And truth be told, your Self-Limiting Beliefs are keeping you from having what you want in life. 

EXAMPLES OF SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS

Too many men don’t live the kind of lives they desire purely because of the stories – the lies – they tell themselves. Again, these lies usually take the form of Self-Limiting Beliefs. And here are some common examples:

• I’m too short.
• I’m too inexperienced.
• I’m not successful enough.
• I’m not rich enough.
• I’m not good enough.
• I’m a loser.
• An attractive woman would never want me.
• I’m just not a lucky person.
• I don’t have any talent.
• Blah, blah, blah.

Are these the kind of thoughts you have? Trust me, you’re not alone. But this kind of thinking isn’t just inaccurate; it’s downright debilitating. And it’s preventing you from getting the things you want in life.

So, let’s shut down this pity party, shall we?

It’s time to change the story you tell yourself. It’s time to get rid of your self-limiting beliefs.    

But first, let’s talk about the paradigm effect.

THE PARADIGM EFFECT

Because you – just like every other human being – grew up in an imperfect family and in an imperfect world, you internalized certain self-limiting beliefs during childhood. As you grew into adolescence and adulthood, you continued to add evidence that upheld these beliefs.

This is the paradigm effect.

Your life paradigm causes you to seek out, amplify, and retain information that seems to support your self-limiting beliefs. It also causes you to minimize or ignore any information that seems to challenge your self-limiting beliefs. 

Chances are your life paradigm likes to rear its ugly head most often in the presence of beautiful women.

Let’s say, for example, that an attractive woman flashes you a smile – or better yet, strikes up a conversation with you. You would probably assume that she is just being polite. She couldn’t possibly be expressing interest in you. Such behavior would contradict all of your self-limiting beliefs – especially the belief that women aren’t attracted to you.

If you believe that you are unattractive and unlovable, you will also assume that everyone else sees you the same way.

So, why ask a woman out if you are convinced that she’ll reject you?

Why let people get to know you if they are just going to discover how screwed up you are? 

This is the insidious power of self-limiting beliefs and having a faulty life paradigm.

THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS

The truth is, your self-limiting beliefs are probably the biggest hindrance to you getting what you want in your life.

What you believe to be true is what you will create. 

If you think you’re worthless, how do you think you show up in the world and how do you think the world responds?

Your self-limiting beliefs also come with a variety of other harmful side effects:

•  They encourage you to isolate and avoid. They whisper in the back of your consciousness: Just stay home tonight. Don’t approach her, she wouldn’t be interested. Don’t even make eye contact; she’ll think you’re a perv.
• They create negative emotional states. If your mind keeps telling you that you are shit, you will naturally feel like shit as a result. And because your self-limiting beliefs prevent you from taking actions that might improve your life, you feel even worse. It becomes normal to feel like shit and feeling like shit only reinforces your self-limiting beliefs. it’s a vicious fucking cycle.
• They cause you to settle. Because of your self-limiting beliefs, you probably settle for crappy relationships, crappy jobs, and crappy situations
• They prevent you from taking advantage of the opportunities presented to you. Have you ever had a chance to take out – or take home – a woman you desired, for example, only to squander the opportunity because of your self-limiting beliefs? Exactly.
• They keep you safe. After all, if you don’t take a risk, you can’t get hurt. Right?

IDENTIFY YOUR SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS

If you want to overcome your self-limiting beliefs, you first have to identify them. So, how do you identify your self-limiting beliefs? 

Well, perhaps you are already aware of them. If so, you’re ahead of the game. But if you are like most men, your self-limiting beliefs are probably whispering in the back of your subconscious (and have been since childhood).

It is crucial that you call your self-limiting beliefs into consciousness so you can identify them…and then challenge the hell out of them. 

In my experience – as a human with tons of self-limiting beliefs, as a recovering Nice Guy, and as a coach – there is only one foolproof way to call your self-limiting beliefs into consciousness, and that’s doing something outside your comfort zone. 

When you do something outside your comfort zone, your self-limiting beliefs will stop whispering and start screaming maniacally at you. This makes it pretty damn easy to find out what they are.

So, go somewhere you don’t normally go.

