This document discusses how limiting beliefs can negatively impact one's life. It explains that limiting beliefs likely have a greater negative effect than any other factor, as they cause people to avoid attempting goals they believe are doomed to fail. The document then provides examples of common limiting beliefs and how they can short-circuit the four step success process of deciding on a goal, taking action, adjusting the approach, and persisting until success. It urges readers to identify their own limiting beliefs in order to eliminate them and replace them with empowering beliefs that enable greater success.
2. Introduction
In the last lesson, we examined how excuses are justifications for remaining stuck
in your current circumstances. The excuses you use are a form of limiting belief.
You’ll soon have a high-level understanding of how your various limiting beliefs
impact your attitude, actions, and results.
Limiting beliefs probably have more of a negative impact on a person’s life
than any other factor. After all, most of us are pretty reasonable; we’re not going
to spend a lot of time on something that we believe is doomed for failure. Why
would you even try to lose weight if you genuinely believed that everyone in your
family was destined to be overweight?
3. First You Must Understand ...
We all carry around numerous limiting beliefs.
They come from a variety of sources as well as
from our own interpretation of the world around us.
Humans can’t help but learn, but sometimes we
learn things that are inaccurate.
Fortunately, you can eliminate limiting beliefs
and replace them with beliefs that empower
you. Imagine replacing a limiting belief with one
that makes life easier and enables you to be more
successful.
4. It’s important to follow a plan or process. Most
things in life are like baking a cake. If you do all the right
things when you’re making a cake, in the end you’ll get
a cake. It’s impossible to have any other result.
Similarly, by following a process, you can banish your
limiting beliefs.
Processes can be wonderful things. For example, if
you have an effective process for getting up and getting
ready in the morning, you’ll never be late. If you have a
healthy process for deciding what to eat, you’re likely
Do You Have A Plan Or Process You’re Following?
5. What Is A Limiting Belief?
A limiting belief is one that causes life to be less than
completely satisfying.
Consider that if all of your beliefs were 100% accurate, you
would be able to have nearly anything you’ve ever wanted.
Believing the right things has a huge impact on your level of
success.
Focus your energy where it can have the greatest impact.
Limiting beliefs are those beliefs that restrict desirable
options or your happiness.
Limiting beliefs affect our lives in so many ways, and none of
them are good. If you can eliminate the 5 most limiting beliefs
you possess, your life would forever change for the better.
6. Limiting Beliefs Short Circuit The Success Process ...
1. Decide clearly what you want.
It's tough to accomplish something meaningful if you don't identify it first.
2. Do something to make it happen.
It takes action to attain any goal. Some people claim that you can practically wish
a Porsche into your driveway without lifting a finger, but the real truth is that some
action is required. You'll have to do something to accomplish anything meaningful.
3. Adjust your approach as you gain new expertise.
You might not know enough at first to realize the perfect path. If it's not working,
do something else. Adjust your approach based on your results.
7. 4. Keep going until you're successful.
If you kept improving your approach and you never gave up, how could you
possibly fail? It's a simple process, but frequently, the simple processes can get
you where you want to be. We spend too much time figuring ways to work around
our faulty beliefs.
If you have a limiting belief, you’re probably not going to complete step 2.
As was stated earlier, most people won’t take an action they think is doomed to fail.
Why bother? This is one significant way that limiting beliefs get in our way.
Frequently, people are unable to complete step 4.
Most of us decide too quickly that something won’t work. As soon as you believe it
won’t work, you’re unlikely to continue trying.
8. Don’t Give Up
There’s a man in the real estate community who makes a great
living buying and selling houses. He frequently has to make over
100 offers to get one accepted. How many offers would you
make before you decided (incorrectly) that it wouldn't work?
Achieving big things usually requires time and effort.
Frequently, that effort needs to be intelligent and calculated
effort, as opposed to the lower-your-head-and-plow-ahead type
of effort. It takes time and experience to put forth the proper
effort. You can't do this with a limiting belief in the way.
9. Other Ways Limiting Beliefs Affect Your Life
1. Limiting beliefs taint your experience of living.
You will do fewer things over the course of your life when you’re constricted by your
limiting beliefs. Imagine what your life would be like without any limiting beliefs. Surely
a fuller, richer life is more appealing to you, no matter how great your life is right now.
2. You unintentionally harm those around you.
Even with the best of intentions, you affect others with your limiting beliefs. You’ll likely
teach your children false ideas that limit them and even affect your friends with
erroneous advice.
10. 3. You fail to grow fully as a human being.
It can be useful to view life with the purpose of eliminating your
limiting beliefs and experiencing everything in the world that
appeals to you. If you could do those 2 things, what kind of life
would you have lived over the course of your lifetime? What path
are you on right now?
4. You'll be inefficient.
Limiting beliefs cause us to find an alternate path, if we look for
one at all. If we don't believe the best route will work for us, we
spend a lot of time following a less direct path in an effort to
work around our limiting belief. Save some time and deal with
11. Outro
Now that you understand how devastating limiting
beliefs can be, it only makes sense to discover your
unique set of limiting beliefs. The next lesson will lead
you through that process.
“Beliefs have the power to create and the power to
destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to
take any experience of their lives and create a
meaning that disempowers them or one that can
literally save their lives.”
- Tony Robbins
12. Get Started On The Tips In This Lesson
Begin to understand the limiting beliefs you have rattling around in your brain.
Make a list of all your unachieved goals, particularly those goals where you
Failed to even get started. If you failed to make a dent in a goal, there’s a good
chance a limiting belief is to blame.