The Foundation of Your Life

Your beliefs are the foundation upon which your entire life rests. This foundation was formed by your childhood conditioning, the experiences you’ve had during the course of your life, and the conclusions you’ve drawn as a result of them. Every action (or non-action) you’ve taken during your lifetime has been encouraged or discouraged by these beliefs. Consequently, most of the situations in your life are a result of your actions (or inactions)

In order to begin pushing your limits and increasing your potential, you need to examine the beliefs you have about your limitations. You’ve started the process by making a list of your most obvious perceived limitations, but in order to effectively and permanently change them, you’ll need to challenge them and actively work on expanding your concept of what is possible.

Whether you realize it or not, you’ve got a certain internal “set point” where you think your capabilities stop in any given arena. These set points can vary according to the intensity of your beliefs and they may be different for different activities. For example, you might know that you are good at one activity but feel you stink at another.

It can be helpful to examine the reasons WHY you feel this way, because most often our limiting beliefs hold no substance whatsoever. Maybe your older brother told you that you were too weak to be great at sports, so you never bothered to find out. Or your friend laughed at your artwork and you decided it was a stupid hobby anyway.

It’s bad enough when other people set limitations for us, but the problem is compounded when we begin doing it ourselves.

➤ No longer do we need others to tell us we stink at something; we come to the realization all by ourselves. 

➤ No longer do we need someone to tell us we’re a loser; one failure is enough to convince us. 

➤ No longer do we need others to deflate our confidence; we can do it more effectively ourselves. 

What a shame this is! Do you see the pattern of destruction and the dimmed potential that results from it? For most of us, it takes only ONE negative experience to start an avalanche of massive proportions. Of course, it doesn’t usually happen  quickly but is rather the result of years of gradually decreasing belief in ourselves.

Before we go any further, it’s important to understand that your limiting beliefs were FORMED, sometimes by others in your life and sometimes by you. Either way, they can be unformed, smashed, rolled into a ball and formed into something else entirely – just like a lump of clay. Your beliefs are malleable and flexible! They may feel like “facts” but they are simply thoughts that have gained strength and solidity because of sheer repetition on your part.

When you really start to get this, it becomes very exciting! Suddenly a whole new world opens up to you, a world in which anything is possible.