Limiting Beliefs ...
Can Be Challenged And Overcome

We all have limiting beliefs. Here's how to recognize them and some tips for working around them

How You Got Your Limiting Beliefs.

We are each born into a community. Obviously your most important community is your immediate family, followed closely by your extended family, your local society, your state and then your country.

Your community dictates to you in many ways what to believe and the rules around "what you have to do in order to be 'accepted' around here".

You are not born owning the beliefs, values, opinions of your community, they are simply absorbed by you as you grow up and figure out what you have to do to fit in. Beliefs, therefore, are very much based on conditioning.

Limiting Beliefs Can Cripple Your Life.

You can hold on to a belief long past its use by date. There are two prime reasons for this:

• Because you don't want to be rejected by the community that you have worked so diligently to be accepted by; (and unfortunately this is often not even a conscious belief but one of those primal reactions that we all have... acting without understanding what is causing us to act) ... which means

• It has been embedded so deeply in your subconscious you are unaware of its existence and its control in your life.

How to Recognise a Limiting Belief

You'll recognise a limiting belief whenever you start a sentence with the words like "I can't ..." "I have to ..." "It's impossible to ..."

Here are a few examples:

• You can't give workers financial information they'll ....
• I can't speak in public, I go red
• I couldn't be rich, rich people are mean
• I'm too fat for anyone to find me attractive
• It's impossible for to get people to agree to pay cuts

Whenever your beliefs restrict your performance and success you need to challenge that belief. Ask yourself: "Am I acting on past conditioning, that is no longer relevant (or not relevant to this particular situation)?"

You may well want to get some coaching to understand just how much your life is being driven by irrational beliefs that no longer serve you!

Limiting Beliefs Cause Conflict

The vast majority of conflict arises because of differing beliefs. When in conflict ask yourself "What are my beliefs about this situation?" You may be surprised by what comes up (if you dig deep enough). You may discover something that has been locked in your subconscious for a long time; a belief that is driving your decision-making today in an inappropriate way.

Challenge & Overcome

Regularly challenge your limiting beliefs and eradicate those that are getting in your way of achieving the results you want. Develop a sense of knowing - knowing whether you are acting on past conditioning or acting on the present information ... whether you are making the decision/choice based on present circumstance or un-useful history. You can watch the playback of a recent webinar on how to shift from limiting beliefs to something far more powerful.

If you hear yourself (or someone else) use a limiting belief, you can challenge and start the change process by asking questions such as:

• Who says?
• What would happen if you did/(didn't)?
• What's stopping you?
• Have you ever seen someone else do it?

The idea of using questions such as these is to help you (or the other person) to see that there are other possibilities and choices about how you think and act towards life circumstances/situations.

You have a choice. Challenge your beliefs and allow yourself to operate at your highest capability - or allow them to remain unchallenged and maybe live out less than your best.

Growth Opportunity

• List four of the most important beliefs/values you learned from your community (parents, family, school, other influential adults, society at large) when you were a child. Are they limiting your performance in any way today?

• List the major beliefs you have learned at work. How are they impacting you - hindering or helping?

• Join the Align-Lead-Inspire Club and download for free the webinar recording that shows you how to get rid of limiting beliefs