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“Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right”

– Henry Ford –

Are Your Self-Limiting Beliefs Holding You Back?

The dictionary definition of a belief is something you can trust, have faith, and have confidence in. You see what you believe; you don’t think what you see. However, we see the world through our own filters. This filter has been constructed from our past experiences, good and bad. This means that many of the things we believe in or believe to be true may not actually be so. If you think something and you experience it, you’ll always find evidence or ideas to support that belief, even if it’s not true. It could be a story. A story we’ve told ourselves repeatedly. This story could be positive and empowering but very often it’s negative and disempowering. It can often be destructive, demotivating, and demoralising. 

In the context of health, fitness, and weight loss, I often hear extremely negative self-limiting beliefs. Here are some classic examples. “I can’t lose weight.” “I’ve got big bones.” “I’ve tried everything”. “It’s hereditary”. “I’ve got a slow metabolism”. “I’m no good”. “I don’t deserve it”. “I have never been slim,” and many, many more. The truth is very often entirely different. In nearly all the clients I’ve worked with over the last 20 years, these beliefs were made up in their own heads and told with such frequency that they became real. 

Your Self-Limiting Beliefs Won’t Let You Improve

“I’ve tried everything”.

Well, you haven’t tried everything because if you had, you would have lost weight. But the truth is you’ve tried a few things, and they didn’t work. Maybe you’ve tried many things, and you quit before they worked, or maybe they were just stupid ideas in the first place. Besides, these failures have given you enough evidence to convince you this is true. 

If you’re trying to lose weight and your family and friends like to eat and drink a lot, you’ll find it quite hard to shake that influence. On the flip side, if you spend time with people that support your goals; who eat healthily, your chances increase significantly in achieving those goals. You might be thinking, “Oh, I need to ditch all my fat friends.” No, I’m not saying that. I am saying limit your exposure to them and increase the time you spend with people that are fit and healthy. 

This can make a huge difference. Read books on health and fitness. Influences and mentors are not limited to people you know in person, but there is an inexhaustible supply of books available to you in bookshops and online. Use these resources. Soak up the vast amount of information that someone else took years and maybe a lifetime to experience and put down on paper. It’s all there for you. Educate yourself. Be inspired by greatness.

Avoid Reading the Newspapers and Watching the News 

Someone says, “I need to know what’s going on in the world!” Do you? Do you really? You need to know that a typhoon just wiped out 2,000 people in the Philippines. And you need to know that an aircraft just crashed into the sea, killing all 360 passengers and crew, many of whom were children. Still, the truth is we DON’T need to know this, but we like it. It’s addictive. Newspapers are not designed to inform you. This is part of your self-limiting beliefs.

They’re designed to shock you and report the latest scandal or tragedy and as humans, we lap it up. And we can’t get enough of it. I counted the ratio of negative to positive stories in the first 20 pages of a well-known newspaper here in the UK. There was a 10:1 ratio in favor of doom and gloom. The truth is, all around us there are millions of great things that happen all the time, but it doesn’t grab your attention. It doesn’t pull you in and shock you. 

A Monk & A Ferrari

Six years ago, I picked up a book from my bookcase called ‘The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari’ by Robin Sharma. I’d previously read the book in 1997, but like many books back in my early 20s, I discarded it and took nothing from it. Fast-forward to 2012, I reread the book and it was like the lights went on. You will have heard the phrase, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear.” Well, this student was more than ready to soak up everything he could get his hands on.

Self-limiting beliefs won't let you become better

The 5am Club

I looked a little further into Robin Sharma on YouTube and found two videos that stood out to me. One was called ‘The 5am Club’, and the second one was ‘How To Journal’. These were separate videos but the two are inextricably linked.
 
Robin said, “Great performers, thought leaders, successful business owners, and entrepreneurs get up at 5am and work on themselves.” Now, whether the 5am alarm clock is entirely true or not, is irrelevant. But to be fair, it probably isn’t but what he was saying was that most successful people in all walks of life, get up early, plan the day and work on their own personal development by reading, watching, or listening to ideas and strategies to improve their life. Positive, uplifting, inspirational, and motivational words. Wisdom and thoughts from some of the great leaders of our civilization. Past and present. Alive and dead.

What I Did?

I committed to a routine, getting up at 5am every morning and aiming to be in bed by 10pm. I rarely missed a day. If it was midnight, I was up at 5am. On the weekends, I was up at 5am and would spend from 5am to 8am, reading, learning, listening, and improving myself. It wrecked my social life, but I was on a mission. Although, I thought that could not do this, but did not let my self-limiting beliefs hold me back.
 
