You are not worthy of success. You are not worthy of a better, more productive workday. You are not worthy of creating work-life balance while achieving key objectives. These are limiting beliefs. If you have these limiting beliefs, you are likely destined to realize those as realities – unless you recognize them and change them.
Of course you ARE worthy of all of these things. The sooner you realize you are worthy and capable of achieving these things (or anything else that you may be missing due to limiting beliefs), the sooner you can get to work in shifting your paradigms – changing the beliefs that impact the way you think.
Limiting beliefs affect the way we think about our personal productivity, they dictate our attitudes and approaches, and in some cases they persuade us we are going to fail before we even start (Take Back Your Life! McGhee/Wittry). These beliefs are usually subconscious and borne of experiences over time or even from things we were told as a child.
In order to set about changing these limiting beliefs, we must acknowledge them and bring them into our consciousness. Then, we can begin to challenge them and break them down to recognize that they are not true and, in fact, the opposite is true. We create a new paradigm – a positive new belief that we prove over time by gathering evidence from various places. Ultimately, our limiting belief is lost and replaced by our new paradigm – thus we believe we can achieve x, y, or z. This may all seem very easy when reading it here, but in truth, it takes a conscious effort and the ability to adjust and course correct during the process in order to complete the paradigm shift and enjoy a new reality.
There are many methods and approaches to use when setting out to overcome limiting beliefs. You can simply do a web search for ‘overcoming limiting beliefs’ to find multiple and effective ways. I have personally applied and have coached to several variations over the span of my career and found that I prefer the NLP Technique, outlined below:
The ‘Neurolinguistic Programming’ Technique
Modify negative statements about yourself from present to past
– Instead of saying, “I am always late” start saying “I used to be late in the past, but now I am punctual and reliable”.
Choose the outcome you want to achieve
– Pick a date in the future that you want this outcome. Then proceed as if that date has already passed and you have achieved the desired outcome already.
Dedicate time each day to reinforce the belief
– Imagine, each day, that you have achieved the outcome and notice how you feel, how people around you feel and react to you.
No matter what method you choose, stick with it and know that recognizing your limiting beliefs and then overcoming them via paradigm shifts, is a wonderful gift to give yourself. You are worthy of greatness – whatever that means to you!
One last thing… like any other attempt at change, you will experience 3 phases of adjustment until you have created a new, positive habit (following the steps to the method you choose).
– Awkwardness: You attempt the new behavior and find it difficult
– Familiarity: The new behavior is easier but not yet automatic
– Automatic: You no longer think about the behavior, rather you simply do it
I encourage you to pick an easy limiting belief to start, recognize your success by using whatever method you choose, and then attack another limiting belief. As you continue knocking out your limiting beliefs, you’ll find that following the steps gets easier and you’ll have less time in the Awkward and Familiarity stages of change and move more quickly to the Automatic stage where you have created a good habit of practicing the techniques.