Create Change in your life

Re-labeling the external part of a negative belief - So let’s say you have a limiting belief that involves or is based on some behavior exhibited by yourself or someone else. Are there other meanings you could give the behavior that would make it much more positive? Are there any other terms or labels that could reduce, alter or transform the meaning of the external behavior?

For example - ‘I’m not clever enough.’

Is being clever really the issue here? What about if this is a sign that you just need to study more. Do you really believe just because you aren’t clever enough you won’t be able to succeed in other areas of your life? Is being clever the be all and end all of everything?

Well OK let’s say it’s true, so you may have to give up on the idea of being a Brain Surgeon, but it really doesn’t stop you from achieving an infinite number of things in other areas of your life does it?

Maybe not clever enough but still clever right? You might not be clever enough but you are determined and motivated to get where you want to go are you not? Maybe your IQ isn’t up there with Einstein’s but whose is? If we were in another country now, how would this hold up? Would people in other cultures use this belief to prevent them from having what they wanted in life?

What about if you looked upon this as an indication that you are not where you want to be yet, you could become clever enough if you made study a priority in your life. In what situations are you not clever enough? Are you clever in some situations and not in others?

I suppose if we are mixing with the best intellects of our time then this might hold true, but what about in everyday life, surely you are clever enough? Are you sat around doctors with PhD’s when you say this? What about saying ‘I’m not quite up to their level in terms of education’ or ‘These guys have certainly read a lot more books on the subject than I have’?

admin Beliefs Beliefs, change your life, Positive Thinking

When you have a negative belief try re-framing it with some of your values in life. For example with a belief such as ‘I’ll never be able to learn Japanese’, you could say something like - It looks like it is important for you to learn a language? You must value people who speak a second language. Do you also value the time it takes to learn a language and the dedication and commitment required? Which do you feel you should concentrate more on to be true to yourself?

Do you think it would be better to spend time saying you won’t be able to learn Japanese or instead spend time actually listening to audio tapes and reading books about the Japanese language?

So you do care about learning a language, with this in mind can you think of ways that you will be able to learn Japanese?

Some questions you may want to ask yourself:

• What are some of your higher criteria or values?

• What would happen if you applied your higher values and principles to the negative belief?

• Which of your values would prove useful to apply on this belief?

• What values would qualify your negative belief in such a way as to make it much less limiting?

admin Beliefs Beliefs, change your life, Positive Thinking

A story about re-labeling behavior - Sam always hated meetings at work, not because she didn’t like talking or that she felt self conscious, it was because (in her eyes at least) everybody at the meeting were a lot more intelligent than she was. Sure they worked in different departments, and they were bought into the company to do different jobs, but Sam just believed them all to be slightly superior to her, more capable and this always made Sam feel uneasy when at staff meetings.

You see everybody was supposed to talk at staff meetings, they were open discussions and everyone present was expected to participate. Most people did participate all except one, Sam.

One particular meeting was all about new strategies and ideas that they could implement on their current project which was currently behind schedule. It was a typical meeting, lots of brainstorming of ideas and as was common some well thought out strategies were being put forward. As usual Sam played the part of the careful observer, listening intently to what others had to say but not putting any ideas of her own across.

Nobody ever said anything to Sam, but she always felt uncomfortable and it was this feeling of discomfort which would really get under her skin. She would often think about it for hours after the meeting had finished. In her mind everybody else was more intelligent than she was. Their discussions proved that, as clear well thought out comments were always present in every meeting.

In Sam’s eyes it was because her colleagues produced clear concise ideas at the meetings that made them more intelligent than she was. This was what she thought anyway.

Sam thought about this for a while, she started to wonder what other ways she could look at their behavior? Was it true that because they spoke clearly at each meeting it meant that they were more intelligent than everybody else? Maybe it was because they had never been afraid to speak out that their ideas always seemed so clear and well thought out.

Could it be that they had been exposed to meetings more than Sam and so found it easier to articulate their ideas? What about if they were taken out of the meeting? Sam knew she performed just as well as her colleagues outside of the meeting room, it was just in the meetings where she failed to perform.

Did it really mean that because someone spoke up in a meeting they were more intelligent than those who remained quiet? Sam started to think that this was absurd, and rightly so, she started to come up with alternative conclusions for the behavior that her colleagues displayed in the meetings.

• They had more practice
• They weren’t afraid to speak their mind
• They were used to it
• They had done it many times before
• They didn’t worry what others thought

Sam thought about these new ways of labeling their behavior, rather than say they were more intelligent it made more sense to attribute it to more experience.

And so armed with this new way of thinking about her colleagues behavior Sam started to formulate her own plan for contributing more in meetings, she now knew it wasn’t down to intelligence but rather lack of experience, so little by little, speaking more in each meeting Sam began to involve herself in staff meetings more and more, and was soon not only putting forward her own ideas but also having them adhered to in the weeks that followed.

Sam felt great and no longer felt inferior or worried when a staff meeting was called.

admin Random Beliefs, change your life, motivate, motivational

One way to think about any negative or limiting belief you have is what exactly it will do for you in the future, or what are some of the consequences that the belief could produce? In particular do you like what you see when the belief plays out in the future? For example - ‘I feel too lazy to implement any of my goals.’

Where exactly will you be in 3 months time with this attitude? It is fair to say with this attitude that in 3 months time you will be exactly where you are now. You would have produced absolutely nothing. In the long run this will get you nowhere, is this what you want? Is this really acceptable for yourself?

If you continue to have this belief just exactly where will you go in life? Would it be better if you didn’t have any goals, would you then feel less lazy?

If this is an embedded command to your nervous system then do you really want to feel lazy about your goals? Are your goals such that they cause you to be indifferent about achieving them?

Are your goals so lofty that the reason you say this is so you can develop a ‘I knew I wouldn’t be able to do it’ attitude? It sounds like you are prepared to not achieve any of your goals by way of you feeling lazy, is that what you want? Is where you are now your highest path, if so take a look around and congratulate yourself?

Well you obviously have goals and you do care about achieving them, Is this attitude really helping you achieve your objectives?

(Assume you are achieving some success)

When you keep telling yourself this, it seems that you are forgetting how many of your goals you have already achieved, if this is feeling lazy imagine what you could achieve if you were feeling motivated.

admin Positive Thinking Beliefs, change your life

Overcoming negative beliefs - Useful questions to ask yourself about your negative belief:

• Who says this?
• Do you realize this is just a map (your map) about the world at large? It doesn’t mean that it is true.
• When did you (or somebody else create this idea), what was the context?
• Do you really think that this belief applies to everybody?
• Did somebody teach you to think like this?

As an example take the limiting belief of - ‘My business won’t make any money’.

Where does this belief come from, is it yours or somebody else’s?

Of course not everybody would believe this. There are individuals and companies that make a lot of money. Have you always believed this or has this belief arisen out of something you have recently done?

Does everyone who starts a business think this way? Do you realize that this is just a map about the territory, and that it doesn’t make it true (or even real).

admin Random Beliefs, change your life

What are your plans for this week, this month? What about today? Do you have any plans for today? Plans are fundamental to success in life, without a plan you have no road map for your journey, consequently you have very little chance of arriving anywhere let alone at the place where you want to be.

For great things to happen in your life, you need to make plans on a frequent basis, not just once every few months but every week. It is probably fair to say that really successful people would set goals and make plans every day, writing out their plans for the week ahead perhaps on Sunday night and reviewing them each day, ticking off what has been done.

When you work for somebody else, plans are easily forgotten about. You just go in, do your job for 8 hours and come back home. That’s it, your plan was to get up at 7am, get the bus to work, do your job, leave at 6pm, arrive home and do whatever else you have to do. Maybe you don’t even have time to make plans let alone carry them out.

But imagine if you work for yourself. Imagine you have set yourself a goal of starting your own business. Making plans then becomes even more important.

Plans will set you up to achieve certain things at particular points in the future. Tasks will then get completed by deadlines which you set for yourself. If you don’t important tasks will not get completed and your chance of success will be greatly reduced.

If you want to start achieving more, you have to start doing more, and that all starts with making plans on a regular basis, working towards them and reviewing then constantly so you know where you are and what you need to do to make progress.

admin Changing direction Changing direction