Do You Believe?

I was introduced to the concept of self-limiting beliefs by another one of my amazing mentors, Gisele Guenard the founder of the Client Centered Governance model and the author of her most recent book Minor Changes Major Results – Strategy One: Beyond Positive Thinking; In the summer of 2019, I was going through a crisis (which I now know were fueled by my self limiting beliefs) and I was lucky enough to have her see me at a moment’s notice for some connection and advice. If you google the term you will find a lot of well published work on it, but the way I see it, