Limiting Beliefs

Hello Leaders,

Limiting beliefs have a profound effect on how we lead our life. Think about if you want to be a Business Owner, a Manager, or any career path or role that interests you. If you believe you can fulfill the responsibilities of that role, how quickly do you think you will map out a path and get to work on achieving it?

On the other hand, if you don’t believe deep down you can acquire the right skills and experience, you are probably only going to put half the effort in or not even try?

The story we tell ourselves drives what we believe. If we tell ourselves a positive and inspiring story and create that vision of our future self, that creates optimism, that creates desire and that becomes our belief and our identity.

On the other hand, if our internal story is negative and we focus on all the blockers and things that are going to get in our way, how do you think our path in front of us is going to pan out?

A lot of people never reach their full potential because of what they believe. They may have developed this belief a long time ago due to failure, or the people they surround themselves with, or even a childhood experience.

Tony Robbins shared a good example to help understand this.

When visiting a circus many years ago he noted that there was this big giant elephant with just a small rope holding him down to the ground, this giant elephant could easily rip down the whole circus let alone pull the rope out, but he doesn’t, why?

Because the elephant is conditioned. The elephant doesn’t believe he is strong enough to pull the rope from the ground. He has a limiting belief.

From a young age, the baby elephant is tied up with a big rope. The baby elephant will try to pull and struggle for a long time to get free, and then one day the baby elephant just accepts it cannot pull the rope out of the ground. This becomes the baby elephant’s identity, and he no longer tries. He accepts this belief.

We all have our own limiting beliefs. Whether it’s we’re no good at something or we’ll try when we have more experience. Whatever it is, just because we are not there today doesn’t mean we cannot be there tomorrow with a mindset adjustment and a new story we tell ourselves.

We can acquire new skills, new experiences, and new knowledge and ultimately become a better version of ourselves, but we have to believe and move forward first.

What story do you tell yourself? A negative one, which is slowing you down and preventing you from taking action and moving forward? or an inspiring and positive one that is focused on being better every day, helping others, and achieving more?

All the best

David

Resources Of The Week

• Book - Matthew Syed - Black Box Thinking. When incidents happen on an aircraft, investigators learn a lot from the black box onboard. This forms much of the theory behind this great book. What can we learn from evaluating the data from our everyday life? How can we use this data to improve ourselves, just like investigators use data from black boxes to improve the safety of aviation. A very eye opening read illustrating a shocking disparity in how different industries such as aviation and healthcare approach and learn from failure.

• Book - Tony Robbins - Awaken the Giant Within. A classic and exceptional book from Tony Robbins on Personal Development. How to immediately control your mental, emotional and physical self to lead a more fulfilling life.

• TEDx Talk - Dr. Irum Tahir on Limiting Beliefs. Talks through limiting beliefs and some of the physiological things we can do that impacts us psychologically.

Quote of the Week

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