What’s holding you back?

    We all have limiting belief in our lives that are holding us back from greatness. They are going to be very different depending on your own experience and life to this point but we have to get them out of the way so we can grow. So how do we find them?

    They’re easy enough to find if we take a step back and look closely. What are the areas that you are not happy with? There may be several, and there probably should be if you are really interested in long term growth, but find one to start. It could be relationships, or work. Maybe you’re not happy with finances or maybe you hate the neighborhood or home you live in. It can be something relational or something tangible, but we all typically have areas that we want to improve in.

    Take your time. Write them down. Now, you probably have one that jumps out at you. We typically have something causing us more stress than everything else and that issue is probably one we are not very successful in and there is probably a strong belief there that is creating a problem, but there are more. Journaling is a great way to identify the areas you want to improve but even just talking to close and trusted friends or family may also help, but beware, they may have contributed to the belief that is holding you back. Sometimes even those who love us and want what’s best for us give us terrible advice or help us build awful beliefs that hold us back.

    Don’t tell me you don’t have any area with a limiting belief either. You know one I see all the time? “I’m not good at math.” I hate this one. I don’t even teach math but I get so frustrated because so many students and adults believe this. But it’s ridiculous. You aren’t bad at math. You don’t practice it, and you have a limiting belief about math. Let me prove this to you with a fantastic metaphor.

    Math is not the easiest subject we teach kids. Other things seem to come somewhat easier and many subjects are information based (social science, life science) and not skills based like math or English Language Arts (writing essays as such). So guess which subjects students tend to think they aren’t good at? The skills based subjects. But we don’t apply the understanding we have regarding skills in other areas to school.

    Almost everyone can walk and do some basic physical activity. In the same way, we all have some basic ability to problem solve and do some logical reasoning. Before you disagree, if you can count and do some basic addition then you too have some ability in math. But even though we can all walk and perform some physical tasks, it doesn’t mean we are all olympic athletes. We don’t all run marathons. But few of us go around saying, “I’m not good at running.” We mostly acknowledge that we just hate running; that we choose not to run but that if we really wanted to, we could get better at running and even have some level of success running. Don’t challenge me on this before looking on facebook and seeing all the people on there completing 5Ks, running and getting fit. You can do it too if you wanted. I saw a video of a man with cerebral-palsy lifting 200 pounds. Make excuses if you like but you’re only hurting yourself.

    The point is this, we say “I’m not good at math,” but what we really mean is that we have never put in the time and practice to master the skills necessary to be good at it. If we put more effort in, we would have better results.

    This is the same with anything in our lives. We have things we haven’t been successful in, but that doesn’t mean we just aren’t good at them. We can all be more successful with improved effort and by eliminating limiting beliefs.

An easy one for me was relationships. I was married 13 years and was miserable at the end of it and got out. I took a step back to try to find what I was doing wrong. There’s the key too, don’t try to blame your lack of success on something external or someone else, find what you can do better. Believe me, there were plenty of things I could have done better in that relationship. So bear with me as I take you through the process with myself as an example.