On only five hours of sleep some days, I was extremely tired, but I just got up, despite my tiredness. I was on my way to winning my self-limiting beliefs, to develop new fitness mindset. I wore the lack of sleep like a badge of honour. Admittedly, there were times when I should have slept more, but I was totally immersed in self-improvement. I’ve never worked as hard and enjoyed the process as I did in these three months. I wrote in my journal all the things I was learning. I learnt how to write goals and why they’re important. I learnt how to be grateful for the things I currently have while still striving to improve other areas of my life.
 
For a whole year, I never looked at a newspaper for more than a quick glance. I will be honest. I missed it. I loved reading the newspaper and still do, but I avoided it, and guess what? I still knew what was happening in the world. I was still informed enough, but by limiting my exposure to all the negativity, my outlook on life changed tremendously.

Here are a couple of mine to get you started

1. I can’t write a book. I don’t have the skills or the knowledge to write a book.

2. People will think I’m stupid, have a disability and think that I’m not attractive when they know I wear hearing aids.

Both are complete rubbish. Self-limiting beliefs. That I do know. In fact, I always knew it deep down, but it didn’t stop me playing the story over and over in my head for years. OK, now it’s your turn. DDon’tbe shy. The first step to mastery is admitting weakness. There is strength in vulnerability.

Go ahead and write down 3 self-limiting beliefs about your weight loss and health. 

1: 

__________________________________________________________

2: 

__________________________________________________________

3: 

__________________________________________________________

Stop Making Excuses.

“I’ve tried everything, but I can’t lose weight. Some people say I’ve got big bones, but is that really the reason?”. There is a history of depression in our family. I’ve got a slow metabolism. I have an underactive thyroid gland. I don’t like exercise. I bulk up too quickly. Whenever I do weight training, I put on too much muscle. I just want to tone up. I don’t want to get too big. I need carbohydrates. It’s the weekend and I’ve been good all week. Red wine is good for the heart. I need motivation. I just can’t stop myself. It’s not my fault. It’s my parents’ spouse’s boss’ fault.

You got to know that all of these above are self-limiting beliefs; you can win them and be better.

It’s Not My Fault!

That’s probably the biggest excuse known to man. IIt’salso the most disempowering. You must take responsibility for everything in your life, whether it’s good or bad. You created it. You created it all. In one way or another, where you are in your life financially, emotionally, physically, mentally, or in any other way you can possibly think of, it’ll be down to you and the decisions you made.

I’m not saying you had it easy. Your life may have been tough. It may have been extremely violent or filled with abuse. I’m not judging you or anyone by trying to suggest that it’s easy. However, you do have a choice in how to react to these conditions. You have a choice to overcome those problems, self-limiting beliefs, and difficulties, however wrong, disgusting, and diabolical they are/were. Or you can let them overcome you and rule your life. 

Before you shout and scream at this page saying, ” what the fuck do you know about a shitty life” I will tell you right now. I know nothing about it. My childhood was great. I had a great family, good education, in a great home environment with brilliant parents that loved and supported me throughout my formative and teenage years. I have nothing to complain about. If you compare my life to some people’s lives, you will know for sure that life isn’t fair. 

What are the solutions?

Yet, however awful your existence was, you have a choice in how you react to this right now. How do I know that to be true? Because the evidence is clear to me and to everyone that wants to find it. I can name countless successful people that had every reason to lose the plot. They had every reason to drop out of society and become an addict. Sex, booze or drugs, you choose your poison. Besides, they had self-limiting beliefs just like you.
 
A decision that says I’m not going to allow external circumstances to determine my success. I’m not going to allow my upbringing and environment to shape how I live the rest of my life. These people decided that despite the odds stacked against them, they wouldn’t allow these circumstances to affect how they moved forward in their life. You can decide how to live your life, despite the things that took place before. You can decide if you want to be successful, and you can decide if you’re going to allow all that shit to shape your future. It’s your choice. I know that’s hard to hear for some people. Some people have been blaming others their whole lives for why they can’t get it together. 
 
“Everybody is self-made, but only the successful will admit it” Although I love that quote and how true it is. WWe’reall self-made. We created what we have and where we are. Don’t you like what you have and where you are? Then change it. No one is coming to the rescue. No one is going to bail you out and make it all OK. Everyone else is far too busy focusing on his or her own shit. No one cares enough to make sure you’re OK. 

You are the first one

Moreover, people care about you. I don’t mean that no one cares about you in the normal sense, as long as you’re safe and have enough to get by. People will help but when it comes down to it, as long as they and theirs are all good, that is their main concern. Not you. So, get over that fact. And stop telling yourself and everybody else that you can’t make anything from your life because of the bullshit story you keep telling yourself. However, the story going on in your head that stops you from taking action. The bullshit story that is on repeat, day after day, night after night, that keeps telling you that you’re not good enough. 

