What Do You Believe?

At different points in time, I’ve received notices in the mail indicating that I’ve won the sweepstakes and the listed dollar amount of my winnings would be massive.   The notice would go on to say that the only thing I have to do to claim the winnings is to fill out the form and send it back or call the phone number attached.  I also knew of others who received the same notice in the mail, and between all of us, we were sitting on top of billions of dollars.  But yet, no one I knew, nor myself, took the time to fill out the form or even take the time to call the phone number on the notice.  Filling out a form seems like such a small act to perform in exchange for millions of dollars.  What would stop us from sending that form back?

Now, let’s suppose that we receive a notice from the lottery agency in our home state indicating that we were anonymously entered into a lottery drawing and we’ve won a million dollars, and all we have to do is come to the lottery agency to sign for it.  The document lists the legitimate state government address for the lottery agency in our home state, along with the local phone number.  I would be willing to bet that more than 80% of us would at least call the local phone number or even visit the lottery agency.  Why?

In a nutshell, your belief drives your behavior.  If you believe something to be true, you will act accordingly.  Consequently, if you believe something to not be true, you will also act accordingly.  Regardless of the words, “you’ve won the sweepstakes”, if you do not believe that is a true statement, then you will not move forward with sending back the form.

Our life operates by this same principle.  The areas of our life where we are giving minimum effort or no effort at all or avoiding the situation entirely, is probably an area that is centered around a limiting belief.  By limiting belief, I mean something that we’ve convinced ourselves of, that places us in a box, limits our growth, and/or prevents us from maximum success.  For example, if you’re in a relationship that really isn’t good for you and actually adds suffering and heartache to your life, but you continue to stay in that relationship, you could possibly have a limiting belief that you’ll never get anyone better than that person or that no one else would want to be in a relationship with you, or a limiting belief that you should feel lucky to be with that person because of a handful of great attributes they possess.

Another example is if you constantly make costly purchases of items by famous designers, but you don’t have enough money left over to pay your bills or your entire lifestyle is funded through credit cards, you could possibly have a limiting belief that the designer items add to your value, or that these items validate your worth or that they make you important.

There are many more limiting beliefs that could be associated with these examples.  No one can figure these out for you on your behalf.  You actually need to spend time reflecting on your habits and behavior, focusing on those things that are having a negative impact on you and your life, and figure out what is fueling your actions, or lack of action.  Get to the root of your beliefs about yourself and then modify those beliefs to move your life into a new direction.  What do you think about this?  Leave your comments below.