Do you have beliefs or thoughts that are holding you back from your goals and dreams?
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What are the messages that you tell yourself every day? Do you have some that you don’t really like? Or maybe even some that you aren’t even aware of? Your world is governed by the thoughts and beliefs that you have about yourself and the world around you!
Don’t believe me? I want you to think the following thought 3 times. “There are SO many white cars on the road!” “There are so many white cars on the road.” “There are so many white cars on the road!” Now when you are out driving next, say the same thing 3 times. Now watch how many white cars you see!!
Are you thinking this is just a coincidence? Try another experiment! My kids recently started playing the Slug Bug” game. I was convinced that there weren’t any Volkswagen Beetles in our town until they started this game! Now, every time we are out running errands or coming home from school, we see AT LEAST 2 Beetles. I was completely amazed! I just hadn’t SEEN them because I wasn’t looking.
Your brain filters through hundreds of thousands of important and less important messages every day. Your subconscious mind filters through each of those messages and decides what is most important and not as important. This filter is created by our life experiences, the things that we are focusing on in our lives and the positive and our self-talk.
I shared recently in a call about a consultant who BELIEVED she couldn’t wear a Hippie Headband and so whenever she put it on, she felt silly, when in reality, she looked AMAZING!
Her self-talk, her beliefs caused her to think that she looked silly, but if she had been telling herself messages like “I am stylish and trendy” then she may have thought differently about those Hippie Headbands and may have even been wearing them all along.
Let me tell you a story from my life. When I was in 6th grade I had a teacher that helped me form a belief about myself that has haunted me for years. I loved to volunteer to help the teacher, to read out loud, to write on the chalkboard…pretty much anytime the teacher asked for a volunteer, I would raise my hand. I loved helping out my teacher! There was this other girl in class named Jessica. We were the tallest girls in class and she was a lot like me only blonde and a little more developed. For some reason, the teacher liked Jessica a lot more than me. She quickly moved my desk to the very back of the classroom and always had Jessica’s desk right in front of her. She called on Jessica to read out loud and help her almost all of the time, even when her hand wasn’t raised but mine was.
It didn’t take long for me to realize that she was the favorite. And then I started to wonder why. In my mind, I formed the idea that I didn’t have a voice people liked to listen to. I must read in a boring way. I must not be interesting. I must not be someone that others want to follow.
It has taken me a LONG time to realize that these thoughts aren’t true! It was one of the things that stopped me from doing team trainings for a LONG time! I still have a difficult time raising my hand to answer questions in a class or group setting and don’t even get me started about reading things out loud! I still struggle with these thoughts that I’ve had for SO many years. For the longest time, I didn’t even realize that I HAD them! It was just a little voice in the back of my mind that say, “you can’t because you aren’t interesting”.
Is this sounding familiar? Do you have some kind of belief that is holding you back?
What can you do to change these beliefs?
I AM statements are SO powerful. These are statements (also called affirmations) that you can say to yourself to help create the world and the results that you want. For example, I have one affirmation that is “I am strong and healthy”. Although was not as strong and healthy as I wanted to be when I started this affirmation, I found myself making better eating choices and finding time to work out. I was amazed by the results that I had!
An amazing book that talks more about the science behind out thoughts and affirmations is Train Your Brain by Dana Wilde. (this will be linked up in the resources section of the show notes). This book has totally transformed my life and has helped me be more aware of my self-talk and work on changing it into more positive messages.
Another great way to help your brain focus more on what you want to have happen is a vision board! I am now a firm believer in vision boards and that focusing in on what you want to see happen in your life will make it happen!
One last way I want to talk about changing your limiting beliefs is “acting as if”. There is a kind of phrase out there that says “fake it till you make it” and I REALLY don’t like that sound of that! To me, that means you are being fake and I feel it’s important to be authentic in all that we do. Acting as If is my way of saying to ACT like you are already what you want to be.
For example, if you want to be a world famous piano player, you have to act as if you are already a world famous piano player. You study, learn and train the way a world famous piano player would. You practice. You study and practice your technique. You surround yourself with the best teachers, music and colleagues. You go to a school that teaches expert lessons in piano or take private lessons! You do everything that a professional piano player does or has done.
You don’t become a success by accident. It’s work. HARD work sometimes. That’s what makes it worthwhile when you get to the end! People don’t see all the work that it took to become a success, they only see the end results. Do you think Michael Jordan became the superstar he is today just by walking onto the court one day and thinking “I think I want to play basketball.” No!! He was actually CUT from his high school basketball team! Did that stop him! No! He kept working and practicing and working some more. There are times he would stay after practice for 2 hours working on his free-throw. He was always the first one at practice and the last one to leave.
There is an amazing TED talk that kind of walks through Acting As If. It talks about how you can use how you stand and sit to increase your confidence and also to be more energetic. In the TED talk, she talks about how several people were interviewed while they were sitting in either a confident or a non-confident position and the differences it made to the person who was interviewing them. Check it out- you’ll be glad you did!
So what are the beliefs that you have? Are there some that might be holding you back?! It’s time to make a change and start creating the life you want to live and reaching towards your dreams!
Resources:
https://embed.ted.com/talks/amy_cuddy_your_body_language_shapes_who_you_are
Show Challenge:
Listen to your self-talk this week. What are some things you are telling yourself that might be hurting your self-worth? What are some phrases that you think are helping you achieve your dreams? Find 1 that you want to change and use an I AM statement to start creating the results you want!