How To Overcome Limiting Beliefs

All of us tend to generalize about life in general, others, and ourselves. Based on our experiences of life we form versions of the realities and these versions are the limiting beliefs, which we use to formulate rules for our conduct. Having set out these beliefs, we limit our actions within the scope of these rules. Moreover, we are constantly on the lookout for evidences to support these beliefs.

Unconscious Messages

Often, limiting beliefs are unconscious messages that come to us from our interaction with other people, from our daily living and from the advertising that engulfs us. These limiting beliefs are mostly negative in nature and they can form any part of our lives such as our financial scene, our relationships, and our self-care.

Identifying and Eliminating Negative Beliefs
The first step towards controlling and eliminating such negative limiting beliefs is to identify them and examine them. These could be lying in some corner of our brain and we might not be aware of them. It would be advisable to talk to a friend or a counsellor in order to discover their existence.

Having identified the limiting beliefs, you should try to challenge them whenever they appear before you and you can only do so if you have the courage to refute any insinuation that you are limited in any aspect of life. You have to believe that you are capable of doing anything and all that you need is to find the right way so that you are successful in your mission.

Once you have convinced yourself that you are not limited by the boundaries set by these limiting beliefs, you will naturally stop paying attention to them and slowly they will wither away. They are like weeds in your garden, which have to be eliminated. Such an elimination process will open up new areas of beliefs and activities that you actually desire and which will have a positive impact on your life.

A simple method of getting rid of a limiting belief is to first state the belief that you think is detrimental to your performance. You should write down the thought that accompanies this belief such as, “I am not good at communicating with others" and then state and write down the opposite of your limiting belief such as “I can communicate effectively with others."  You should then write down a positive thought that would go with this new belief such as ”Communicating with others is something that I am very good at." You can now describe the comfortable situation that this new belief will provide and your behaviour when you are acting under the new belief. You can now imagine yourself as an extrovert who is able to communicate effectively with other people. It would be a good idea to write down this affirmation saying that you are good at communicating with others and reciting it repeatedly.

People who have been successful in their lives have all learned how to break the shackles of limiting beliefs that had been holding them back. Moreover, they were wise enough to believe that they were not too old to try out new beliefs and that they had the energy to do so. If you want to be successful, you have to stop moving around in a circle with the heavy burden of limiting beliefs around your neck. You have to choose a direction and you should not rest or give up till you have reached your destination.

Author: Terence Young

How To Live A Life Of Joy

I don't have digital
I don't have diddly squat
It's not having what you want
It's wanting what you've got
-- Soak up the Sun, lyrics by Sheryl Crow

Living a life of joy is when you hit your stride; when everything comes together and you stop looking into the future to find happiness and realize that you have happiness right now.

Is that possible? Can we be happy with what we have right now? Isn’t there always something missing that we have yet to achieve or acquire? Of course there is. Up until the moment of death there is always something left to achieve; something else to acquire; some purpose as yet unfulfilled. But that’s not what having a joyful life is about. As Sheryl Crow so wisely sings: "It’s not having what you want. It’s wanting what you’ve got!

"Wanting what you’ve got.  What does that mean really? It means living every day of your life with the joy and passion of simply being alive. It means celebrating what you have achieved so far and recognizing the strength you’ve shown in getting there. It means being thankful not only for the good things you’ve experienced, but also being thankful for the opportunity to grow and become stronger from experiencing the not so good things as well.

But living a life of joy is not all about you either. It’s about the people who come in and out of your life and how your mere existence on the planet affects them. Your joy and happiness multiplies when you share yourself with others. People use the term “giving back” to describe acts of charity and kindness that others perform. What a wonderful concept. You recognize that you are receiving the abundance that life has to offer, no matter how much or how little of that abundance you happen to be receiving at this very moment, and you choose to invest some of that abundance into the life of others.

A friend of mine owns his own business. Like most self-employed people he works long hours. Yet, he manages to volunteer as much as 50 hours per month for an organization that helps people who have been impacted by disaster.

He tells a story about being called to a house fire on Christmas Eve. The family who rented the house spoke little English and they were very poor. What few presents they had managed to get for each other were destroyed along with all of their belongings.

My friend arranged temporary accommodations for the family. He also contacted someone who owned a store and asked him to donate a few presents to the displaced family.

When my friend knocked on the door of the motel where the family had been placed and handed the wrapped presents out to the children, the mother stood up on her tiptoes, hugged my friend, and said in broken English: "You’re my Christmas angel”

I’ve seen his eyes well up with tears when he relates this story. Yes, he is living a life of joy. But so is that woman who saw her children’s eyes light up when they received those presents. Because, despite the tragedy she had just endured, she realized "It's not having what you want. It's wanting what you've got”

Author: Terence Young

3 Factors That Make It Hard For You To Keep Motivated

There will always be times in your life when you have to perform tasks that you deem unpleasant for one reason or another – working with a co-worker you don't like, going to work on Mondays, taking the garbage out, driving to meet the in-laws at the airport, having dinner with the spouse's friends...

Doing these things just siphons whatever motivation you have inside you and makes you feel sad, tired, sorry, even annoyed.  But did you know that there are also things inside you that actually make it difficult to feel excited and enthusiastic? 

Get to learn the factors that make it hard for you to keep motivated:

Your Mindset

Your mindset is a major factor that can make it hard for you to keep motivated.  This is because it can severely limit your understanding of the world and all experiences in general.  Your mindset can sometimes be composed of growth-inhibiting beliefs, prejudices, biases and standards. 

If, for example, you believe that nothing good can come out of your staff, you'll fail to see that there is a clerk there that actually has management potential.  If you refuse to believe that you can actually write for a famous magazine because you're a person from a small town, you'll miss out on an opportunity to expose your talent and reap its rewards.

