If you’ve read my last post on the power of believing in yourself, hopefully you’ve got a bit of a flavour for how much impact belief can have on the outcome of a situation. Victory in sport is generally 90% mental, 10% physical right? 

If you haven’t read it then it would definitely be worth sparing a couple of minutes to scan through it, because this post now picks up following the experiment of the dog vs humans on who can develop a limiting belief the quickest, and then the basic building block of creating a vision for the most perfect life for yourself that you can imagine, through the power of believing in yourself. You can find that post by clicking here.

The 3 questions

You might remember the 3 questions to ask yourself to help remove self imposed limitations on what you believe is possible for your vision of the future:

• If I had limitless money, what would my life look like? Who would I be? What would I do? Where would I spend my time? 
• If I was 10 times bolder, what would my life look like? Who would I be? What would I do? Where would I spend my time? 
• If I could instantly fastforward 5 years, what would I want my life around me to look like to make me feel fulfilment and happiness?

When you’re asking yourself these questions for the first time, if you’re like almost everyone else out there (Me included) then you’ve probably got a little unconscious dialogue running in the back of your mind that’s pulling you right back, and that’s completely natural. We’re human after all. This dialogue will normally sound like:

• “But I can’t, because X”
• “I’d love to have that, but X”
• “I’m sure I’d have more success if it wasn’t for X”

Whatever “X” is in this dialogue, is a self imposed limiting belief that you’ve put on yourself throughout the course of your life. The critical mistake people make is that they let their circumstances define them. They convince themselves that they can’t overcome the problems that they’re facing, and so that becomes their self imposed reality.

For example, you might decide that your vision for 5 years time is to live in a beautiful semi-detached 4 bedroom house, and you’d like to have kids, and a brand new BMW on the driveway. So you decide that a goal which will help you achieve that vision, would be to get a job where you’re earning £80k a year. 

When you think about that goal, pay very close attention to what you say back to yourself in your mind. Whatever you say back to yourself, those are your limiting beliefs. When you uncover a limiting belief, you must CHALLENGE it. Here’s how:

Challenging a limiting belief

So let’s imagine that you say “I want to get a job where I’m earning £80k a year” out loud, and your subconscious says “Yea but you’re never going to get that”. If that’s the response you get, you then ask yourself:

“Why am I never going to get that?”

Your subconscious will then tell you why with a lot more clarity, for example: “Because I’m not qualified or experienced enough to get a job that pays £80k per year. Now we have a tangible and clear limiting belief that we can work with. Next, we flush out any other limiting beliefs by asking a very specific question: 

“And are there any other reasons why I think I can’t get a job that pays £80k per year, or if I was more qualified and more experienced would I feel confident in going for a job that pays £80k per year right now?”

For anyone who’s reading this and has a sales background, you might be noticing something here… Doesn’t this sound remarkably similar to clarifying and isolating an objection? It’s no coincidence that what works on your prospects to reframe a buying belief, also works on yourself to reframe a limiting belief. It’s exactly the same process. Pretty cool right? 

Now when you ask the question above to yourself, you might flush out another limiting belief, such as “I don’t deserve to earn £80k a year because my parents never earned that much”. You then repeat the same isolating question back to yourself to include both limiting beliefs, for example: 

“And are there any other reasons why I think I can’t get a job that pays £80k per year, or if I was more qualified and more experienced, and if I felt that I deserved to earn £80k per year, would I feel confident in going for a job that pays £80k per year right now?”

At this point, you might get a “yes”. So now you very clearly know two exact reasons that you’ve imposed upon yourself, which are stopping you getting exactly what you want right now. 

The formula so far

So this is the exact formula, which you can apply to any goal that you can imagine. It is: 

• Say *my goal* out loud
• Listen out for the “But I can’t, because X” that you get from your subconscious”
• Ask “Why?” (CLARIFY)
• You’ll then get “because of X” in far more meaningful and tangible detail. 
• Ask “And are there any other reasons why I think I can’t reach *my goal*, or if X wasn’t a problem would I feel confident in achieving *my goal* right now?”. (ISOLATE)
• You’ve now got a small handful of some very specific limiting beliefs, or blockers, which are stopping you from reaching your goal. 

Here comes the fun part; challenging and reframing those beliefs:

The definition of belief

The dictionary definiation of belief is: 

“Something believed; an opinion or conviction. Confidence in the truth or existence of something notimmediately susceptible to rigorous proof”

You notice something about that? Belief, is an opinion. It is not a fact. We often believe something so intrinsically that we treat it in the same way as a fact. A belief can be broken because it is not real. A fact cannot, a fact just ‘is’, regardless of whether you choose to BELIEVE it or not. You see? 

So here’s how to challenge your belief. Ask:

“Has someone else, somewhere in the world, achieved the goal that I want to achieve, but from less fortunate circumstances than myself?” 

I’ll tell you now that unless your goal is to fly to the moon by flapping your arms like a bird, the answer is going to be yes every single time. And if someone else has done it from less fortunate circumstances than you (E.g. less education, less experience, less X, Y, or Z…), then you can do it too. 

And you know what that means? Since it’s true that ‘if someone else has done it, you can do it’, then saying “I can’t, because of X” is no longer a fact. It’s a FACT that it’s been done before by someone less fortunate than you, therefore it cannot be a FACT that you can’t do it. Both cannot exist at the same time. So if it’s not a fact, what does that make it? You guessed it; a belief. 

Once you recognize that the reason you tell yourself that you can’t achieve your goal, is nothing more than a made up opinion inside your own head, you can take back ownership of your own path. You have complete choice over whether you want to live the life you desire, or whether you want to keep telling yourself that you can’t get it.

Nobody, and nothing, except yourself, has the power to stop you. If you want it, go get it. And in the words of Henry Ford: “Whether you think you can, or you can’t, you’re probably right”. 

The formula to unlock the power of believing in yourself:

• Say *my goal* out loud
• Listen out for the “But I can’t, because X” that you get from your subconscious”
• Ask “Why?” (CLARIFY)
• You’ll then get “because of X” in far more meaningful and tangible detail. 
• Ask “And are there any other reasons why I think I can’t reach *my goal*, or if X wasn’t a problem would I feel confident in achieving *my goal* right now?”. (ISOLATE)
• You’ve now got a small handful of some very specific limiting beliefs, or blockers, which are stopping you from reaching your goal. 
• Challenge the belief by asking “Has someone else, somewhere in the world, achieved the goal that I want to achieve, but from less fortunate circumstances than myself?” The answer will be yes.
• Therefore this reaffirms that your belief is actually a belief, and not a fact. 
• Remember that a belief can be broken, it is inside your head only, and you have the power to break it.
• Once the belief is broken, you’re free to work towards achieving your goal

Summary on the power of believing in yourself

Time for a reality check?

What do you want your life to look like. Are you truly happy? If not, why not? Get some clarity about what you want, identify what’s stopping you, and then reframe it to highlight it for what it really is; nothing that isn’t inside your own head. Then, you’ll start to see things in a different way. If you catch yourself telling yourself that you can’t do something, always challenge it. Always.  

To your success,

Dan Holloway