Success has to be hard
And the other lies we believe about ourselves
Note: I was in a really feisty, fiery mood writing this. The language in this post reflects that. Kids, earmuffs.*
I received an email this week from one of my clients who is kicking some serious ass right now. She came to me for weight loss, and within a matter of weeks, she nailed nutrition and we got to work on her big dream: she wants to write a book.
She wrote, “Every time I feel like I’m getting a grip and handling things well — personal life, work life, goals, nutrition, exercise — and I start to reflect on things being good, I also get the thought that if I get too comfortable, I’ll lose it.”
This is so important to share because there’s a really pervasive belief that if we stop beating ourselves up and enjoy the process, our bodies, or our lives, we’ll somehow lose the results of our labor.
The underlying belief in her share is this: “If I get too comfortable, I’ll lose it.”
Beliefs like this are dangerous because they are true. There’s plenty of evidence to confirm them. When they’re true, our subsequent experiences follow suit, and when our experiences prove as evidence for a belief, the belief gets stronger. As a result, our stronger beliefs dictate our future choices.
That looks like this: “Why bother working for what I want? As soon as I get it, I’ll fuck it up anyway and lose it.”
Gut punch.
Limiting beliefs make you the victim. You feel powerless against the greater forces working against you. Even her language is victim and passive: “I’ll lose it.” As if the magic she’s created in her life was something she stumbled upon and could just as easily misplace.
So let’s read between the words: “If I get too comfortable, I’ll lose it.”
If I get too comfortable, I’ll stop doing the action I took to create the magic around me, and as a result, I’ll lose it. Actually, I won’t lose it, I’ll UN-CREATE it. I’ll stop experiencing the rewards and results of my action. Because I stopped TAKING action.
Notice how much power that returns to you. When you realize the connection between your actions and your experience, you see how you are actually the creator of everything you experience. That means you’re also responsible for what you do with it.
(This doesn’t mean if you experience some massive trauma, you created it. But regardless of what happens to you, you are responsible for the meaning you make of it and how you carry forward with that meaning/belief.)
I’ll share another one of my old beliefs that I obliterated after expanding it: “Financial stability creates scarcity, and worrying about money creates money.”
Confused by that? Did I mention our beliefs are rarely logical?
If this belief were true, I’d be pretty screwed. And I was, for most of my life because I believed this. And believing it allowed me to see it over and over again… and experience it, over and over again.
Let’s expand and bust this fucker open.
The truth is, when I had financial stability — I made big commitments. Partially based on the knowing that I can do whatever I set my mind to, partially on hope that it would work out, and partially on purely ignoring any evidence that it wasn’t a good idea because I didn’t want to hear “no.”
THIS is what created scarcity. NOT the financial stability.
Then, because I had made a commitment — I worried. When I worried, I busted my ass, worked really hard, and made the money.
THIS is what created money. NOT the worrying.
So the old belief is really, “When I have financial stability, I make decisions that create a feeling of scarcity. When I feel scarcity, I feel motivated to work hard, which creates more money.”
In both of these examples, YOU are in control of the current experience AND the alternative.
The power to change the belief lies in the unmasking of the absent words in between. NOT in the belief itself.
What are you believing right now that’s holding you back?
Expand the belief, read between the words and take your power back.