Beliefs: How to Crush the Limiting and Create the Empowering

This is episode 261 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider.

Welcome, welcome, welcome, empowered humans. I'm Kari Schneider and you are listening to the Empowered Team Podcast. We are up to over 250 episodes of looking to help you empower yourself via self mastery so that you can keep doing the things that you do, taking care of yourself, taking care of others, up to big things that are larger than yourself, and taking lots of empowered action. So today we have a topic for you is our monthly topic in our monthly coaching call. And it's all about limiting beliefs and empowering beliefs. And we're going to go over the distinction of what they are. And more importantly, I'm going to give you the how to dismantle a limiting belief and how to enhance an empowering belief. So if you're finding yourself knowing that you've got this thought that's supporting you along your way, it's very supportive. However, it's not actually taking you to the next level and you know you need to solidify that belief further. Or if you know you've discovered a limiting belief that is holding you back and you don't want it to anymore, then this is for you. We're going to dive in. So why is this even important? Who cares? It's, it's beliefs. It's. We're talking about the intangible. So let's make it a little more concrete. Our beliefs are the things that really dictate whether or not we're going to go in a particular direction. If we believe something about ourselves, then that's more important than whether or not we have the right upbringing, the right circumstance. Because our belief is going to guide our actions and how we step into the world. So they are incredibly important. And I'm sure that you've experienced, if you're listening to this podcast and you've developed yourself in growth in some form, or I'm sure you've experienced a scenario where the thoughts you're having over and over and over again are holding you back from something, or the thoughts that you were having kept supporting you through something that you weren't sure you could even do, and those are likely some of your beliefs. So today I'm going to give you those steps to dismantle the limiting and enhance the empowering. But first, in order to get really specific on this, let's definitely define What a belief is not a limiting or an empowering belief, but just a belief. And I'm going to define it in a way that I learned over 25 years ago from a gentle giant or a very impactful, forceful giant named Tony Robbins. I was reading a book called Awaken the Giant within and he was talking about beliefs being like a table. So I'm going to tell you about that, but first I'm going to tell you about the simplest version of what I think a belief is. And it's this. It's simply a thought you're having over and over and over again. It's so repetitious in your brain that you believe it to be true. And it's likely been going on for long enough that you don't remember when it started. So that's typically what I find a belief is, is this repetitious thought over and over again that you don't even realize that it's impacting your life. So if you want a visual for this, I'm going to go into Tony Robbins description of it. And it's the description of a table. And your belief is foundational. It's kind of like the tabletop. That's the belief. So that's the thought that you've been having over and over again. Now, to determine how shakable or unshakable this belief is, we look at the evidence and he likens the table legs to be similar to the evidence that's supporting that belief. So for instance, if you believe that that your child should go to university, then that might be your belief. Now, you may not remember ever coming up with this belief. It might have been a thought you've had for so many years. Maybe it started before you ever went to university. And then you have some evidence. So maybe you heard some stat at one point that people who go to university have a greater likelihood of being hired. And that would be one table leg. That would be some evidence. You saw this stat or you saw this research and that would be a table leg. And then you've got another piece of evidence that your best friend's child went to university and they became very, very successful at what they do. And that becomes a second table egg. And maybe you have a third table egg that's been pre existing for a while and it is that you went to university and you felt that it really enhanced your quality of life and your learning about the world. And that's a third table egg. And then you've got this fourth table egg that comes along and that you have some siblings, one of which who did not go to university and they had some pretty tough things go on in their life and they didn't get hired as easily becomes a fourth table leg. And you can see that if there was only one leg to that table or stool, perhaps then the foundation wouldn't be as solid. However, with all of this evidence that by the way we're looking for to support our belief, that's what our brain naturally does, it looks for with our reticular activating system, it looks for the information that's going to support what we already believe. So we're not even coming from this in a neutral position. We're coming from this as humans who really want to have our own beliefs be supported. So there we go, we've got something that is a thought and maybe it's not even our own thought, maybe it's someone else's thought that has been in our brains for so long we don't even remember when it came there. And then we've looked for evidence to support our thought or our belief. And that is really what a belief is and the reason I'm describing it to you this way. And I think it's so important to understand a belief first before we go into an empowering belief or a limiting belief. I think it's so important to understand that belief first simply because when you can see that it may have been established before you were even an adult, it may have been established by cultural or societal norms, then you can start to distinguish what whether or not you really want to keep that belief and whether or not it's actually true. Because we think that this thought that we've been thinking over and over is true because we've had so much repetition with it, we're so familiar with it, but it's not likely a fact. Most of the time the things that we're believing are not facts. However, we're acting in the world around this particular belief as though it's a fact and it's likely not. So want to be clear on those things first before we go into a limiting belief. So let's describe a limiting belief. This is a self imposed thought or belief that holds an individual back, often rooted in fear or self doubt. Now in this definition that I've looked up, it's a self imposed. Typically we think it's self imposed. