What is it that limits us, but our own beliefs? How can we be limitless? Ironically, by limiting our limiting beliefs.
A ‘belief’ is anopinion or decision we make about ourselves, our environment, and the world we live in. These are the opinions and decisions that chart out the way we live. These beliefs are born out of various experiences, causes, meanings, identities and so on and soon become a part of us that drive all our thinkingand decisions. They soon become such an integral part of us that we become so bound to them, they soon become the ones controlling us. It is these beliefs that turn into limiting beliefs, so much so that nothing new is allowed in, nor any difference of opinion is welcomed. These beliefssettle inside our system, within our internal world, shaping our responses to the external world and opportunities around us.
Many a time, such limiting beliefs, handicap our growth. Ever wonder why certain things happen to us again and again. Take for example, we try to get a certain project. Everything is handled splendidly, right from meetings to negotiations to documentation. But at the last minute the project slips out of our hands. Why does this happen? Months before exams, we study hard, night and day, but when the results come, we have just scraped through as compared to some students who didn’t even put in half the effort?
This happens because we are controlled by our limiting beliefs. In some way or the other, many times sub-consciously, our beliefs tell us we are no good and that we don’t deserve the success. Once established, these beliefs become so deeply entrenched into our sub-conscious that whenever we are out there trying to achieve something, our sub-conscious is very softly whispering to us – ‘no you can’t’. And we fail or just scrape through. If such things are constantly happening to us, it’s time to introspect. Time to take help from an experienced NLP Life Coach or Coaching programs and find what are the beliefs we have, which is limiting us. It could be in the form of words, actions, thoughts, so on.
When these negative experiences keep happening again and again, in various area of our life, it leadsus to believe that “I have really bad luck in becoming successful” or “I am a bad businessman”, or “I am unlucky in relationships”. From then on, we focus only on the negative aspects whenever we try to clinch a deal, or are in a relationship. When we think negative, we get negative results and slowlyit confirms what we believe is true. Then, unconsciously weseek projects or partners who conform to this belief. Thus belief influences action and becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. This then becomes a circle of events, that keep getting repeated, time and again leading us to create more and more limiting beliefs.
It’s Time to SPOT and STOP these Limiting Beliefs
Neuro Linguistic Programming NLP, a science which has huge success in changing the way we think. It works on the theory that our beliefs affect the way we act in the world, and vice versa. And one of the key Tools of NLP is the attempt to change our beliefs in order to address negative behavior patterns and replace it with positive and progressive behavior patterns and beliefs.
Content Reframe or Re-framing your Belief Content
Changing or altering embedded beliefs,that has found home in our unconscious is no easy task. Remember, the ideal way to go about it is to avoid accumulation of negative beliefs by continuously performing content reframe. But one can do this only when one is aware of it. Better late than never. If and when negative beliefs develop, we gather evidence to counter what we believe is wrong. It is possible we may be right, however painful it might be. Not all our beliefs are wrong. Hence it is very important to get facts right.
Write down the positive and negative points of the belief that is being targeted and the thoughts that drive these beliefs. When we keep doing this exercise, slowly we start seeing positive patterns developing.
We must lookat all the positive aspects of our belief, just don’t seek out the negative. Once we are sure that the negatives outweighs the positives, and that the belief is not helping our growth in any manner, we re-frame our belief content. From our belief of ‘I am no good’, What we are aiming for, is to formulate a one sentence summary of our new belief; from“I have really bad luck in becoming successful” or “I am a bad businessman”, or “I am unlucky in relationships”, re-write all these with, for example – “I am empowered to have success/ do excellent in my exams/ have positive, loving, fulfilling relationships” and so on. The re-framed content are also called positive affirmations.
It does not end here. It took us so many years to embed our limiting beliefs. It definitely will take some time to replace them with the new re-framed content. With new fulfilling beliefs. So, the next step would be to focus entirely on the new, positive affirmation/s for around five minutes each day.
How canwe do it? Find a quiet place and space, away from distractions, so that our focus is entirely on the task at hand – embedding the new re-framed beliefs. We must ignore everything around us for some space of time. Just be with ourselves and our thoughts. Do this with diligence and within a few weeks of practice,we will have developed a strong mental image of our new belief.
After around 3 weeks of this practice,we begin to see effects of the new beliefs system, in our everyday life. Wesee differences, that will make us stronger, more confident and as we start achieving, our belief in ourselves will grow stronger and stronger giving us the success we have strived for.
In conclusion:
By mastering such life enhancing NLP tools and strategies, we can change the way we think and focus. We startlooking at the past, and future with a different mindset. Since we now know the method, of effectively re-framing our limiting beliefs, we become more confident in communicating with the outside world. With our communication abilities our emotional intelligence also improves. These are just a few techniques to make us aware of the power of NLP in creating a life we want to live. NLP has tools and strategies for any of life’s challenges and is the best guide, a sciencethat can empower us, to help us live a life that is limitless.
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