What kind of excuses do you often tell yourself that’s limiting you in your life or the place you wish to go? Many limiting beliefs are thoughts, attitudes that one feels to be the truth. They often have an adverse affect on one’s social and personal life by blocking them from progressing and growing on a professional and personal level. They can also limit one from taking crucial steps that can set one back and change their life.
It’s important to question these limiting beliefs and look for alternative beliefs that can help you on your path. There are many ways to do this and many books on the subject that provide insight into the process of shifting one’s beliefs. A helpful technique is to challenge these beliefs on at least one occasion using your own logic. The reasoning for this is simple: if you can’t stand up against something which isn’t true, then try another idea or alternative facts to support it.
One of the most effective ways to do this is to use what’s called a “self-affirmation.” This is simply a statement that you make to yourself repeatedly in order to reaffirm your own belief that you will succeed. Once you’ve made one such statement many times, your subconscious will believe that it’s true and you’ll find that it’s easier to move forward on your path. Just imagine what it might feel like to no longer feel like your limiting beliefs are true!
In addition to this, there is another great exercise to use when you’re trying to change careers and break free of limiting beliefs. It involves actually writing down your limiting beliefs on a piece of paper. Then read these statements out loud as you challenge them. After reading each statement carefully, ask yourself if you still believe them. If so, then either acknowledge your statement as correct and move forward or change the wording to reflect your new belief.
For instance, maybe you have a belief that it’s nearly impossible to succeed in sales. You may even think that you’ve been convinced of this by lots of failures in the past. However, you may notice that as you read statements like this out loud; you begin to question whether salespeople really do have virtually impossible job schedules to live with. Perhaps it’s time to get a little more creative with your thinking? After all, there’s a good chance that the person next to you in sales has had some very difficult sales jobs in the past. There’s a good chance that the person sitting across from you in sales has had some very difficult sales jobs in the past.
The key here is to look at your words carefully. When you use a self-limiting belief, you are actually reversing the logic involved in your original statement. You’re simply reversing the logic that was used to convince yourself that it was possible to achieve your goal. To change these limiting beliefs, you must first challenge them. If they are not challenged, they will become deeply rooted and it will be difficult to change them.