What is a Limiting Belief?
A limiting or negative belief is something you believe about yourself that is holding you back in your life: A belief that is literally limiting your ability to lead the kind of life that you would like to lead. Almost everyone has some limiting beliefs and accepting this fact is often the first step you need to take towards addressing your own. Admitting you have a limiting belief is not a sign of failure on your part. It is a sign of courage and strength.
Here are some typical examples of limiting beliefs that some people have about themselves:
• I'm too shy to meet new people
• I'm not the sort of person who will ever be any good at giving presentations
• I have a terrible temper and there's nothing I can do about it
• I was born unlucky and bad luck follows me wherever I go
• I can't resist sweet food so I'm never going to be able to lose weight
One of the most important things to learn in any self-improvement programme is how to identify the limiting beliefs you have about yourself; and then to replace them with new positive beliefs. Anyone can do this - provided you follow the secrets to success contained in this article.
What is an Affirmation?
An affirmation is a short sentence that crystallises a new belief you would like to have about yourself into a simple statement. A new belief becomes "true" as soon as the sub-conscious mind accepts it as true. But before this happens the sub-conscious mind will look for evidence to support the new belief and this must be provided through appropriate actions. When the actions are accompanied by an affirmation over a sustained period of time, the sub-conscious mind finds it very difficult to resist the new belief.
Some people like to repeat their affirmations over and over again (such as 50 times every morning) until the sub-conscious mind gives up all resistance.
Other people like to write down their affirmations once a day, or print them out on a note for themselves to see whenever they look in their diary or in their bathroom mirror.
Some people find that just having an affirmation and knowing what it is, is enough for it to work - provided it is accompanied by actions that confirm that it is true.
The 5 secrets to a successful Affirmation
These are the five golden rules: The secrets to successful affirmations.
1. A successful affirmation should be short and simple (otherwise it will be hard to remember) and then should follow the three "P"s:
2. Personal: It should always begin with "I"
3. Written in the Present tense, as if the belief were already true: In other words "I am..." not "I will..." or "I am becoming"
4. Positive, not negative: such as "I breathe healthy clean air all day" not "I am stopping smoking" or "I am not a smoker". All negative words such as fear and worry should be avoided in affirmations
5. Finally, a good affirmation must be accompanied by actions that will demonstrate to the sub-conscious mind that the new belief is true. In other words, acting "as if" the affirmation is true will very quickly make it so.
How Affirmations Work: The Story of Peter
Peter was a 30 year old accountant who had a negative belief about himself that he was too shy to talk to people he didn't know. This belief was not serving him at all well because it resulted in him having very few friends and often being left on his own with no-one to talk to at social gatherings.
He decided that life would be much better if he could change his belief about being too shy into a positive belief that meeting new people makes life more interesting. By talking things through with his Life Coach he came to the conclusion that the best way of meeting people was to concentrate on listening and being interested in what the other person was saying rather than concentrating on his own feelings of shyness (which is what he had been doing). In other words he decided his priority should be to be interested, rather than interesting.
After some thought Peter decided that what would work best for him would be start a Journal about his new belief so he bought himself a little book with 80 empty pages. On the title page he wrote the words "Interesting facts about interesting people"
Then every morning, after breakfast, he wrote down an affirmation at the top of a new page. The affirmation he chose was "I enjoy meeting new people and finding out about them". The action he had decided to take to accompany his affirmation was that every day he had to talk to at least one person he had never talked to before - by asking them a question or two. It didn't matter who the person was, his task was to find out something about someone else (by talking to them) so that he could write it down in his Journal that evening before going to bed.
On the first day he asked an old man sitting next to him on the bus what he was going to do today. The next day he asked the girl on the till at the supermarket whether she was feeling cold because she noticed she had her jacket on. The day after that he offered the janitor at work a biscuit and when he said yes he asked the janitor what was his favourite type of biscuit. At first it was very hard to think of questions to ask, but every day it got easier and easier. It was quite surprising to him how willing people were to answer his questions. And he never forgot about the task because of the affirmation that he wrote in his Journal every morning.
After just two weeks he started to notice something unexpected. When he saw someone again who he had previously spoken to they often smiled at him or gave him a little wave. This gave him encouragement that his new belief was really starting to come true. But a nagging voice in his mind kept trying to tell him it was a trick and that he couldn't stop being shy as easily as all that. Peter soon found out that the best way to keep this voice quiet was just to repeat his affirmation to himself once or twice and to his surprise it seemed to work.
After two months, Peter decided he didn't need the Journal any more. He was speaking to so many people every day that it had become quite a habit; and he had even been asked by some colleagues to join them in the bar after work one day which they had never done before. It wasn't all perfect of course. He realised that some people were quite boring and talked endlessly about themselves without ever asking him anything in return. But he was learning how to spot these people in advance and try to avoid them if he could.
Overall, Peter was so much happier in his life. He had wanted to believe something only to find it was actually true: He really did enjoy meeting people and finding out about them!
To find out more about how Paul Hemphill could help you to identify and overcome your own limiting beliefs, please visit the Horizons Life Coaching website at http://www.horizonslifecoaching.co.uk/. Paul can coach people anywhere in the world using Skype.
You can also follow Horizons on Facebook to receive daily news, quotations and cartoons on the subject of happiness, well-being and work-life balance: http://www.facebook.com/HorizonsLife.
No comments:
Post a Comment