Why You Never Get What You Truly Want

Many of us, whether we know it or not, live within a prison of our own making. This prison has no metal bars, nor can its walls be seen by the naked eye; however, it is every bit as effective in keeping us from our freedom as a real prison cell. It’s called our comfort zone

Comfort zones can take on a variety of different forms, from the area in which you live and the circle of people with whom you socialise, to the amount of money you earn.

The primary force that keeps you living within your zone is your fear-based belief about what will happen if you move outside it.

Regardless of how ridiculous or unrealistic that belief may be, you will accept it as truth depending on the level of certainty you feel.

Your comfort zone is not really comfortable at all, but is really a virtual prison that keeps you from evolving and growing as a human being.

The bars to that prison are your fears about what may possibly happen if you move beyond them. The key to your freedom therefore lies in the removal of the underlying beliefs that cause those fears to exist.

Just for a moment think about a goal or dream you have that seems somehow out of reach. Now check to see if achieving it requires that you move out of your comfort zone and into unfamiliar territory.

It could be a dream job, a new relationship, starting your own business, losing weight, or living in a totally different part of the world.

As you do this little exercise notice how a subtle feeling of fear or nervousness begins to emerge in your chest or stomach area.

This is your unconscious mind springing into action with the intention of dissuading you from doing anything it perceives may put you in danger.

Most of the time you won’t notice the constant influence your comfort zone plays in your life, and you might find yourself placing the blame for your lack of progress towards your goals on laziness or procrastination.

However, if you stop and consider just for a moment why you can’t seem to get that item crossed off your to-do list, make that phone call, or fill out that application, you will begin to realise the true cause: What you want to do is outside your comfort zone.

It is your beliefs that direct your mind to do this; therefore, in order to break through your self-imposed limitations and achieve the success you desire, you will need to remove them.

What You Have In Common With Elephants

In many parts of India, elephants are used for manual labour; it is a tradition that has been a part of their culture for thousands of years.

Now although they are relatively peaceful animals, elephants are incredibly strong and can be difficult to control, as they can weigh eight thousand pounds or more once fully grown.

To deal with this, handlers developed a method that allows them to “condition” elephants while they are still young.

This conditioning involves tying a young elephant’s legs to a stake in the ground with a very thick rope, which prevents it from moving more than a few feet.

Whenever the baby elephant attempts to break free, it discovers that the rope is too strong. Although the elephant may attempt several times to escape, over time it eventually gives up and accepts its fate.

As the elephant grows to its full size, it continues to accept the idea that the rope prevents it from being free, even when the strong rope is replaced with a flimsier version.

With this belief firmly in place, the handlers can restrain a full-sized elephant easily with very small ropes and little supervision.

Now, it is easy to see that elephants and human beings are completely different; however, this story shows how conditioning can keep an animal clearly superior to humans in strength and size under control.

The reality of this example is that the elephant can walk away at any time, and that it would be pretty difficult for its handlers to stop it if it chose to do so. It is its belief system that tells it walking away is impossible, and so it stays captive for the rest of its life.

No, we are not elephants, but just like them, many of us create limiting beliefs about ourselves and the world at a young age. We base them on mostly inaccurate information, and it is these beliefs that are the cause of many of our present problems.

Changing Beliefs of TV's Celebrity Big Brother Contestants

Ok, ok, so I admit it, I have watched one or two episodes of celebrity big brother on the TV here in the UK in past couple of weeks. I am not a reality game show fanatic, however, I find it fascinating.

One thing that I have found fascinating is how different people react to others just because of what they believed before they entered the house rather than treating individuals on the basis of how they have experienced them first hand.

There is a young musician from a fabulous band in the Big Brother house called Preston and he voted for a lady called Faria to be evicted from the house simply because of the fact that she is famous for a kiss and tell story with England football coach Sven Goran Erickson. The first evictee, Jodie Marsh, was also cold and unpleasant to Faria on the first night for the very same reasons and expressed that to Dennis Rodman in the house. Neither of them judged Faria on how they found her or on their own personal experience of her.

Jodie and Preston both openly stated beliefs that they thought she was not a “proper celebrity” (whatever that is) because of how she was famous and Jodie Marsh actually said, when she was evicted from the house last week, that she thought Faria was lovely!! Amazing stuff. When she got to know her beyond what she originally believed, she discovered something that was liberating and kind instead of to the contrary.

Your beliefs are pretty much the rules of your life, well at least they are the rules that you will no doubt be living by. These rules may be what sets you free to achieve things in your life and live the way that you think is important. These beliefs may well also be restricting you and holding you back; they may even be creating the belief that you are incapable of achieving your goals. Or as in the case of contestants from Celebrity Big Brother, stop you from being agreeable to someone!

I wonder how many of you are already losing sight of your New Year goals or resolutions? Your beliefs may well be affecting your degree of success.

I believe in gravity and am guessing that you all believe in it too. Gravity is not influenced or altered in any way, shape or form by my belief in it. However, our relationships, abilities and possibilities are all influenced by our beliefs about them.

We tend to form our beliefs as the result of our experiences and then we act as if they are true. In one sense they are self-fulfilling propphecies. If you believe you are a likeable person, you will act that way, approach people openly and enjoy being with them. They will warm to you and so confirm your belief. We think that beliefs are formed by experiences, but equally experiences are the results of beliefs.

So this then means that you can choose your beliefs!

