Define your self limiting beliefs so that you can give yourself permission to be the courageous person that you are meant to be.
How many times a day do you say "its too hard...," or "thats just not me?" We insert these road blocks and detours into our self talk more frequently than we are aware. These cause us to second guess our abilities, change our course, and surrender to a more comfortable standard that presses pause on our potential for growth and opportunity to be brave. When we are on that unfamiliar journey to something new and great, its tempting to get stopped and stuck in those self-limiting beliefs. The "well I am not really good at that anyway," creeps in and shows us an easy way out from the heat of challenge and uncertainty and back into our comfort zone, back where we started.
“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.” -Michael Jordan
Practice, Practice, Practice
We all have to start somewhere, you don't get to 11th grade before passing 1st through 10th grade, or get promoted to manager before paying your dues as an associate; we had to learn from the bottom to get to the top, through trial and error, bruises and broken hearts, how to walk, talk, tie our shoes, talk to people we are scared of or have a crush on, etc. Where would we be today if we took that easy way out those many years ago, if we never loved again after that first heart break, if we believed ourself when we said that we weren't ever going to be anything in life because we failed a test in 9th grade, or if we stopped walking after the first hard fall? The reality is that life comes with pain and uncomfortability and in order to change and improve, we have to embrace these growing pains and show up in our life. When we look at that road ahead with the "lets do this" attitude, the what I am willing to try rather than the what I have done, we are no longer holding ourselves back from our true potential.
“If you don’t challenge yourself, you will never realize what you can become.” -Anonymous
Opportunity is defined as a set of circumstances that makes it possible to do something. What have you said for days, weeks, or even years that you wanted to achieve but somehow always seem to find an excuse not to follow through? Ask yourself, what story am I telling myself that has been keeping me from getting what I want? We wake up each day with opportunity and the more mindful that we are of our self-limiting beliefs , the more we can reach our goals and feel our well deserved success.
Experiment
For a week, practice being mindful and write down the "stories that you are telling yourself," your self limiting beliefs, and think about the impact that those words are having on your week. What would you have encountered if you had not been detoured? What doubts snuck in and depleted your confidence and belief in your success? What evidence did you assume as fact, before you gave yourself the opportunity to try or truly know the answer?
Think about it
This is an ongoing conversation that I have with myself, where I give myself room/permission, to explore possibility, see what I can do, what I can try, to evaluate what my threshold really is, not what my fear, doubt, worry, or past experiences tells me it is. These battles within our heads sound like, "well I am not an outgoing person," that gets us out of that anxious conversation with a new person or the "well I don't really have time for working out anyway," that gets us out of the guilt trip for not going to the gym. We all fall into these traps. Practice being mindful of these labels that we stick on our shirts and wear around as our truths, so that we can finally take them off, throw them away, and tap into our authentic power and beliefs.