Your Comfort Zone

We all have certain limitations in our minds.  These limits are things we decide on based on our own personal beliefs, ethics and standards.  Within these limits, we feel comfortable and can pretty much do as we like. 

Once we approach the outer edges, we begin to feel discomfort, shyness, embarrassment or annoyance.  We do not wish to go further because we do not like what we don't know or haven't experienced.  Because we have a fear of the unknown, we'd rather stay within our comfort zones because we feel safe there.

The problem here is that a narrow comfort zone can be a major factor that makes it hard for you to keep motivated.  Each time you are presented with a new idea or experience, you check to see if it fits into your comfort zone.  If it doesn’t, then you simply refuse, no questions asked.  This is unfortunate because many of these ideas and experiences can be good for you.  But you'll probably never know because you don't have the motivation to try them.

Your Past Experience

Did you get burned by the stove?  That's probably why you hate to cook.  Did your former bosses fail to show appreciation for your hard work?  That's probably one reason why you don't feel motivated about your job.

Your background – personal, social and professional experiences – has a lot to do with how you decide things in your life.  They can also be factors that make it hard for you to keep motivated.  If these experiences are negative, they tend to make you more hesitant and unsure of yourself because they affect your self-esteem and confidence. 

If, for example, you've only been met with rejection or ridicule in your life, it wouldn't be hard to imagine if you don't feel a strong need to excel or to improve yourself.  You'll probably be thinking – 'So what?  Nothing I ever did was good anyway.  Why would things change now?'

Unless you consciously make an effort to identify these past experiences and then refuse to let them rule your life, you will always find it hard to get motivated.

Attaining the Right Mindset

Much of the time, we ponder over the tools that can provide us an edge in turning our dreams to reality. We all strive to obtain that miracle tool that makes achieving your dream a certainty but in reality such a tool isn't found but is created within. The tools that we would think about can be your competence to handle difficult situations, honesty or sincere efforts.

Yet, being driven by all these qualities, we are desperate to fill the void and chase that success we dream of achieving. Philosophically, you can have everything in your life only if you provide others enough of what they desire. As Napoleon Hill asserts in his book you must first be of greater service to the world than what you expect in return. Once you can realize that helping as many people achieve their dreams is the key to making your dreams a reality then you have realized an edge that will determine a new profound focus on how you live your life. This is all about sharing that complements your successful frame of mind. At times, it becomes important to celebrate others' triumph wholeheartedly to bring prosperity in your life; even if you recognize them to be your opponents. In most cases, this surely brings positive results, as competition serves as a key to enlarge the existing market. If you find this concept hard to believe then just think about the next time you are feeling down and unhappy, just think of a person that you can make laugh and all of a sudden your physiology changes.

Attaining the Right Mindset

Taking inspiration from the experiences of successful people is another way to attain the right mindset. You can implement this in your life by increasing your association with influential people. This is important because you are as good as the company you keep. This would help you in rebuilding your confidence in yourself, as also enhance the credibility of your beliefs. You begin considering them as your standard and try to remodel the efforts by your own sincere hard work. Moreover, positive programming charges you, thereby eliminating particles of the negative one paving the path for success. Your right mindset helps you to create your own identity instead of being part of the common mob.

When you start rubbing off the actions, attitude, and, top of all, the habits of these influential people, you begin increasing the aura of your happiness and self-esteem. This happens because you then mold your mindset in line with that of the successful people. Finally, yet importantly, comes grading your labors to develop a mindset of glorious success. We all have been blessed with life to enjoy it in being content, healthy and abounding. Therefore, it is important for everyone to develop prosperity consciousness to begin living the life to the fullest.

Author: Terence Young

Law Of Attraction: Taking Control Of Life

The first step in utilizing the law of attraction in your own life, I have learned, is first by taking ownership of prior mistakes. Next is identifying what exactly it is that you really want while keeping out all thoughts about what you do not want. Identifying what a person wants as opposed to what they do not want is a major difference when taking the imperative steps towards happiness and well-being. Years ago I remember focusing simply on the negative. I would only focus on what I did not want to happen. The result that I experienced was in most cases the negative. The one thing I did not want at all. Why me? I would ask emphatically. This is unfortunately something that most people have experienced in their lives many times.

How can we alleviate such negative outcomes in our lives? There’s only one answer to that. You guessed it. We must always force ourselves to focus on the positive outcome in order to achieve the outcome we all desire. I am still appalled at my mindset in my early days just out of college and trying to make those first million dollars I thought I would make within a few years just to pay off those credit card bills. But, that unfortunately did not happen. It took a lot of negative experiences and not-so-good outcomes to realize that something had to change in my life. I honestly believe every single person who has every lived in this world would be able to relate to exactly what I am saying. Some may not admit to it, but most I believe will.

Admitting my faults was the first thing I realized I needed to do.  Admit that I was not right all the time even if it was my own life. After that first painful step of admittance is overcome, the world is your oyster. Not only do we have to admit our faults and believe in ourselves endlessly, but we all must continue to educate ourselves and allow our minds to grow. It seems our minds are endless and as we proceed further and further down the path of happiness, so does our mentality. It all evolves into a much more forgiving, compassionate and powerful state of being. I am truly amazed at what a person can achieve once they realize the untapped power they actually do have inside themselves. Admittance is the key which unlocks all the doors to happiness. The longer we hold in the negativity and do not take ownership of the negative things that occur in our lives as our own manifestations, the longer it will take to achieve true happiness. This I strongly believe and witness daily in those who share this state of being and belief in themselves and the law of attraction that helps guide their very souls to truth and abundance.

Author: Michael Windsor is currently publisher and a writer for The Windsor Express Post

http://www.TheWindsorExpress.com