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna suggest that the thoughts that we're having that we've had for so long are likely not our own. They're likely Our friends, our families, our societies, our cultures. So it may not even be self imposed. We are self imposing it by perpetuating it. That that is how we self impose it, by continuing something on that we don't really even remember when it came about. So that would be a limiting belief. This thing that is a, is a fear coming from fear, this thought that is holding us back. And it's really that belief when we've had it for a really long time or we've got multiple options or multiple pieces of evidence to support that foundation. So let's look at an empowering belief. This is one that might be self affirming or it might propel us forward and enable us to reach a greater potential or growth. And it's typically rooted in self confidence, confidence or resilience. Notice the complete opposite. Instead of being rooted in fear or self doubt, it's rooted in self confidence or resilience. So I want to give you a little bit of a story because sometimes we don't recognize our own limiting beliefs simply like I said, because they've been there so long. So there was a time years ago that I went to university and I was exploring what I wanted to go into. And I was interested in sports, sports because I was an athlete in high school. I was interested in business because I saw my dad run his own business. And I was interested in the environment and environmental studies, partially because I lived in the forest up north. I loved animals, I love nature. So those were my three interests in going to university. However, I was always really, really convinced, curious, and gave a lot of credit to anyone who was in the medical field or physicians. And eventually I was going into a field called athletic therapy after I was at a university. So I had gone through a four year degree and then I had to go through another two years, which is like a master's degree, in order to get all my field hours and all my clinical hours, which was over 1600 hours, plus I was a first responder, plus I was certified as a exercise physiologist and a strength conditioning specialist. And all these extra things which also took more practical hours and clinical hours and whatnot. And I remember saying out loud, I would have gone to medical school if I had known. I would have been in school this long and I'd say something similar, I would have gone to medical school, school if I'd known I'd spent this much on my education. Interesting. Ultimately I'm exposing a limiting belief, but I didn't even realize I had it until I had said this Sentence out loud a few times. I would have done this if I had known it would have taken this long. The limiting belief for me was that medical school wasn't something that was for me. The reason why was because I didn't have any examples of people who had gone to medical school. I also, in my circle of friends or family, I also did not hear from my parents that, you know, you could, what are you interested? You could go and do these particular options. I was only looking at school, school from a handful of interests that I had, and no one was really talking me through what else was possible. So to expose this is step one of really the beginning of being able to dismantle a limiting belief, to expose a limiting belief. It is typically this combination. It's a deep desire for something and then the reason why you can't have it. So in the example of my medical school story, I started realizing, and this is later in my career, I had a young child and I was employed at a wonderful job. In fact, I would have called it my dream job. But a few years into my dream job, I started to see some of the setbacks. I could see the glass ceiling. I could see where I was going to be very limited in earnings. I could see how there wasn't a lot of support for me doing continued education. I could see. See the limitations when it came to not only my earnings, but my time around my family and my daughter. And I started to realize that there were some desires for more than what I currently had. And so it's this combination of a desire or a longing or even jealousy of someone else that's indicating a desire in you, that longing or desire for something and then coupled with the reason why you can't have it. Because for me, the reason was, well, I'm are. I've already spent so much time in school. Like I indicated earlier, if I'd known it was this long, I would have gone to medical school. As though, as though that's off the table, as though that's not an option. I already filled up my quota for school. I filled up my quota for spending on education. That's this assumption that I was making by saying the words, if I had known my school would take this long, I would have gone to medical school. The, the underlying belief there is that because now I can't, I can't go to medical school because I've already spent this much time in school or it's too late, or I'm too old, or I have a daughter, I have to take care of or I don't have enough money. So there are all the limiting beliefs that are hinging on that outward statement that I started to realize that, hmm, wait a second, there's something holding me back here. Why am I thinking these things? It's still something I'm kind of longing for. So the distinction, if I were to simplify this more, it literally is that one of them, one of them moves you forward and it feels empowering and one of you, one of them holds you back and feels disempowering. And that's what that one belief was doing. It was holding me back and it was feeling disempowering because I was believing that I didn't have the time, I didn't have the money, it was too late. I have a young daughter to take