HOW TO OVERCOME YOUR SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS

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2 HOW TO OVERCOME YOUR SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS P L A N N I N G, C O N D U C T I N G, A N D G E T T I N G R E S U L T S In this report, I will share with you my process for recognizing and overcoming limiting beliefs you have about yourself and your business. A. What Are Limiting Beliefs? Limiting Beliefs are beliefs that we hold either consciously or subconsciously that serve as obstacles to achieving and attracting what we want. For example, each year many schoolchildren are told by teachers that they aren t smart or won t amount to much. As a result, these children often carry throughout their lives this extremely negative and limiting belief. They incorrectly believe, at either conscious and/or subconscious levels, that they can t achieve success and as a result they don t. This holds very true in business, and as such, it is imperative that you both identify and overcome your limiting beliefs. Consider this story as told by marketing consultant Dan Kennedy: One man I know, who made over $100 million in his business in its first three years from scratch, had gone broke in business several times before. After the three years of remarkable success, he said, "Making $100 million is about the easiest thing I've ever done. Believing it could happen to me was the hard part that took 20 years." Once again, if you don t believe it can happen to you, it won t. B. Where Do Limiting Beliefs Come From Limiting beliefs generally come from our families and friends. For example, if your parents never earned an income above $50,000, then you may subconsciously feel that you should never earn an income above $50,000. Or if your parents once or often referred to someone driving a fancy car as a show off, then you may have limiting beliefs about money and think that wealthy people are show-offs. Such beliefs will sabotage your efforts to become a successful and wealthy entrepreneur. Importantly, we can t blame our parents and others for imposing their self-limiting beliefs on us. They probably didn t know they were limiting beliefs. Now that you know about limiting beliefs, you need to identify which ones are holding you back and overcome them. Page 1

3 C. Identifying Your Limiting Beliefs 1. Recognizing your beliefs Limiting beliefs are held both consciously and subconsciously, and they re not always so easy to identify. Below, we will try to identify your limiting beliefs. Exercise #1. The following are common limiting beliefs that entrepreneurs have. Check each of the beliefs that you hold: Being an entrepreneur is very risky financially Something terrible will happen to me or my business It s greedy to want to be a wealthy entrepreneur More for me means less for others If I become a successful entrepreneur, others will resent me, be jealous, criticize or judge me I want to become a successful entrepreneur to gain someone else s approval; not just to satisfy my own goals and desires I can do it better than anyone (and thus hiring employees to do things is risky) I need to work hard; hard work is necessary for entrepreneurial success I can t change; I do things my way I m too old or I m too young The economy is bad; it s not the right time to grow my business I can t be a successful entrepreneur because I m lacking: Money Time Training Intelligence Credentials (the right college and/or professional degrees) Creativity Help Support from friends and/or family The right background, religion, upbringing or family The proper health (I have a physical condition getting in the way) I can t do hard things Failure is shameful and if my venture fails, I will be shamed Employees will be upset if I criticize them (including even constructive criticism) I can t ask people I know for funding as they may say no or make me uncomfortable I can t implement all my marketing ideas since public failure would be embarrassing I can t go to networking events and meet important people since I m not good at schmoozing Page 2

4 2. The excuse test We all make excuses that prevent us from achieving the success of which we are capable. Consider this quote from the book Rework : When you want something bad enough, you make the time regardless of your other obligations. The truth is most people just don t want it bad enough. Then they protect their ego with the excuse of time. Don t let yourself off the hook with excuses. It s entirely your responsibility to make your dreams come true. Besides, the perfect time never arrives. You re always too young or old or busy or broke or something else. If you constantly fret about timing things perfectly, they ll never happen. This quote talks about common excuses of time and money. In business, we often make other excuses such as I don t have the right people, or we don t have the right culture, or we ve never been able to do that before; how can we do it this time? Exercise #2: Below, write down some of the excuses you have made in your business. Whenever you hear yourself saying a new excuse, add it to this list: 3. Create your complete Limiting Belief list Exercise #3: Based on your responses to questions #1 and #2 above, write down the 5 biggest limiting beliefs or excuses you have: Page 3

5 D. Overcoming Your Limiting Beliefs Becoming aware of your limiting beliefs is your first step in overcoming them. So, you have already taken the first step. Congratulations! The next steps are to 1) make positive affirmations and 2) take actions to disprove your limiting beliefs. 1) Make Positive Affirmations Positive affirmations are statements that are the opposite of your limiting beliefs. For example, if one of your limiting beliefs is that you can t achieve complete success because you don t have an MBA, then your positive affirmation should be: I CAN achieve complete success and I can do it without an MBA. Exercise #4: Below, turn around each limiting belief you listed in the last section by writing down positive affirmations that they will NOT stop you: Page 4

6 ) Take Action to Disprove Your Limiting Beliefs The final step to overcoming your limiting beliefs is to, whenever possible, take actions to disprove them. For example, if you feel your lacking of training is preventing your success, then get the training you need (put training on your weekly To Do list right now). If your belief that you can t speak in public and it is preventing your success, then find an event at which you can present. If money is a limiting belief, then splurge on something expensive and then realize that doing so didn t change you; it didn t make you spoiled or greedy or a bad person, etc. [We have Molton Brown soap in the office bathroom. It s one of the most expensive soaps there is. Sure it s $25/bottle, but you can probably afford that and it s a great for overcoming limiting beliefs about money.] Importantly, the action you take to disprove it could simply be research. For example, if you are limited by the belief that you need outside financing to start/grow your company, through research you would find that 48% of Inc 500 companies started with $20,000 or less in funding. Exercise #5: For each of your excuses and limiting beliefs, take actions that prove to yourself that they re either unimportant or something you can actually do. Below, write down the actions you will take to overcome your top limiting beliefs: Page 5

7 The decisions that you make on a daily basis are influenced by your beliefs. Often, your belief system has barriers or limits that you don t even consciously know about. By taking time to identify these limiting beliefs, you can establish your game plan for overcoming them. This process will help the super-successful entrepreneur emerge from within you; because in most cases it is trapped beneath many limiting beliefs which are simply untrue. Page 6