I was listening to a webinar last week in which the presenter was educating his audience about the importance of mindset when it comes to business. He was explaining that in his opinion based on his own experience and that of his clients running small businesses, the success of a business depends 90% on mindset.
And up until that point I was with him 100%. He talked about the importance of really allowing ourselves to have bold visions and dream big, with no focus on the “how” at this point. The how is what limits us, and stops us living our greatest lives.
And as I said, I was with him on this, nodding my head in agreement:-)
Then he started to talk about our limiting beliefs as the things that stop us from achieving these dreams and how he helps people change those beliefs using a well known process in his programme.
And this is where he lost me completely.
He talked about using a well known process – something I have been through myself at a big event a few years ago in London. It uses the pain vs pleasure theory – we naturally move away from pain and towards pleasure.
So what happens in the process is that you pin point a limiting belief, attach lots of pain to it by visualizing yourself in that pain and experiencing it, and then vice versa with the new empowering belief – attach pleasure to it and go through the experience of that.
For example, if you want to earn $10,000 per month and you realize that what stands in your way is that you just don’t believe people will pay for your services or products, then you would be taken through a visualization experience of living that as if it were true. And then you would visualize going through the scenario of the empowering belief – people will happily pay me well for my services – and experience the good feelings and results of that.
All this with the aim of clearing that old limiting belief and replacing it with a new empowering belief which will help you achieve your goal of earning $10,000 per month.
Now this works for some people – that’s why it is used again and again. And it could be that it works for those people because they are already so determined to make it work, they do anyway – the placebo effect if you like.
And for those, like me, who it didn’t work for?
Well, I have a whole new understanding that explains that. And something that, for me, is way more powerful, much simpler, and a lot less painful!
In a nutshell
In a nutshell it is about understanding the very nature of thought. Afterall a belief is made up of thought.
Thoughts come and thoughts go and we have absolutely no control over that. I have no idea what I am going to be thinking in 5 minutes, in 5 hours or in 5 days of that I am certain.
I am also certain that my thinking changes constantly – it always does – that is the nature of thought. It needs no help from me, the Thinker, it has a life of it’s own!
In fact, the more deeply I understand the nature of thought, the more I see that the less I interfere with the thoughts that pass through – try and change them, analyze them, look for the solution, go over a problem again and again – the calmer and clearer I feel and it is easier to reach my goals.
It’s a bit like understanding gravity. Well, the only thing we need to know is that if we drop something it naturally falls to the ground, that’s the way gravity works. We don’t expect anything else to happen, but that when something falls, it falls downwards, not upwards!
It’s the same with our own personal thoughts. If we leave them alone, they naturally subside and we are left with our own innate well being and peace of mind, no limiting beliefs holding us back.
The more we interfere, the more murky the waters become. It’s like shaking a snow globe. The harder we try to find a solution, the more we work on our beliefs, the more we look for an answer, the more we analyze our own behavior, the harder we are shaking that snow globe and the less we can see.
If we set the snow globe down – stop analyzing, stop trying to change our thinking, stop looking for the answers in what we already know (our memory or our subconscious) – then the clarity appears and new thinking in the form of answers can come in.
While we are busy shaking the snow globe, no new thinking can be recognized, heard or felt – it’s just too busy in there!
There is far more power in understanding that thoughts come and go and that we don’t have to take them seriously. They are a temporary thing, they come and they go, they are not real. They create the experience of our lives, yes, and that feels very real, it’s supposed to, it’s our life. But if it were not for the power of thought, we would not have an experience.
So what is a thought?
Is it something you can hang your hat on? Is it solid? Of course not. It’s an energy that we recognize and give meaning to. We decide on the meaning, the thought itself is totally neutral.
So going back to the limiting belief.
If you understood that the belief is made up of thought, and that the nature of thought is that it constantly changes, here one moment, gone the next, it isn’t real, it just appears or feels real, would it make sense to spend lots of time and energy on trying to change that thought or bunch of thoughts?
It’s a bit like trying to change a shadow without understanding that it naturally changes with the light. That’s what happens – that’s the nature of a shadow – it changes and/or disappears with the light or no light.
Why trying to change a limiting belief doesn’t work
So as we are trying to change our thoughts and beliefs, we are actually going round in a circle like a dog chasing it’s tail. We are using more thinking to try and change the thinking that actually created it and expecting it to change. It’s never going to happen because it’s not real, it’s all made up of thought that comes and goes.
Far more powerful is the understanding. Thoughts come and go and are not fixed, not real, we don’t have to buy into them, they only mean what we think they mean. We don’t have to take any of them seriously. We can let them pass by as we do we most of them anyway.
And when someone says we are controlled by our subconscious mind full of limiting beliefs, ask them what they are made up of, where do they come from, where do they go to?
And if you want to know the answer to that… I think I am going to have to make that part 2, enough for today!
I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, opinions.
And if this article resonates with you, and you know that your mindset is affecting the results in your business and you would like to change them, please get in touch and we can have a chat to see if I can help you with that. Email me at Sheela@sheelamasand.com or call me on +34 677 596 880.
