We learn our belief systems as very little children, and then we move through life creating experiences to match our beliefs. Look back in your own life and notice how often you have gone through the same experience.
– Louise L. Hay
What is your biggest fear? One of the most common answers to this question is that people are afraid to lose their job. Most of us think we have a problem in our lives until a bigger one comes along. Assume you have lost your job, it is not a problem until a bigger problem arises. Losing your house may be devastating, for example, but then that isn’t a problem if your child gets sick.
Once you start exploring this way of thinking you begin to understand that life is a series of events, not just one moment in time. With the right mindset, there is no problem that you can’t overcome, no matter how big it may seem at the time.
The success of your life is ultimately controlled by your thoughts and the decisions you make on a daily basis. This is the difference between those who continue playing small or those who really go after their dreams.
How to overcome limiting beliefs that hold us back
You unlock your freedom when you push through your fears; this is where the real transformation happens:
1. Identify where you are emotionally – guilty, overwhelmed, stuck, depressed, sad? You cannot change your life when you are stuck in these emotional states, there is not enough energy. Once you identify the pattern and you see the truth, then you can decide how to fix the problem.
2. What is the remedy? If fear is controlling things, your remedy is courage. And in the present moment, being courageous may not necessarily feel good for you, but do it any way! Push through the barrier. Treat your emotions like a muscle, if you practice, you will get stronger. People have patterns. What are yours? Angry people get angry, sad people get sad. This is where we naturally live in our “home” our comfortable place. We use triggers as events to get us “home”. Identify the triggers and then find the remedy.
3. Practice that emotion. Know that you can change your frustrations. If you work out what is causing your frustrations, then you can start to take action. Be consistent in working towards making the change. Remember your natural instinct will be to go back to your natural “home”, but if you are aware of the trigger and keep practicing, soon a new muscle memory will kick in.
4. Condition the emotion – This is when your life changes, when your new found emotion becomes the new normal.
I can attest, these steps do work. From being a young child my learnt behavior led me to think that it was completely acceptable to lose control and have fits of angry rage. Don’t get me wrong, anger is completely normal, and is a healthy human emotion. But when it gets out of control it can be very destructive. Getting angry doesn’t actually solve the problem, it often exacerbates the issue. By practicing talking through an issue logically and by telling myself that “the world is not really out to get me” I slowly gained a more balanced perspective on life, and began to strip the drama out of my life. Sigh of relief!
Sarah Bennett-Nash is an entrepreneur, success coach and business mentor, dedicated to helping women create a business and life they love. Having spent over a decade working 80-hour weeks in finance, she is committed to helping women around the world realize another way to achieve success on their own terms.