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Mining Out Your Limiting Thoughts

shutterstock_422678236It’s a new year and many people are gearing up to forge a new “me.”

Goals are set, promises made, club memberships purchased and the god of best intentions is beckoned.

Unknown, unearthed, subconscious, limiting beliefs are perhaps the biggest destroyer of good intentions and goals. You also might call them life commandments, or subconscious beliefs, either way, there are limiting beliefs within that tend to sabotage’ our best efforts.

Often these negative beliefs are formed through pain, disappointment, unmet expectations or even betrayal. For example, if you have ever experienced marriage betrayal, you might have declared in your soul “I will never allow myself to be hurt like that again.” This internal statement become a subconscious life commandment that can keep that person from entering into a new relationship out of fear of being hurt once again.

You will have greater success moving towards your goals and desires when you first invest the time discovering the limiting beliefs that you have. This will give you the opportunity to identify and then “Flip the Script” as you transform limiting beliefs into positive and dynamic beliefs.

Here are some key questions to ask yourself to mine out the limiting beliefs that potentially dwell within your soul:

  • When under pressure I ……………………….……………………….
  • I often feel guilty about ……………………………………………………….
  • When …………. happens I stress out and feel like …………….
  • My Achilles’ heel (greatest weakness) is ……………………….
  • I am always trying to stop …………………………. from happening.
  • When the unexpected happens I ……………………………………
  • I always try to ………………………………………………………..
  • The biggest obstacle that stops me loving and approving of myself is …………………
  • What drives most of my behavior is ……………………………………….
  • I am afraid of ………………………………………………………..
  • I seek my ……………’s approval (always / mostly / usually / occasionally)
  • My most frequent negative / uncomfortable emotion is feeling ……………………….
  • The feeling I dislike the most is ……………………….
  • I need to learn to ………………………………………………………..

As you honestly and ruthlessly answer questions like these, you will become aware of which beliefs are really driving your choices and behaviors.

Once the beliefs have been identified, it’s time to flip the script, rewording these life destroyers into positive, life creating beliefs, for example:

  • I’m just not wired that way…can be flipped to -I can do all things through Christ!
  • I don’t have time to make the changes…can be flipped to – I will maximize the time God gives me
  • I don’t think that way…can be flipped to – I will change the way I think
  • I’m just not smart enough I guess…can be flipped to – I will have the mind of Christ
  • I never get any breaks…can be flipped to – God will deliver anything that I require
  • God has it out for me…can be flipped to – God loves me unconditionally
  • I’m just not gifted enough…can be flipped to – I am fearfully and wonderfully made

As you become more aware of the beliefs within that betray you, you are not a hostage to those limiting life commandments! In 2017 choose to flip the script and change your limiting beliefs into unlimited potential!

 

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Perseverance Roundup

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Feeling stuck, tired, ready to throw in the towel? Then you need my perseverance quotes roundup! Remember, it’s always too soon to quit.

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.” ~Maya Angelou

“When you get into a tight place, and everything goes against you till it seems as if you couldn’t hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that’s just the place and time that the tide’ll turn.”   ~Harriet Beecher Stowe

“If you can’t fly then run, if you can’t run then walk, if you can’t walk then crawl, but whatever you do you have to keep moving forward.”   ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

“Failure is only the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently.”   ~Henry Ford

“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying ‘I will try again tomorrow.'”   ~Mary Anne Radmache

“It does not matter how slowly you go so long as you do not stop.”   ~Confucius

“It always seems impossible until it’s done.”   ~Nelson Mandela

“One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.” ~ Napoleon Hill

“It’s hard to beat the person who never gives up.” ~ Babe Ruth

“Opportunities are usually disguised as hard work so most people don’t recognize them.”   ~Ann Landers

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”   ~Aristotle

 “When life gives you lemons, please, just don’t squirt them in other people’s eyes.”   ~J. Andrew Helt
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Changing The Planet One Small Act At A Time

The joy, happiness and transformation that results from acts of generosity are felt by the giver…the receiver…and beyond. The small acts of generosity make the biggest impact when compounded over time with many people.

I may not be able to change the whole world, but I am able to make a small impact here and there that have ripple effects that I will probably never see.

Too often, people choose to isolate, look the other way, and distance themselves from the very real needs they encounter.

I get it…
The needs are always there…
You can’t fix everything you see…

But as God is a generative God, and He dwells within us…we are being transformed by His presence into His likeness which means that I am growing in generosity.

A friend sent me the following video…about 2 minutes in I teared up. Take a look, and may your heart grow in generosity.

 

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Finding Success With What You Have

The-Beggar-King-and-the-Secret-of-Happiness-Ben-Izzy-Joel-9781565125124I just finished an incredible book about story called “The Beggar King and the Secret of Happiness” by Joel ben Izzy. Joel, a master storyteller, tells his story as it dances around other stories real and spiritual. While I highly recommend this book to everyone to read, there was one story within the story that I am still chewing on. On pages 186-188, Joel retells a true story about Itzhak Perlman that had appeared in the Houston Chronicle in an article written by Jack Riemer. Here is the column:

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On Nov. 18th, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came onstage for a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting onstage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a young child and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches.

To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, very deliberately, and slowly, is an event. He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

By now, the audience is used to the ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair, they remain reverently silent while he undoes his clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.

But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap-it went off like gunfire across the room.

There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. People who were there that night thought to themselves: “We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and amble his way offstage-to either find another violin or else find another string for this one.”

But hie didn’t. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before. Of course anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, recomposing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.

When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from ever corner of the auditorium. We were al on our feet, screaming and  cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.

He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said, not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone, “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left…”

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ponder that one for a while…commentary is not necessary, simply make some music with what you have left and you will find success.