care of. So there are all kinds of limiting beliefs that were there. So what we want to be able to do is when we recognize a limiting belief, we want to be able to dismantle it. So there are three key actionable steps in order to dismantle it. And the reason this is so important is because these beliefs are impacting everything in our day to day operations. What we think determines how we feel. So if I'm thinking a limiting belief, chances are I'm feeling stuck in some way or I'm feeling disempowered or I'm feeling like there's less of what I really want in the world. And if that's the case, then, then and I'm feeling in that realm, then my actions are going to align with how I feel. Typically my actions in the world are going to match. So the point being is that these limiting beliefs or empowering beliefs are so critical in our world because it literally forms the quality of our life via our actions because they are dictating our emotional states and then dictating our actions. So if we really want to dismantle a limiting belief, there are three main steps and the first one is self awareness. We want to recognize and be very specific on acknowledging the limiting belief and more importantly, its impact. So when I realized that I was telling myself that I really couldn't go to medical school because that's what the belief was, is I couldn't do it. I didn't have the time, I didn't have the money. And before that when I was looking at starting university, I just believed I couldn't do it. I didn't believe it was something for me. People like me didn't go to medical school. That's what I was believing at the time, no one told me that that was something that was a possibility or that could fulfill some of the things that interested me in terms of earnings, in terms of growth, in terms of potential. So the first step is recognizing that you have something that's holding you back. And like I said, the way you're going to recognize it is kind of stepping into that emotional space, feeling what you're feeling, understanding that there's something there that you're feeling and it might be a desire for something that you don't have, and then understanding its impact. If I continue to think this way, how is that going to feel in one year? How's that going to feel in five years? If it's feeling pretty crummy? Is that something that I'm willing to live with? Is it something that's going to impact my actions in the world? Is it going to be something that impacts my future or my family's future? So that's, number one, is that self awareness, recognizing, acknowledging that limiting belief and then acknowledging its impact, how is it affecting you right now? It really can have a bigger impact than you realize until you really look. Number two, you're going to challenge the belief. Yep. You're going to step up, take a look at it and really challenge it. You want to examine its validity and consider alternative perspectives. What you're literally doing in the, the example I gave you is you're taking the legs out, you're taking the evidence out from how that belief is formed. So if I give the example of, you know, people go to university having that as a belief that it's better for my children to go to university, then I can go and start knocking those legs out to go, well, why do I think this in the first place? Is it just because I went to university and I want them to have my experience because I don't know another experience, so how can I say whether that's true or not because I don't have something else to compare to? Or am I making this because I believe that my sibling didn't have as good of an opportunity because they didn't go to university? Is that my belief? But how would I know? Maybe their experience of life is far superior than mine or someone else's who has gone to university. So really understanding whether it's a thought you're having about a situation or if it's actual fact, it is this true is the, is the question. And you literally take a look at it from the perspective of factual or circumstantial, not from the Perspective of your own thoughts, culture, belief systems, but rather not. Not opinions, but rather facts. And that's where you literally blow holes in the evidence you have around your belief and the belief itself. You're trying to shake the table, you're trying to knock the legs out, you're trying to see how it wobbles. And ultimately your brain is not going to want you to do that because your brain thinks that your belief is true, your belief is good, and you should hang on to your belief because the brain isn't going to want something different. So step two is one that really feels uncomfortable. So be prepared for step two to feel a little uncomfortable because you're rattling the table, you're making it unstable. The brain isn't going to like that. Your brain is going to go, nope, let's keep things just the way they are. But this is a really important step in order for you to take a limiting belief and literally strip it back so that it doesn't have power over you anymore. That's the point of this part of the exercise. So, number one, self awareness. Recognizing and acknowledging the limiting belief and its impact. Step two, challenge the belief, blow holes in it, ask, is this true? Take the legs out that were the evidence of the belief. And number three, this is important. How does it serve me to still have this belief? You start challenging this belief, you start feeling uncomfortable, you start going back into, well, no, it really is true when the truth is it's just your opinion and it's not serving you. So you want to understand how is it serving you to keep the belief? How is it serving you? Because that's going to be one of the main reasons why your brain wants to keep the belief, why you're going to want to still have this limiting belief even though you know based on step one, you know it's not serving you. You know there's some negative impact on your life, there's some negative impact on perhaps your future and perhaps even negative impact on those around you for having this limiting belief. It could be affecting you in a number of ways, adversely. So in number three, you want to understand the good parts about keeping the limiting belief, because that's why it's still there. It might have you feel really confident about certain things in the