Say hello to people you wouldn’t ordinarily talk to.

Make eye contact.

Smile big.

Take a chance.

And pay attention to the garbage your mind is shouting at you.

CHALLENGE & OVERCOME YOUR SELF-LIMITING BELIEFS

Once you’ve identified your self-limiting beliefs, it’s time to challenge and ultimately overcome them. While overcoming them takes time, you can begin challenging them immediately.

Get out a notebook or journal and answer these questions:

1. What belief has been holding you back the MOST? 
2. What stories do you tell yourself to justify this belief? What’s your “evidence”?
3. What’s the “payoff” of this belief? What does it do for you, or what does it allow you NOT to do?  
4. How do you feel about yourself when you fully buy into this belief? 
5. What actions do you avoid when you feel this way? What are the consequences? What is the cost? What is the FUTURE cost if this belief continues? How does your life look in 10 years if this belief is running the show?
6. Be a detective. What could be untrue about this belief? Could this be a misinterpretation? Are you 100% sure it’s 100% true? How is this story possibly, maybe, bullshit?
7. Who could you be without this belief? Where would you be if this story vanished? Who could you date? What experiences could you have? How would you feel if this parasite was finally out of your brain?
8. What do you want more—your old belief, or your new belief and amazing results? You can’t have both. You must choose. 
9. What NEW belief must you have in order to get the results you want? What new belief—if you could feel it in your gut—would propel you toward these results? [NOTE: Often, your new belief is the MIRROR OPPOSITE of your old belief.
10. What are 3 pieces of evidence (minimum) that this NEW belief is true?

The reality is, a belief is merely a thought that you keep thinking. And your mind thinks your beliefs are true because you have always thought them.

There’s a good chance the beliefs you hold about yourself, about women, and about the world aren’t even remotely accurate. But the mind strives for consistency. Thankfully, you can learn to replace your old, distorted beliefs with new, more accurate beliefs that serve you in positive and productive way.

Tony

Tony Endelman is an author, blogger, entrepreneur, certified transformational life coach, certified No More Mr. Nice Guy Coach and the founder of The Integrated Man Cave.

www.tonyendelman.com

The post How to Overcome Your Self-Limiting Beliefs appeared first on The Integrated Man Cave.

Throughout my career, I’ve helped clients relieve everything from seasonal allergies to PTSD. I’ve helped a woman undo a habit of clearing her throat after every statement. And, I’ve helped men with crippling shyness develop the confidence to approach beautiful women.

Virtually every issue in your life can be traced back to some form of baggage or limiting belief. And, just like these things were installed, they can also be uninstalled.

When I’m presenting on stage, I often hear questions like: “What’s it like to have no baggage and no limiting beliefs?”

And I usually provide an answer like: “I have no fucking clue.”

Your Limiting Beliefs

Everyone has baggage and limiting beliefs – from Elon Musk to the Dalai Lama. It’s part of the human experience.

A man making $40k a year isn’t making $40k a year because he wants to make $40k a year. No, he’s making $40k a year because he doesn’t believe that he can make $40k a month.

A man who seems to have it all – looks, smarts, money – but can’t seem to attract anyone other than gold-digging psychopaths has baggage and limiting beliefs. Somewhere along the line, he adopted the belief that “all women are gold-diggers” or maybe that “love is pain.”

Or, what about the man who seems to know everything – who provides amazing insight in nearly every conversation – but is wasting away in a cubicle, doing meaningless, monotonous work? He has a deep desire to acquire wisdom and use it to help others. But, he likely holds the limiting belief that he can only make X amount of money and could never make a living doing what he loves.

What beliefs do you have that are holding you back?

What would you love to do?

Maybe you want to quit your soul-sucking day job.

Or, move to a new city.

Or approach that hot blonde at the gym and ask her out.

What reasons do you keep conjuring up to convince yourself you can’t do it?

Damn near every person on earth has something they want to go for and a belief that stops them from doing so.

Nobody believed man would be able to fly. There was plenty of science and common sense to back it up. And yet, today, it’s estimated that there are 500,000 people in the air at any given time, with 6 million people taking flights each day. (When I actually think about the fact that a hunk of metal weighing 90,000 pounds – without passengers or cargo – can fly miles above the earth, it still seems like a miracle).

