As a leadership and life transformation coach, I do a lot of work with my clients around beliefs. What we believe essentially gives shape to what we see as possible in our lives. Beliefs are assumptions about reality that have solidified to the point that they are largely invisible to us. More often than not, our beliefs are limiting our full expression in life because they formed in the past out of experiences (often painful) that are no longer current reality. On top of that, there’s a good chance we misunderstood reality from our limited perspective when we formed the belief!
The question I’m most interested in exploring with my clients is: “How is that belief serving you? Is it enabling you to create what you want in your life?” Once we identify a belief, we can bring awareness to both what it is costing us (limiting) and how it benefits us (empowering). With awareness comes possibilities, and we see that we can adopt new beliefs that better serve us.
As I’ve been working on adopting better beliefs over the past couple years, these five in particular have changed my life:
01. Mood follows action
I picked up this phrase from one of my influences, Rich Roll. Want to get unstuck in your life? Take action. Today. Now. It doesn’t matter if it’s perfect — you can course-correct. Objects in motion tend to stay in motion. Want to get in shape? Don’t spend two hours researching workout regimens online. Instead, put on your running shoes and go for a jog, even if it’s just once around the block. Or, stop reading this, and get down and do 10 push-ups right now. Something will happen in your brain, and you’ll feel slightly different. You’ll feel like the kind of person that takes action, and you’ll be more likely to do it again tomorrow, because it feels good! Next thing you know, you’ll find you’ve fallen in love with those actions and turned them into habits. Now you’re unstoppable!
02. Awareness is the door to possibility
One of my coaches loves to say, “You can’t transform what you can’t see”. There may be 10,000 options actually available to me in a given situation. However, if I only perceive three options, then three options are what I have. Awareness is the ability to perceive and be present to things as they actually are. Perhaps the greatest time-honored tool for increasing awareness is inquiry. The right question at the right time can change a life, a company, a nation and even life on this planet as we know it. Simply put, quality questions raise awareness, and awareness increases possibilities. This is why coaching is such a powerful modality for human transformation, because transformational coaches are trained to ask the questions that allow you to see past your blind spots and stuck places. We ask the question that literally makes you sit back in your chair, speechless as your paradigm shifts inside you. What is possible now?
03. I am not my thoughts, emotions and sensations
Ever feel like your thoughts and feelings have you more than you have them? A recent study indicates that the average person has 6,200 thoughts per day. Complicating this is constant access to more information than we could process in 100 lifetimes, carried in our jean pockets. Anxiety and depression affect nearly 20% of the adult population in the U.S. Simply put, I believe we identify with our thoughts, emotions and sensations as the self because we are not taught to locate our consciousness elsewhere. Thankfully, the rise of yoga and meditation are helping many of us to a watershed epiphany on the journey of self-discovery: If I am the one watching my thoughts, emotions and sensations, then I can’t be them. My being is rooted in Source, in the Eternal. I can simply notice my thoughts and feelings and let them float by like the clouds. Through awareness, I can have them more than they have me!
04. Human beings are malleable
This is a choice to focus on what is possible in human transformation, not what is “typical”. Yes, we are creatures of habit. Yes, as Thoreau famously wrote, “The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation.” And yet . . . human beings are transforming their lives, relationships, careers and achieving the seemingly impossible everyday. Feeling stuck at some point in your life is the norm. Doing what is necessary to get unstuck and live in full expression is not. So what? All I need to know is that it’s possible. Then I can decide if I want it enough to do what it takes.
05. What I resist persists
When we are in resistance, we are narrowly focused against something, usually blind to possibilities, and in “either/or” thinking. We are somehow giving power to what we don’t want by the energy we are expending against it. There is an element of denial at play here, as if we fear that acknowledging the undesirable reality makes it so. The alternative is acceptance and presence. When we get present to what is, and accept reality for what it is, then possibilities begin to emerge. It’s as if the energy formerly spent in resistance can be redeployed in the parts of our brain that see the field of possibilities. We can move forward. We can reclaim our agency and make a decision about what we want to create now.
Did one of these beliefs in particular resonate with you today? Did new possibilities come into awareness for you through the exploration? What is one action you could take today to “try on” a new belief in your life?