world. It might have you feel like you should stay in the same place and not have any change. It might have you feel validated if people do what you're doing, especially if it's that belief about my children going to university, I want them to do what I Did it validates my experience, experience of the world. So there are typically some, some evidence, much, much evidence and good attributes for a belief, even if it's a limiting belief. Limiting belief does not mean that it's all negative. Limiting belief does not mean that it's all awful. It means that it's simply holding you back from moving forward in a particular area while it might be holding you safe or holding you confident in another area. So realize that it can be limiting you in one context or area of your life and really helping you feel certain or stable in another area of life. When you recognize that, it's easier to understand the bigger picture and easier to dismantle it and make choice around the belief rather than just fall into the automatic pilot of having this belief over and over. Okay, I hope that all makes sense. So number one, self awareness, Recognize, acknowledge and understand its impact. Number two, make sure that you challenge the belief. Is this true? Poke holes in it, actually blow out the legs that are the evidence of this belief. And number three, understand how it serves you to have that belief in the first place when you understand that it's going to allow you to make, make better choices that are more conscious about how you choose and want to think going forward. All right, now we're going to go into the steps to enhance an empowering belief. Well, this one's very good. Why would we want to do this? We want to enhance empowering belief because it's something that's probably serving us and something we probably want a little bit more of. So number one, identify your empowering belief. You want to reflect on the moments of confidence, of success, and pinpoint what is your empowering belief? What is there already? So for instance, if I understood that I have the ability to do hard things, I went to university, I did multiple programs, I did a master's degree, I went through practical and clinical hours. I did a lot of work towards a specific goal, the equivalent of perhaps even going to medical school, school. So when I understand that and I look at what's already there, wow. I have resilience, I have grit, I have even if I wasn't self confident, I found a way to adapt and develop confidence in that realm that I wasn't confident. So I can look at all kinds of evidence. What's there already, what have I been through, what can support the direction I want to go. So that's number one, what is there? I already identify it. This is a step that's so critical because we often overlook some of the things that are our Greatest attributes. And if we're doing that on the regular, we're missing out on so much of what we can tap into in order to enhance our empowering beliefs. So the second one, what is possible? This is the most important thing about seeing with clarity. When you take a look and answer this question, what is possible? Then you get to do the most wonderful thing, the thing that our brain is designed to do, the thing that we don't do enough of anymore. The thing we used to do as children all the time, which is imagine what is possible. What's possible that I don't understand. I can't. I can't know what that would be like. And visualize it. Affirm it. Visualize success. Use affirmations. Reinforce things that are positive and empowering. Now you might be thinking, well, how can I do this when I don't have the evidence? Well, the reality is, is that oftentimes the evidence that we have accumulated for any belief, positive or negative, is not based on fact. It's based on assumption. It's based on perception. It's based on imagination. And that's the thing that we don't recognize enough. And when we recognize it and that we can utilize our imagination and utilize visualization. Cannot speak. Utilize visual visualization to our benefit. It's so important. I would rather visualize an incredible future for my children vs Lim. Visualize all the limiting factors that they're going to face. You have a choice. So if we can expand on what is possible. And the beautiful thing about a question like what is possible? Is it just takes the boundaries down. What is possible? Well, what, if anything, was possible? Let's just play. And what you do is you just allow yourself to go down that path. Even if you don't think it can be real. You just allow yourself to visualize, allow yourself to see what could happen along the path of your desires, along the path of what you already want. So that's step two. What is possible? Visualization, affirmations. Step three, and this is the most important one to actually enhance the empowering belief is understanding why it's worth it. Why is it worth having this empowering belief? Why is it worth expanding on this empowering belief? This is reinforcing your positive self talk. This is cultivating a habit of motivating and compassionate self talk. This is the habit of having empowering thoughts towards yourself or I'm having empowering thoughts towards the direction that you want to go that supports yourself. If you have an empowering belief like I can do this or I am Highly adaptable, and I can figure out any of the problems that come my way. Do I know that to be true? Maybe, maybe not. Do I have some evidence? Sure, I could probably have evidence that goes either way. But if I'm affirming the positive and focusing on the positive, then I'm making that my empowering belief that I believe I can adapt to anything and figure out any problem that comes my way. Because that's going to serve my cause more. It's going to serve the direction I want to go more than having the limiting belief. And instead of going and pressing the gas and pressing the brake, and pressing the gas and pressing the brake, I want to be able to ease off the brake and gently press the gas in a way that I can actually believe, in a way that's going to support my emotional state and my next actions. And that's exactly what empowering beliefs do. They're not shots in the dark. They're not wild, imaginative things that we just don't believe. Empowering beliefs are one that we ones that we can believe about