The point is that for millions of years, the world believed that humans would never be able to fly. Then, two brothers who seemed a little insane decided to believe something different. Think of the balls it took to go against what so many others had believed for so long.

If the Wright brothers could turn a deaf ear to the masses, then you should be able to turn a deaf ear to the voice inside your head. You know, the one that keeps telling you that cute barista is too good for you.

Albert Einstein once said, “For an idea that first does not seem insane, there is no hope”.

What idea do you have that seems insane?  What if you stopped believing it was insane and replaced that belief with something more empowering?

At some point in your life, you probably believed in Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. Maybe you believed in goblins or ogres. And, now, you don’t.

When you were a kid, those beliefs served a purpose. And, now, they don’t. Just about all beliefs are like that. They serve a purpose (usually to protect us) until they don’t.

What beliefs are you clinging to? Are they protecting you? Or, are they just holding you back?  My guess is they’re holding you back. That’s why they’re called limiting beliefs.

Get Rid of Limiting Beliefs

Melissa, a former client of mine, was brutally raped at age 13 by someone she considered her best friend and one of her favorite people on the planet.

Just before the rape, they made homemade pizza with Melissa’s family. After they ate, he lured her to a bedroom. He then raped her while her family was just in the other room, oblivious to the trauma that she was experiencing.

The prime directive of the unconscious mind (UM) is protection. Your unconscious mind is usually hyper aware of danger, potential danger, and a variety of pain – emotional, physical, mental.

While being raped – and experiencing an unimaginable amount of physical, mental, and emotional pain – Melissa’s UM detected garlic, a key ingredient in the pizza she’d just made. She smelled garlic. Tasted garlic. Garlic was on his breath. Subsequently, Melissa’s UM began to associate garlic with pain. And, just like that, she developed a debilitating allergy to garlic, all because of a newly installed unconscious belief.

Melissa’s UM essentially decided that “Garlic is bad, and you must never go near it. Ever again.”

In the years following, Melissa went into anaphylactic shock nearly every time she detected garlic. In 2017, she was legally dead for over five minutes after meeting with a college professor who had hummus for lunch.

I first met Melissa in 2019 during my presentation at a seminar in Los Angeles. Melissa asked to be in a demo, and I went to work on her.

Directly after the demo, she gave me her EpiPen as a gift and said, “I no longer need this.”

Two days later, she sent me a message, letting me know that she was eating Lebanese food with her parents and ordered extra garlic.

In just 20 minutes, I helped Melissa release a belief that had run her life for 20 years – a belief that led to PTSD, phobia, and major social anxiety (most social gatherings have food and a hell of a lot of food has garlic), as well as depression and self-worth issues. Avoiding people and never being invited to anything caused Melissa to believe that she wasn’t good enough.

Now, Melissa is more empowered than she ever thought possible.

If Melissa can reprogram a 20-year belief that was born from trauma and damn near killed her, do you think you can reprogram some of your limiting beliefs? Like the one that says you can’t quit your 9-to-5 job. Or the one that keeps you from asking out the woman you like. Or the one that prevents you from submitting your writing for publication.

Yes, you can reprogram your unconscious mind.

Drop the bullshit that’s been holding back and pick up something more empowering. Don’t bow out before you step in. There’s a good chance something amazing will happen.

How to Re-Program Your Unconscious Mind

Whenever I do a demonstration like I did with Melissa, everyone wants to know how I did. “How the hell did you do that?” audience members ask.  “How did you cure her allergy with just her mind?”

Well, I’m a trained professional, with years of experience under my best. But, the short answer: We scrambled the image in her mind – specifically the one that was telling her to avoid garlic at all costs.

Kip Brooks

Kip Brooks is a certified Trainer and Master Practitioner of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and holds certificates in Mental and Emotional Release® and Hypnosis from the Association for Integrative Psychology. He is a John Maxwell certified speaker, sales trainer and coach and holds certificates in youth empowerment by YouthMax and YouthMax Plus. He is also certified by the Life Coach Training Institute and is certified in Neuroscience, and Healing Touch.

brooksempowermentacademy.com/

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