How to Exponentially Increase Your Happiness by Challenging Limiting Beliefs From Yourself and Others
“Always be yourself and have faith in yourself. Do not go out and look for a successful personality and try to duplicate it.” — Bruce Lee
Recently, I spoke in front of a group of 70 business leaders about the power of converting our biggest losses, adversity, failures and mistakes into our biggest wins. As I walked away from the podium, I met and shook hands with members of the audience and shared stories. Most people identified with my theme and told me so. But there was one hold-out. A successful doctor who wasn’t quite buying my message of empowerment, positivity and continuous self-improvement.
And it challenged me to my core.
The thing is, I know what it’s like to live in that world. Maybe you do, too.
When I was younger I was pessimistic, afraid of what might happen if I took a chance. I thought playing things conservatively and “falling in line” would be the way to go. I didn’t take the time to plan for what I really wanted to do in life — and it cost me. I struggled with anxiety, I wasn’t confident enough in my abilities and I didn’t believe I was the right person for the jobs I wanted or the woman I wanted to spend my life with.
I was both simultaneously excited for the future, while also scared of the success I believed I would achieve. As I talked to many friends, colleagues and as I learned from many successful people, it’s not uncommon to doubt and feel self-conscious about our dreams. The critical step we must take in becoming successful is converting our doubt into faith by turning dreams into goals through faith, planning and action.
“True desire in the heart- that itch that you have- that thing that you want to do to help others, and to grow and to make money- that desire, that itch- that’s God’s proof to you, sent beforehand already, to indicate that it’s yours. So claim it. Work hard to get it. When you get it, reach back, pull someone else up.” — Denzel Washington
Don’t Let Others Limit Your Imagination
Thing is, many people will tell you it’s not so easy to remain positive and enthusiastic as you get older. Life can beat you down. It gets easy to doubt or at least become more cloistered in your thinking of “limitless” possibilities. In other words, once you stop thinking that your goals and dreams aren’t possible, you begin to start limiting yourself.
I’ve seen enough in the lives of my parents, brothers, loved ones, coaching clients and through all of my reading and research that life truly does get better as you keep moving forward. It’s all about believing.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is one way to stay positive and think deeper into protecting yourself against negative thoughts and naysayers. It’s all about recognizing, taming and then converting the negative thoughts and beliefs into positives that we come to master through the power of our mental and emotional faculties. This Harvard Medical School paper points out:
[A person] starts recognizing negative thoughts and beliefs that distract from or disrupt positive events. The ultimate goal is to challenge and eventually change negative ways of thinking, to enable positive events to have more of an impact on the patient’s life.
Famous success stories like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, Sheryl Sandberg and J.K. Rowling have taught me that adversity is truly our greatest asset. I’ve learned in my own life that sometimes, getting fired from a job, breaking up with the woman of our dreams or even experiencing failure in a business venture can all lead to our greatest breakthroughs.
All of the inspirational stories and lessons on positivity won’t mean a thing if you don’t go and create the life you truly want. You have to take action. You have to steel your mind with the power of faith, which leads to action when you’re willing to forge ahead with a solid game plan. You simply cannot do this when you live in disbelief and doubt.
Psychologist Carol Kauffman of Harvard highlights four ways to develop a more sound, positive psychological approach to combat limiting beliefs. It’s geared toward changing your thoughts and building on self-encouragement as a source of empowerment:
- Reverse the focus from negative to positive
- Develop a language of strength
- Balance the positive and negative
- Build strategies that foster hope
Source: Harvard Medical School
Find Your Inspiration. Find Your Faith
Learn to balance your mental approach with a keen self-awareness and cultivation of your emotional intelligence. The development of confidence and passion for what you do, coupled with practicality and understanding of your skills and natural talents, will enable you to ditch limiting beliefs and increase your desire to believe in what matters most to you.
While we’ll tackle urgent, pressing items that we think may not add value (but really do), we’ll also have plenty of time we can create for the things we care about most.
“Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.” — E.E. Cummings
The best use of your time is CREATING the time to pursue work that adds value to the lives of others, invigorates you with passion and inspires you to keep giving your gift back to the world as you grow in all areas of your life.
Know this — people WILL tell you that you can’t do something. They’ll tell you why you’re not going to be a great artist. They’ll discourage you from starting your own business, possibly because they failed on their own. And worst case, you’ll actually start to believe these things. And you’ll beat yourself up and begin to wonder whether everything you’ve believed in is just Pollyanna.
As people get hardened to failures and refuse to capitalize on the tremendous growth opportunities that come from adversity, they get more conservative. Sometimes, people who took big chances when they were younger, are keen to tell you why they shouldn’t take bold risks. They’ll tell you it’s hard to be bold, confident and positive and they’ll think it’s safer to tell you to take the easy way out.
Don’t ever let failure increase a limiting belief that you may hold deep inside. It’s not worth it, namely because in an ironic way, our failures and stumbles along the way should actually teach us to increase our faith for the next venture and opportunity.
“Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me.” — J.K. Rowling
The safe way out, in terms of your creative ventures, ideas, big goals and dreams, DOES NOT WORK. It’s for those who want to live lukewarm. What does work is summoning the courage, conviction and determination to build your life around your dreams, backing them with goals and a solid game-plan for how to do what you want to do.
You owe it to yourself and to others to not stop when others tell you to take the easy way out. To continue increasing in faith. Because there would be nothing greater than converting a doubter into a believer, showing them through your own example that you will find happiness, purpose and your chosen calling as you keep growing in enthusiasm, confidence and faith as you grow with time.
Increase Your Emotional Intelligence
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