ourselves and will serve our next steps forward. So for me, right now, I gave the example of medical school. And to finish that story, I actually blew the holes away in that limiting belief. And I stepped into truly understanding what was possible. I explored all the aspects of applying to medical school, and I explored all of what was possible for me at the time. And it came down to me choosing between starting my own business by myself as a single mom or going to medical school by myself as a single mom. I got all the applications for medical school because I had gone through an extensive medical training program already called athletic therapy. I had, I could have entered as a mature student and a special admission because I already had so much of the coursework that was needed, and I was exploring that, and I took a look at all the variables, and I ended up choosing to start my own business because I believed at the time that that would be the best quality of life choice for my daughter and myself. And I didn't have someone else to rely on. So that was the choice I made. So I want you to understand that although I blew the. The limiting belief out of the water, it didn't mean that I actually went down that path. What it meant is that then I had the power to make a choice. I was empowered in my freedom of thought and my own power to choose instead of being very limited by a limiting belief that I had carried for quite some time. So I ended up opening my own business. I did it by Myself, I did it as a single mom. And if I hadn't set aside that limiting belief about medical school, I wouldn't have been able to fully explore all my options and get the applications, understand all the parameters and make a conscious decision on where I was going to put my time and where I was going to put my money and where I was going to put my future in the quality of life. And I chose business. And I'm glad I did. I look back, hindsight, you know, you think it's 2020, and I'm grateful for the decision I made. If I turn that around to another real life example, just less than a year ago, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune illness called grave disease. And I went against a lot of the medical advice and I went for what I thought would be best for me. And it took a lot of enhancing of empowering beliefs. Those three steps of enhancing of empowering beliefs. I had to look at what's there already. I had to believe that I knew my body better than anybody. I had to believe that I have the confidence in doing what's right for my body. And I had to have the belief that I could find a way to heal it naturally, because that's what I wanted to do over relying on the medical system. And that's what I had to believe in. Step two was possible. Is it possible for me to put this illness in remission even though the specialists are telling me that it's impossible? Even though the specialists are telling me that I cannot do it? So I had to believe what is possible and then why is it worth it? To me, it was worth it because I didn't want to be, I didn't want to be exposed to very, very toxic medicines that ultimately are very easy to get on and very hard to get off of, that could damage my liver, keep my immune system very compromised for who knows how long? And it was not a cure. It was basically those medicines were a management of symptoms because the symptoms were so severe. So to me, it was worth it to really heal the underlying cause and to have my health back instead of just go with the medicines that were being advised. So this is how I enhanced the empowering beliefs that already served me in my own autonomy, my personal power with my health. However, I had to enhance them from further to overcome a big obstacle called dealing with this autoimmune illness. So those are some examples and these are the kinds of things that business leaders, that high performance athletes, that just high achieving humans are going through all the time, that's why those three steps of enhancing your empowering beliefs can be so important. That's why being able to dismantle a limiting belief can be so important. So that you are operating from a growth mindset instead of a fixed mindset and you can go forward feeling good versus feeling held back and perhaps feeling stuck with the limiting beliefs. So what I'd like you to do is really distinguish Take a look at an area that you really want to go toward. Take a look at an area where you feel like you might be stuck or you're not going toward because of this, this, and this. Chances are this, this, and this are your limiting beliefs. Beliefs Take a look at where you might need more support. Chances are that's where you can use the steps to empower your beliefs and really be able to go forward with greater confidence. So what I would like to invite you to do is really reflect on your own beliefs. Take steps towards your own personal and professional growth. By doing the steps that I've outlined here today, I really think that they'll serve you. They have served so many of my clients, they've served me massively. And I think that it's something that you can have a structure to do what you would like for your future, for where you really want to grow. So thank you for listening. I hope this serves you. By all means, if you think that this is going to serve someone that you know or that you work with, please share this episode. We're looking to empower as many people as we can and we believe that this makes a difference in people's lives because we've seen so much of the evidence of that. So share this episode if it resonates with you, please pop a rating, a five star rating and a review that really helps us get to more people and tell us. Tell us your feedback what's happened for you in your limiting or empowering beliefs.

If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team is our group coaching and accountability program where we provide the tools, skills and community for you to grow your self mastery as a leader and optimize your results alongside other leaders. The Empowered Team runs year round to learn more about our leadership consulting for business, business and our Empowered Team Group coaching. Head to www.theempowered.ca empowered learn-more that's www.theempowered.ca Empowered learn-more We can't wait for you to join us.

Let's go.