Overcoming Limiting Belief
This is the final part of the 5-part series around overcoming limiting belief. The 4-ingredient recipe are to Identify, to change Mindset, to know Intentions and to build Structures. All 4 elements are crucial and are the base ingredients for a successful journey in overcoming limiting belief.
In this article I will be covering how we can put all these 4 elements together in simple and practical ways just like a baking recipe.
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As a quick recap on what we have covered in the past 4 articles:
- You need to identify and acknowledge what specific limiting beliefs you would like to overcome.
- Mindset: how to change your mindset from limiting to empowering. which consists of 3 parts:
- Intentional retraining of your mind or thoughts.
- Consistent application of actions
- Determined resolved in keeping on.
- Know your intentions:
- Ask and answer the why?
- Visualise or reconceptualize empowering vs. limiting belief.
- Align the why with the what.
- Create Supporting Structures:
- Systems and processes
- Tools
- Community
For the details of each ingredient, please check out the previous articles or you can listen to the podcasts by clicking here.
Let’s start baking. Just like any baking recipe, the list of ingredients is important and so is the quantity. A little or too much of one or more ingredient and the overall outcome maybe not turn out to be what you had expected. Of course, this recipe does not require precise measurements, but it does require a balance approach in order for you to experience success.
The approach that you will take is dependent on your current competencies and the level of difficulty. Just like any baking recipe, if you are a beginner, you would naturally start with the beginner version of the recipe. Now of course you can go with the professional ultra-complicated recipe, but we also know what that is going to turn out to be if we have ever watched MasterChef.
Let’s break it down.
Current competencies.
What is your skill or competency or experience with the new empowering belief? This should also include what is your past experience with overcoming any challenges or limiting belief or changing of your perception. Be realistic and be as honest with yourself. Ask yourself, on a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your level of competency in this area.
If it is in a new area, it is ok to give yourself a rating of 1. It is better to underestimate and sure feels great when you overachieve.
What is your experience of success in overcoming limiting belief? Rate on the scale of 1 to 10.
If the experience has not been positive, it is ok to give it a 1 rating. Once again, it is better to be honest so that you can take the appropriate steps to move forward.
No matter how or where you have rated yourself, you now know what you need to do. An honest self-assessment is always a good starting point.. You now have a target to aim for. Afterall, any rating above 1 is good progress.
The second element is the difficulty level that you are attempting.
Difficulty Level.
What is the difficulty level of the limiting belief that you are aiming to overcome? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate it?
Do not despair if suddenly you realise that it is hard or maybe you have taken on more than you can chew. Take a deep breath and ask, “How can you break it down to manageable chunks?” This is part of the mindset change to overcome limiting belief.
Everything is manageable and achievable when you can break it down to smaller parts and take action on each part step by step.
Just like the baking example, you can attempt to bake a Heston Blumenthal cake but you would first have to master baking a pound cake as an example. You start with the basic or the fundamentals and build up to the next level.
Let’s bake the Overcomer cake.
The overcome cake requires 4 key ingredients: Identify, Mindset, Intention and Structure. The quantity of each ingredient is now dependent on the competencies and difficulty.
The example I am going to give is the launch of this podcast. This is how I did it:
I had to be realistic with my competency in this new realm of podcasting. In essence I had had to rate myself 1 and as for the difficulty level, I rated it as 5 only because I didn’t really know just how difficult or easy it would be.
Overcomer Cake Recipe:
Ingredients:
100% Identify
200% Mindset
100% Intention
300% Structure
Steps:
- Identify the limiting belief: What is holding me back from creating a podcast? The answer to that question was fear of no one listening which can also be translated to fear of failure.
- Mindset change that was required. What is the new mindset that I want to have? I started to change the fear-based mindset to one that says “Failure is just a learning process. I learn more through failure than success. In fact, Bill Gates has been quoted to say that success is a bad teacher. I then intentionally replaced fear based thoughts with this “learning” mindset. In fact I had to do it multiple times a day at the start.
- Intention. Why am I doing it? Why do I want to put in the time and effort to do this? The answer was clearly aligned with my purpose. My life purpose is to have positive impact on anyone that I connect with and in order for me to do that, one vehicle that will help me live out that purpose is through podcast. I have now aligned my why with what. Podcast being my what.
- Structure. What is the process and tools that I would need to use to help me achieve this?
- Ask the Questions: there was a lot and I mean a lot for me to learn. I had to list a series of questions that I needed to answer. Questions such as what was podcasting, tools or equipment that you would need, what type of applications to use to record your voice and then how to use them, what podcast platforms that are available and the list goes on.
- Find the answers to my questions. I think that we now live in a special time where answers to almost any questions can be found on the web or YouTube, books, experts and so on. There is no excuse for not being able to find your answers. I did my due diligence, I read books, watched YouTube, listened to various podcasts and so on. It took time but with each piece of information or knowledge, I felt a little bit more comfortable. As Jim Kwik in his book Limitless states there is a confidence competency cycle. Essentially that means that the more competency you develop, the more confident you become and you become more confident, the more competent you get as you continue to learn and practice a skill.
- Tools to help me make it real. Scheduling time in my calendar was critical. Whatever you do not set time to do, you are not going to do it. I scheduled time to read or to do research, write scripts, record and editing, uploads and publish schedules. I also used Notion to help me track all the various elements that are involved in creating a podcast.
- Putting it all together which is essentially Bake it or in another words, upload and publish IT!
This is a simplified example of what I did, but I think that it will give you an idea of the thought process behind the scenes.
If you have noticed, I did not equally weight the 4 ingredients, I had different emphasis on each ingredient, and this is dependent on what you are trying to do. In my example, I had to spend more time overcoming my mindset of fear than having clarity on my intentions. In fact, I had to spend the most time on structure because I had no to little knowledge of what I was embarking on which was podcasting.
Depending on what you are doing, be flexible with how you apportion your time and energy. In fact, I would say that energy management is probably a bigger factor, at least for me anyway. As an example, I would schedule most of my writing work during the morning as that is when my energy level is at the highest. The afternoons are best for recording and reading and you are best judge of what timing works best for you.
One last note that I would leave you whenever you step out and do something afraid is this great quote from Theodore Roosevelt, The Man in the Arena “It is not the critic who counts, not the one who points out how the strong man stumbled or how the doer of deeds might have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred with sweat and dust and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, if he wins, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Essentially it means that the important thing is to be in the arena, to go out there and just do it and when you do get criticism remember it only matters from people who are in the arena with you, who has battled it out, knows the hard work that goes into it and even though its not perfect or if you fail, know that it was not for nothing. In fact, I know that the people who are in the arena with you will give you the best and most helpful feedback and advice.
Overcoming limiting belief is a battle that each of us can decide to face and jump into the arena or one that not only do you raise a white flag but allow it to lock you in like a prison.
No matter where you are at in the journey of overcoming limiting belief, all the 4 ingredients are always necessary. Just like eggs, butter, flour and sugar are essentials in most cakes recipes, the 4 ingredients of identify, mindset, intention and structure will always be required.
Let me summarise.
- Identify the limiting belief. Be specific and focus.
- Change your mindset from limiting to empowering through thought training
- Know your intentions, be clear on the why.
- Build a support structure just like a recipe and build it up step by step.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I hope that you have learned at least one thing that you are able to apply into your everyday life. Please subscribe and set the notification so that you will know when that article is available.
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Lisa Lam : Coach | Trainer | Consultant 