A little over a year ago, I found myself sitting in a large conference room listening to a speaker guide us through an idea that I had been thinking about and sharing with my team over the past few years: Limiting Belief.
Limiting beliefs are those ideas and tapes you play in your head that stop you from growing in life. The funny thing about limiting beliefs is that once you’re aware of them you start seeing and hearing where they show up in your life.
I do an annual exercise to examine where limiting beliefs are hindering me. These show up not only in thoughts about myself but also in my thoughts and beliefs about other people and the world I live in.
My limiting beliefs about myself show up most frequently as:
I am too old too…
it’s too late for me to…
I don’t have enough experience in… to…
My beliefs about others show up as:
They won’t believe… They don’t care… They aren’t interested in…
All of this isn’t healthy thinking. Of course, thinking that everything will work out the way I think it should is delusional and that isn’t healthy either. So what do we do with our limiting beliefs?
As I was sitting in that audience, I realized that one area in my life where a consistent limiting belief showed up was physical activity. I had all kinds of limits: I was too busy. I didn’t have enough time, I didn’t have the money to pay for a gym, my body was too beat from broken down knees and based on my most frequently played, I was too old.
In a moment of clarity, I replaced my limiting belief with a liberating truth; I can establish a habit of working out 5-6x a week. I can’t became I can. I wanted to challenge the limits in my head and see what would happen. I knew that a goal that pushed me beyond me knowing how it was going to happen was going to focus my vision on finding the “how” yet unknown to me.
As I thought of the next steps I could take what seemed so impossible became clear with each small next step I took. I recalled a former student of mine who works as an Athletic Director for a local high school. I reached out to her to see if she did coaching or if she had a referral. I found out about a workout app that would allow me to track workouts and work with a coach online significantly reducing the cost of coaching. I realized how crazy it was that I hadn’t made use of the two military gyms within 5 miles of my house.
Within 2 weeks, I was getting started on something that before my commitment was truely limiting me. The impacts of changing, “I can’t” to “I can” have been profound this year.
Don’t get stuck on my example. My point in all of this isn’t to tout the benefits of physical activity – although there are amazing benefits. My point is don’t allow any “I can’t” to put limits on yourself.
I work with some amazing leaders and professional volunteers. I hear things like:
I’m not coachable. I’m not a mentor. I’m not a leader. I can’t tell stories. I’m not a strategic thinker. I’m not creative. I’m not good with tech.
Until they can see their own limiting beliefs, I gently encourage them and candidly challenge them in the work we do together. But when they see. Oh my! What is possible is truly transformational. And in what I do that means. life-giving.
I hope you take the time to consider what you’re believing that holds you back and crush it with a liberating truth that makes 2020 your best year ever! There is so much life to live without limiting beliefs. Feel free to share your limiting beliefs that you want to transform to a liberating truth this year. I think you can.