Understand that the belief that beliefs are changeable is in itself a challenging belief to many people because they tend to think of beliefs as possessions. People talk about 'holding' and 'having' beliefs, 'losing' or 'gaining' them. No one wants to 'lose' something. It would be better talking about them 'leaving' or 'outgrowing' beliefs rather than 'losing' them.

What's more, we all have a personal investment in our own beliefs. When the world confirms them, then they make a lot of sense to us, they are then predictable and give us a sense of security and certainty. We even may take a perverse pleasure in disaster, providing we have predicted it; how many of you have used the term 'I told you so' and found it to be a satisfying phrase? Not because you necessarily wanted anything to go wrong, but because your beliefs were proved correct.

Limiting beliefs are the major offender stopping us from achieving our goals and living our dreams. They act as rules that stop us from getting what exists within us as potential and we all have so much potential that we do not tap into nearly enough. Limiting beliefs hold us back from achieiving what we are actually capable of and what we deserve.

So have a good think about this question; "What is stopping you from achieving your goal?" and know that the answers are very often your limiting beliefs.

Early limiting beliefs may come from childhood influences such as parents or teachers or people whose beliefs we deemed worthy of believing ourselves. These early beliefs often stay hidden and we do not consciously evaluate them as adults. We also pick up limiting beliefs from the media. The numerous soap operas that take up so many hours of TV time set up situations where the characters have to act out ridiculous limitations, otherwise there simply is no drama to compulsively view!

Here are some typical limiting beliefs that are amazingly common;

"No pain - no gain."
"I need to have lots of money to be happy."
"I can't trust anybody."
"You can't get over a bad start in life."
"I am too old to learn to use a computer."
"I never get what I am after."
"Other people are better than me."
"I do not deserve to be successful."
"I have reached my limits."
"I need to work very hard to have enough money to live."
"Success takes a very long time."

These and similar beliefs are only true if you act as if they are. Suppose they are mistaken? what difference would that make?

In the process of achieving your goals, sometimes just being able to articulate any existing limiting beliefs and in turn noticing their effect is enough to alter or dissolve your old unwanted belief and therefore change and update your own reality.

It has certainly been my experience that the majority of people are not usually aware of their limiting beliefs. So the first step is to put them into language or to write them down. Then they are exposed and can be examined and ideally let go of. There are two simple ways to do this:

The first way is to simply ask yourself what the reasons are that you are not currently achieving your goal. What do you think is holding you back? Ask yourself that question and answer as truthfully and thoroughly as you can. The answers will reveal what it is that you perceive to be limitations. More often than not, these limits will be more about you than about the world. When they are about you, they are something that can be changed or updated.

Now, I have found that when people do ask themselves these questions in their own mind, they are rarely honest with themselves, so here is another approach that I use a lot with my one to one clients to discover what, if any, limiting beliefs you have;

Step one: Take a piece of paper and write down an important goal. Have a good look at that goal and really think about it.

Step two: As you think about that goal, assess and score each of the following statements;

Score each of these statements by giving it a score out of 10. Where 1 means you do not believe this statement and 10 means that you believe it without a doubt at all.

I deserve to achieve my goal.

I have the skills and abilities necessary to achieve this goal.

It is possible to achieve my goal.

My goal is clear and defined.

My goal is desirable to me.

My goal is worthwhile.

Look at the lowest scores for any of your answers and begin to explore them. This can be wonderfully enlightening. Low scores highlight and indicate a limiting belief or that you have not thought about the goal sufficiently. If you have discovered some doubts in some areas of your goals, now begin to ask your self about the reasons you are doubtful or what could be making you doubt this?

When you begin to question and examine your beliefs you can unearth what might be limiting beliefs and then you can begin to heighten your awareness of whether or not your beliefs are preventing you from achieving your goals.

Are You Trapped By Old Beliefs?

If you have ever wondered what kinds of beliefs you have stored away in your unconscious that silently influence your choices, take a good look at your life, including your friends, your loved ones, your job, and even your health.

The life you currently live is a reflection of your beliefs about what you are willing to accept and tolerate. This is the vital difference that separates people who live abundant happy lives from those who don’t.

For instance, people who continue to stay in abusive relationships, work at jobs they don’t enjoy, or struggle financially, do so as a result of the beliefs they hold.

Yet there are individuals in society who will never ever accept being unjustly treated, living just above the poverty line, or working in professions that do not make full use of their gifts.

These individuals are those who stand out in the crowd: the entrepreneurs, pioneers, and leaders who refuse to allow the opinions of others to dictate how they live their lives.

They do this not because they are better or more gifted than everyone else, but simply because their beliefs do not allow them to do otherwise.

It is important to remember that we all play an active role in the creation of our belief systems, even if this occurs when we are vulnerable to the influence of others.

Once these beliefs are impressed on our unconscious mind, they become the rulebook that controls the direction of our lives.

All your successes and failures, then, are in some way influenced by this unconscious set of rules you have written. Whatever it is you wish to achieve, whether it be a skill you’re attempting to master, a subject you wish to learn or an illness you are struggling to overcome, your success will be determined by a single factor: the unconscious beliefs that make up your book of rules.

Much of the struggle you experience in life relates to the inner turmoil you feel when you make a new choice that conflicts with the set of rules you have created about life and simply forgotten.

To end this struggle and become the master of your own destiny, you must therefore master the unconscious beliefs that control you.