible to change something if you are not aware of it.
2) UNDERSTANDING - once you understand where your limiting beliefs come from, you realize you were not born with them.
3) DISASSOCIATION - by realizing your beliefs were passed onto you, you have the opportunity to separate yourself from them and choose whether to keep them or let them go.
Look at who you are today and who you want to become in 5, 10 years from now.
Do your current beliefs serve you to become the person you want to be?
4) RECONDITIONING - by applying the following three techniques:
A) when you tell yourself something over and over again with enough emotional intensity you end up believing it. It becomes an incantation!
B) Make the most of the power of visualization.
Visualize yourself the way you want to be, at the stage when you have achieved your goals.
Exploit all your senses; the more it feels real, the more you will condition your mind to guide you towards your goals.
Visualization creates certainty!
Why is it important?
Because, when you feel certain something will happen you are going to make it happen!
If you are certain you cannot succeed in whatever you are trying to achieve, what are you going to do?
You are going to look for all the reasons why you should not even start. After all, nobody wants to fail.
Even if you started, but you have a limiting belief - “I cannot succeed, I am not enough…” - you are going to sabotage yourself, thus preventing you from achieving your goals.
On the contrary, what happens if you believe without any doubt that you will succeed?
You will take massive action, you’ll burn your ships, and eventually, you’ll succeed.
Visualization is a powerful tool always available which is well suited to be used in conjunction with positive affirmations.
C) Another way to uproot your past conditioning and develop new beliefs is by writing down the limiting beliefs that have held you back from achieving your goals so far.
The next step is to replace them with new empowering beliefs.
The ones that will pull you towards what you want to try to achieve.
Let’s have a look at an example:
LIMITING BELIEF - starting an online business is difficult and I must be tech-savvy to launch my website.
EMPOWERING BELIEF - starting an online business is way easier than starting a traditional business, thanks to the new technologies and software I don’t even need to be a tech expert.
Thanks to an online business I can finally achieve the lifestyle I want, a life with more freedom.
THE ELEPHANTS THAT COULD NOT ESCAPE
Once upon a time, a young man was visiting a circus when he was surprised to see elephants being held by a small rope, nothing more.
Neither chains nor cages were used to secure them.
An elephant's weight can range from 5,000 to 14,000 pounds.
Thus, the man assumed they could, at any time, without any effort, break free from the ropes.
Yet, for some reason, they did not even try.
Intrigued to find out why the elephants stood there without making any attempt to free themselves, the man approached a trainer who replied:
“When the elephants are young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”, replied the trainer.
Everything made sense for the man now.
These huge animals could at any time break free from their bonds, but, because they believed they couldn’t, they didn’t.
They had been conditioned to accept their initial belief as something unquestionable.
FINAL THOUGHTS
As Henry Ford once said:
“Whether you think you can or think you can't you're right”.
Is it not true that many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something like the elephants?
How many of us are being held back by old, outdated, limiting beliefs, which no longer serve us?
How many of us have avoided starting something new because of a limiting belief?
Even worse, how many of us are being held back by someone else’s limiting beliefs?
We have to let go of our limiting beliefs to succeed in life.
Ask yourself:
“What are the ropes that are holding me back from succeeding in life”?
In other words, “What are the limiting beliefs that I must eliminate”?
“What do I have to change in my self-talk”?
“What would the negative implications of my limiting beliefs be, if I didn’t change them”?
“How could my limiting beliefs impact the life of my loved ones”?
“What can I start doing today to recondition my mind and develop empowering beliefs”?
Remember: Believing you can succeed is the first step in actually achieving it.
“Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve”. - Napoleon Hill
More resources for YOU:
Your beliefs determine your every action. If you believe God exists you’ll behave as if it were true. If you believe God does not exist you behave as if this were true.
If I pay you in dollars and you believe they’re fake you will not accept them.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Mikolaj😃. Mahatma Gandhi once said: “Your beliefs become your thoughts, your thoughts become your words, your words become your actions, your actions become your habits, your habits become your values, your values become your destiny”,