Are you living inside a box?
No, I’m not talking about your office cubical or referring to the size of your house.
By “box” I mean the set of limitations you put on your life and on what you believe is possible for you. Your set of limiting beliefs becomes an invisible box that keeps you stuck in life.
Most of us began collecting our limiting beliefs from the time we were small children. Throughout our lives we’ve unknowingly assimilated limiting beliefs from our parents, relatives, teachers, friends, co-workers, spouses and from the media.
The advertising industry alone bombards us with hundreds of messages every single day. These messages are designed to serve their best interest…not ours. They condition us to think, feel and behave in certain ways that will build their bottom line.
Many of us don’t question these messages because we’re so used to seeing them. We've come to believe that they are accurate representations of the way life really is, but they're not. These messages add to our limiting beliefs because they negatively influence how we see ourselves and the world around us.
Our smile isn’t sexy enough unless we use a certain brand of toothpaste. We can’t be having fun in life if we’re not drinking a certain brand of beer. Our social status will be lacking if we don’t drive a certain type of car. We’re not hip enough if we don’t wear the right brand of shoes. We can’t possibly be having a satisfying sex life if we’re not using some little pill or gel. In fact, our lives are going to suck and we’ll be major losers unless we use product XYZ!
Am I being facetious?
No, not really. (Well, maybe a little.) What I’m trying to do here is to point out just how ridiculous these messages are, yet we get sucked into them more often than we care to admit. Eventually this conditioning gets absorbed into our belief system and influences how we see ourselves and how we live our lives.
Every time you find yourself being held back from moving forward in your life, you might be bumping up against a limiting belief. The way to get out of the ‘box’ and break free of our limiting beliefs is by doing two things:
- Become aware of the fact that we have limiting beliefs
- Question and challenge them
Get in the habit of examining your life from the perspective of an unbiased observer.
Look for any pattern, fears, or perceptions that might be keeping you stuck in life and analyze them for clues. What limiting beliefs might they be linked to?
At first it’s a little hard to face the fact that we’ve bought into someone else’s “story” and sold ourselves short. It can leave us feeling like we’re foolish and gullible. But the more often we question our perceptions and challenge our limiting beliefs the more it will become second nature.
So, are you ready to start living "outside the box?" If you begin ferreting out and challenging your limiting beliefs on a regular basis, you’ll be opening up your life to a whole new world of wonderful possibilities.
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