You are good enough, despite the shit that’s happened to you. This stuff does not define you. It doesn’t have to create your reality moving forward. It happened. Now choose to move past that and get on with your life. Most people are constantly thinking about the past or worrying about the future. How about living in the present and focusing on the next 24 hours ahead of you? Stop thinking about what someone said or did to you, what someone didn’t say to you or how you were let down. Stop it. Look at your day ahead. How can you make this next 24 hours really count? How can you turn what you have into what you want?

Rather than looking at what you don’t have in your life, look at what you do have. Look at the skills you possess rather than the skills you don’t possess. What skills do you possess? Look at what you have and where you are. Don’t blame anyone or anything for what you don’t have. That’s the blame game. 

No one wins, and no one cares. 

I think many people spend too much time working on improving the things they can’t do when they should spend their time improving what they’re already good at. Focus on your strengths. Don’t focus on your weaknesses. Your self-limiting beliefs tell you what to do. There are far too many people in the world that are great at what you suck at. Find those people to work on your weaknesses and spend your time doing the things you’re great at. The things that come naturally to you. However, you know what you’re great at, the things that come very easily. 
 
What makes some succeed despite extreme adversity compared to others that lose their grip on life and succumb to the depths of despair? David Goggins is an ex-Navy SEAL that overcame tremendous odds to achieve many great things. Here is a young boy that grew up in an abusive family. His father beat his mother and when he saw this happening, his dad beat him too.
 
He had every reason to do nothing and accept his fate. Most wouldn’t blame him if he did. But Goggins decided that his life wasn’t going to be one of mediocrity. He decided that he wanted more from his life. No one cared. No one helped him, and he realized that nobody was ever coming to the rescue. He was told that he needed to lose 100 lbs in three months to become a Navy SEAL. And he couldn’t run a single mile without gasping for breath. He couldn’t but he did not let his self-limiting beliefs stop him or make decisions for him. He went on to lose over 100 lbs in three months. A few years later, he decided to enter a race. 

What’s the difference?

This wasn’t your average 5km park run on a Sunday morning. He decided he was going to run 100 miles in less than 24 hours. Ultra-marathons are a thing, and many compete in events like this every week all over the world. But for a guy who didn’t have any training, Goggins ran 100 miles in about 19 hours. Later he went on to compete in many other ultra-marathons and extreme endurance events, including breaking the world record for completing 4,030 pull-ups in 17 hours. He did all of this despite shitty childhood circumstances and the fact that he used to weigh 297 lbs. David Goggins should have been a statistic. He decided otherwise.

I could spend the next 20 pages of this book telling you about people that overcame extreme circumstances and have achieved greatness, but I won’t There is no need. Wherever you are in your life, whatever has happened to you, you must realise that this doesn’t need to define you. And you can still be successful and achieve what you want with your health, fitness, fat loss, and anything else in life that you put your mind to. You have the power to do this. You have the power right now to change your life in any way you want. All it takes is a decision. A snap of the fingers. A heartbeat. The choice is yours.

Don’t Compare Yourself To Others 

With the world of social media dominating many people’s lives today, it’s sometimes hard not to compare yourself to others. What you must realise is that the “one shot selfie” was taken 36 times, and the “o make-up selfie” is still made up slightly. The “Woke up looking like this selfie” is also a fake, just like the Breitling you bought in that Turkish souk last year on holiday. 

We all want to look and feel good in life, I know that, but much of what we see these days just isn’t the truth. Even if it was true, comparing yourself to others is futile and will serve you no good. Assuming what you see is true, you have no idea where that person has come from, the work they have put in to achieve what they have achieved, or the struggle they have in life. You have no idea where that person is in their journey of life, so it’s silly to compare your beginning to someone else’s middle or end.

Focus on your own goals and your own life. Look in the mirror; that’s your competition. But I get it; you’ve got Facebook and Instagram showing you all day long these beautiful people having an amazing life. Ignore it. Focus on your own shit. IIt’snot real, anyway. IIt’sa tiny snapshot of 1% of their life. If someone has a million pounds in the bank, they have million-pound problems. Everyone’slife is full of the same problems. We all have problems, rest assured. We all have self-limiting beliefs. Concentrate on being the best YOU that you can be in every area of your life that’s important to you.

 

“Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world. If you do so, you are insulting yourself”.

– Bill Gates –

Like this article? This was chapter 16 of my book, “The GHG Method.”

I wrote the book back in 2019. Fancy picking up a copy? Click the link above, and I will send you a signed copy personally. My autograph could be worth a million dollars one day. Or not.

All the best.

Gav. I committed to a routine, getting up at 5 am every morning and aiming to be in bed by 10 pm. I rarely missed a day.

 

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