What's the belief that's blocking your success? Take these five steps to change your mind

Have you been working really hard to achieve your goal and you can't for the life of you work out why on earth you're not succeeding? When you’re not achieving your goals do you start on the blame game? Blaming yourself, the universe or others.

Perhaps it’s time to start looking within for those invisible blockers that are holding you back and sabotaging your success. 

Henry Ford once said, 

“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t, you're right.”

When you reflect on this comment, what thoughts does it start to bring into your awareness? What thoughts do you have that stop you succeeding? 

These are your limiting beliefs and they are the invisible blocks that stop you being the best version of yourself.

And you have the power to change that because a thought is not a fact and a belief is just a thought you’ve had over and over, and over. And if that thought doesn’t serve you well, then surely you would want rid of it. You’d want to learn to just bat it away.

Because we can all learn how to do something, and if we can change and control our beliefs and thoughts, we can be whatever we want, if we take a risk, dare to make our dreams come true.

So what do limiting beliefs sound like?

There’s no point in ….

I’ll never be ….

I’m useless at ...

I'm no good at ...

Success is hard wok.

Everyone is my family is overweight.

I’m not creative.

I’ll sound stupid.

I don’t like vegetables.

I’m too old….

I’m too young….

I don’t have enough willpower.

I’m not good enough.

Nobody likes me.

I’m not meant to be rich. 

My limiting belief is that I have to be perfect. That anything less than perfect is not good enough. So what’s the problem with that belief, I hear you ask. On the surface, it sounds great as surely it means ‘high achiever’, ‘top performer’, ‘millionaire’. 

For some that belief, that value of perfectionism, will propel you. For others, it will stop you starting. Perhaps you constantly compare yourself to others and spend your life noticing what you lack. Because ultimately it is about fear of failure. 

I've taught myself and accepted now that done is better than perfect, that good is good enough, and that perfection is the enemy of success. 

Most of our limiting beliefs were formed between the ages of 1 and 7 as we were growing up. That means they were formed as we experimented as a child, observed as a child and experienced as a child. That means that throw away comments by parents, teachers, or significant adults in our lives could have been responsible for us forming a misconstrued belief about ourselves. Because remember we only had a child’s perspective.

So that’s a long time you have been practising that deeply held belief. And that’s why it may be invisible because you’ve ceased to notice the thought it is so much part of your mental landscape. And yet it’s undermining you, sabotaging you, preventing you from achieving your dream.

How can you overcome a limiting belief that is holding you back?

Step 1

Build your awareness. Listen to your thinking when you don’t do something that you say you want to do or if you’re not achieving a goal. Start paying detailed attention to your inner voice as you can’t change anything you’re not aware of. 

Step 2

Challenge your limiting belief. Ask yourself, when did I decide that? How do I know I can’t? What would happen if I could? 

Step 3

Write down all the beliefs you have about that situation or that problem, eg success, money, food, health. 

Step 4 

Decide what belief you would like to have instead.

Step 5 

Go out and actively look for evidence to support that new belief. The more evidence you build, the stronger the belief will become.

When we have a limiting belief, we keep looking for evidence to support it and we only see and accept evidence that does support it. 

We either miss, ignore or actively refute evidence that contradicts our belief. So this may be an uncomfortable exercise!

How can you prevent limiting beliefs from being built in the first place?

If you’re a parent or a teacher, this is a very important question. 

In the first place, don’t generalise an experience from one event to another. Just because it didn’t work out once, doesn’t mean it won’t work out again and it definitely doesn’t mean it won’t work out in similar situations.

Look for the learning in the event. Thankfully, scientists are expert in this field or we wouldn’t make any medical progress! Ask, what can be done differently next time? What’s the tweak that needs to be made? 

Use your language carefully, don’t assume and don’t be judgemental either with yourself or others. 

How else can you nurture your thinking and change how you perceive yourself?

Find a beautiful empty jar. Write down your wonderful qualities and the things you are grateful for on pieces of paper, fold them up and put them in the jar to pull out and read when you doubt yourself. Add to the jar.

Create yourself an affirmation to use every morning to rewire your brain.

Buy an essential oil that you can diffuse to let go of your limiting beliefs: Bergamot is the oil of self acceptance, Lemongrass the oil of cleansing, Zendocrine is the oil of vitality and transition, and Vetiver the oil of centering and descent. 

Book an appointment with an NLP Practitioner as there are techniques we use that support you to let go of limiting beliefs and rewire your brain with beliefs that are more helpful. 

Imagine your world when you believe you can. 

Need help to manage your barriers to weight loss? 

Join my Facebook Group Shift your Mindset Shift your Weight at http://bit.ly/2N2Canl 

or book a call with me at www.shiftmymindset.club to find out how I can help.

Buy a Doterra essential oil