Letting Go of Limiting Beliefs

In the previous Energy Leadership™ blog post, we discussed self-fate: choosing to have your past dominate your thought processes and thereby create your future. And that the key to escaping the prison of self-fate is to stop lugging around all of the energetic “baggage” from your past and instead make conscious choices in the present moment.

Think of that energetic baggage as being packed in four different suitcases. These “Big 4” energy blocks you carry around dictate how you see the world and hold you back from reaching your unlimited potential.

The first suitcase contains your “limiting beliefs.” Your beliefs either help or hinder you; limiting beliefs are those that hold you back. If you do not believe something is possible, you’re not likely to attempt it. Even if you do attempt it, you won’t devote much energy to achieving that goal because whatever you may say, in your heart you actually believe it’s not possible or appropriate.

Limiting beliefs are general beliefs about the world, your environment or situation, and the people around you that stand in your way. More often than not, you accept a limiting belief as true because you’ve learned it from someone else, or from an “authority,” such as the media, a book or a movie. You assume that’s “just the way it is.”

Yet, many things we once considered true we no longer do. The Earth is round not flat. The Sun, not the Earth, is the center of our solar system. And, alas, poor little Pluto isn’t a planet after all.

Here is a classic example of a limiting belief: until 1954, it was commonly held that running a mile in under four minutes was impossible. Moreover, physiologists believed it was extremely dangerous to even attempt it. Yet on May 6 of that year, Roger Bannister crossed the finish line in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds, thereby disproving the myth forever.

It’s remarkable that Bannister accomplished his feat. It required that he completely ignore the prevailing, limiting belief and construct an entirely different belief system for himself. What others saw as a limitation, he perceived as opportunity. And once he disproved the presumed limits of the human body, less than two months later, another runner, John Landy, broke Bannister’s record with a mile dash of 3 minutes and 57.9 seconds. What’s more, within just a few years, dozens of runners were leaving the four-minute mark in the dust.

Here are a couple of common limiting beliefs that hold many of us back. How about “you have to work really hard to achieve success.” Or that “successful people are lucky.” Or that “you have to have money to make money.”

There are several ways to challenge limiting beliefs. You can explore the effect the belief has had on your life and look for proof of its truth or lack thereof. You can choose to modify the belief or aspects of the belief to better serve you. Simply examining the belief with questions works remarkably well.

Here are a few empowering questions to help you break through any limiting belief-based blocks:

Who says?
Where did I get that idea?
How true do I believe that is?
What if that’s no longer true?
What if that’s not true for me?
How might releasing this limiting belief reveal my golden opportunity?

Once you challenge limiting beliefs they lose their power to hold you back. And, when challenging any and all limiting beliefs becomes your go-to practice, freedom and success become your new normal.

Today, examine the contents of your limiting beliefs suitcase. Start removing some items or, better yet, just leave the entire bag behind and see how much lighter and powerful you feel.

In the next Energy Leadership post, we’ll explore the second of your Big 4 energy blocks—interpretations.

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