Change Your Beliefs

What would you attempt to achieve if you knew you could never fail?

—What would you attempt to achieve if you knew you could never fail?

You probably rarely examine your beliefs and how they have been serving you. You are likely to have become comfortable with your opinions and are not aware that there is a need to change.

Let Go of Being Right

When you hold on to your story, believing that it is true, it’s unlikely that you’ll ever question yourself until someone challenges your thinking with a different view, or if new data becomes available. The longer you have believed something the more entrenched your belief will become and the less prepared you will be to let it go and move on.

Avoid Being a Flat-Earther

The biggest obstacle to changing a belief is that when you want to hold on to being right, you will defend your view vehemently. There was a time when everyone believed that the Earth was flat, until new, incontrovertible data became available that refuted this belief – but there are still some “flat-Earthers”.

Fear of Failure

Whether it’s in the boardroom or on the playing field, the meaning you attach to failure can be enough to stop you from trying something new even before you give it a go. The truth is that every failure is a learning opportunity. If you think clearly about any situation in which you failed, you can look back at that situation and see what you have learned from it. Instead of looking at failure as a conclusion, try to see it as the beginning of a new journey of discovery. Remember that:

• It is more likely that you will have learned more from your failures than from your successes.

• Looking at every failure as an opportunity to learn about yourself and others and about what to change next time will help you to get the results you want. Life is all about learning.

References and Experiences

Your reference points and experiences drive your beliefs. If you didn’t learn to swim as a child because you were scared of water, you may still believe that you can’t learn.

• The experience of not achieving something when you were a child could be blocking you from attempting other new things in your adult life.

• The experience of making a single mistake can prevent you from trying again.

• Your references of other people’s abilities may be out of date.

Think Smart

If fear of failure is preventing you from achieving your goals, look at how your successful friends and colleagues behave and speak.

Before an occasion that is making you feel apprehensive, for example a job interview, ask yourself how these people would handle the situation. Think of how your behaviour would be different if you were confident of success. The greatest failure is not trying – you learn more about yourself by taking action, even if you don’t always get the result you are looking for.

Change Your Limiting Beliefs

Look back through your life to explore where you acquired your beliefs about yourself and your world. Then question whether these beliefs help or hinder you in achieving your goal. Look at the references that have supported your beliefs about yourself and whether something is possible. For example, if you have tried to give up smoking and failed, you may believe that it’s impossible to give it up.

Empower Yourself

An empowering belief enables you to see the possibilities in any situation. If you learn to identify these beliefs you can use them to balance your limiting beliefs.

• What references help you to reinforce your belief that something is possible?

• Have other people achieved what you’re trying to do? If so, how did they go about doing it? What was their recipe for success?

• Have you ever been in a situation where you didn’t give up and eventually succeeded?

• If no one has ever achieved what you’re attempting to do, what beliefs do you think you will need in order to achieve your goal?

Techniques to Practise

Your limiting beliefs may relate to anything that affects you, from your work situation to the types of relationship you have with your parents or your friends.

• Make a list of what you think are your limiting beliefs.

• Ask yourself where these beliefs came from and what references you are using support them.

• Decide whether these limiting beliefs help or hinder you in your dealings with others, then make a decision to keep them or abandon them.

Make Use of Pain and Pleasure

The most powerful way to change a limiting belief is to maximize the pain associated with whatever it is you most want to change. If you’re a smoker who wants to quit, consider the damage caused by years of smoking.

• What is your health and level of fitness like at the moment?

• How much money have you spent on tobacco over the years? Think about what will happen if you carry on with the habit.

• What will your health and fitness be like in five or ten years? How much money will you have spent on tobacco? How will your smoking affect your children’s health?

• Will you be well enough to play with your children and future grandchildren? How will your smoking affect the quality of their lives?

You can use the same technique in relation to pleasure to help you change by thinking about the positive aspects of what you will achieve by giving up smoking.

• Calculate how much spare cash you’ll have.

• Consider how much better your health will be.

• Think about how much less time you will spend off work or in hospital later in life.

• Think of how much more time you’ll have with your children and grandchildren.

Empowering Beliefs

High Impact

• My overall health is definitely going to get better

• My family will give me the encouragement I need

• It’s never too late to change

• My willpower is getting stronger all the time

Negative Impact

• My health is already affected so what’s the point?

• I have a demanding family who expect me to achieve too much

• I’ve been smoking for ever

• I don’t have the willpower

• I’ll never give up smoking