Let me tell you a story about limiting beliefs…
I recently received a call from a business friend facing a terrible situation.
We’ll call him “Nick” and I’ll alter some details to respect his privacy.
Nick was in a dead-end job making about $15/hour, which I knew was WAY below his potential. Nick is an entrepreneur and he only took the job to bridge the gap after his family was hit by a series of unplanned financial setbacks.
“My boss just said he’s going to let me go,” Nick said sheepishly.
The difference between his dream job and a job that sucked was “I’m not good enough”
“Do you have anything else lined up?” I asked.
“We’ll there is one thing, but I’ll never get it,” he said.
As soon as the words came through my phone, I knew we needed to take action and we didn’t have a lot of time to waste.
Over the next week, we had several calls and we focused on one thing…
Limiting Beliefs
Limiting beliefs were stopping Nick dead in his tracks just like they stop almost all of us from achieving what we want in life.
What are limiting beliefs?
They are the “barriers” that block us from getting what we want.
Limiting beliefs are what come after “but” in “I want to do X but…”
Limiting beliefs are the beliefs that tell us we can’t do something because we don’t have the money, the connections, the talent, the skill, the business cards, the office, the website, the clothes, the pickup lines, the ability to talk to people, the ability to sell, etc.
“The value of self-esteem lies not merely in the fact that it allows us to feel better but that it allows us to live better – to respond to challenges and opportunities more resourcefully and more appropriately.” – Nathaniel Branden
They are roadblocks and they often damage our self-esteem.
Do you know what I’m talking about?
My guess is, you know why you aren’t doing what you want to do. You know why you don’t have what you want.
Goooooood Morning Procrastination!
The challenge with limiting beliefs is that they have the capacity to freeze us up, stop us dead in our tracks and make us find a million things to do instead of the one or two things that we know we should be doing.
Why?
Well, Nick knew what he needed to do, BUT he couldn’t get himself to take action and follow through.
He needed to take the opportunity in front of him and run with it, but he couldn’t because of the competition he was up against (i.e. he didn’t feel “good enough”).
His limiting beliefs were causing him to procrastinate the very thing that would save him.
Sound familiar?
I think we’ve both been there, haven’t we? We have something we need to do but instead of doing it we find something random to do instead.
What We Did To Get Nick Out of &*#% Creek
We focused our calls (we just had a few) on identifying the root limiting beliefs that were stopping Nick.
We did some logical exercises and some that are… let’s just a little weird.
We dismantled his limiting beliefs.
Before long, Nick was a new man.
He went after the new opportunity and despite being up against over 450 applicants…
He won.
He locked down his dream job.
His wife is thrilled. His bruised and battered self-confidence has never been higher.
And, it all boils down to this…
The difference between his dream job and a job that sucked was “I’m not good enough.”
Now, let me ask you this – what’s holding you back?
Where do you feel stuck?
