When you overcome a limiting belief, it not only helps build motivation, but it also makes you mentally stronger.
Everyone has beliefs that hold them back.
I suck at writing. I could never lose weight. I tried before and failed. I am too old. I don’t know enough. It is too late for me to try something new.
What if you knew you wouldn’t fail?
What if you were able to talk to yourself a few years in the future?
Your future you told your current you that you had succeeded. It hadn’t been easy, and there were many obstacles along the way, but you had persevered and achieved even more than you had originally imagined.
Would it change your behavior today?
For most people, it would change their behavior. Having the knowledge that they would not fail would motivate them to put in the effort and work.
Most people are afraid of failing. They are afraid of putting in a lot of work all for nothing.
We all want assurances and guarantees, but life doesn’t work that way.
How can we overcome limiting beliefs without assurances and guarantees?
David Goggins was living from day to day. He had a job that he didn’t like, was overweight, and was without purpose. By chance, he saw a commercial about the Navy SEALs, and he decided to become a SEAL.
The problem was that he couldn’t swim and was completely out of shape.
Most people would have given in to their limiting beliefs. I can’t swim so there is no way I could ever be a SEAL. David attacked his beliefs and fears head on.
He started training. Took swimming lessons. He had numerous setbacks, including injuries that forced him to be dropped out the first two times he tried out for the SEALs.
In the end and on his final chance, he persevered and became a SEAL.
That whole journey changed who he was. He started believing in himself and he started believing that he could achieve and go beyond what his mind was telling him.
How can you apply this to your own life?
Like David, the best way to overcome a limiting belief is to attack it straight on. The more you challenge your belief through action, the sooner you will break that belief, and you don’t need to have the mindset of a Navy SEAL.
What is something you want to achieve or improve but your beliefs and doubts have been holding you back?
Maybe you want to be a content producer or get in shape.
A key point is that your actions must also be done long enough that you have become competent at what you believed was impossible. If you only do something for 2 months, it is easy to give up because you might feel you are not progressing.
For example, do you want to be a writer? You could make a rule to write 3 or more articles each week and publish them for at least 6 months to a year.
In the beginning, you might have trouble coming up with topics, deciding how you want to say things, and getting words on paper.
After two or three months of forcing yourself to write articles, you should find it becoming easier. After that, you can start to improve on your writing and how you want to say things. If you did this for a year, not only would you have overcome many doubts and fears, but you would also have developed a strong habit of writing that can spill over into many other areas.
Some Tips to Help You Succeed
Have clear, specific, actionable steps and rules that you follow. Instead of saying that you will exercise three times a week, make it more specific. I will go running for 30 minutes, three times a week no matter what. I will write and publish three articles a week on Mon., Wed., and Fri. no matter what.
Do not care what others think. Who cares if you get criticized for your actions? Goggins didn’t care that people made fun of him for being a grown man trying to learn to swim. He didn’t care that people thought he was crazy for wanting to be a SEAL. He only cared about attacking his weaknesses and overcoming them.
When you care about what others think, things like perfectionist syndrome creep in, or you might feel embarrassed about your situation. This can cause you to want to give in to staying as you are.
The key point to remember is that when you attack a fear, you become mentally stronger the more you do it. Do it without caring what others think of you. You are not doing it to impress others. You are doing it for you.
Do not have expectations. When you expect things to go a certain way, and then they do not, you give up.
I will write every day for 100 days and should have 5000 followers. What happens if you only have 100 followers at the end of 70 days?
Do not have expectations. Just focus on a consistent action performed repeatedly over a long period of time, but it is important to try to improve as you go along. If you can do that, not only will you kill the limiting beliefs, but you will also grow mental fortitude and motivation.
Validate your feelings and limiting beliefs. If you have lots of negative feelings or strong limiting beliefs, explore and validate those feelings and beliefs. Are they really true? Have others been able to overcome similar situations? I wrote an article here that tells you how to do this in detail, here. Validating them will help reduce the pressure trying to prevent you from taking action.
Conclusion
The thing that holds us back is ourselves. We carry a weight of doubts, fears, and limiting beliefs around our necks. They drag us down and hold us back if we let them.
If you pick a big fear or limiting belief and attack it consistently over a period of time, it will become insignificant.
This will lead to a new confidence in yourself. It will spill over into other areas of your life and motivate you. You will start to understand that the beliefs holding you back can be broken.
Start today and start attacking a big belief that is holding you back.
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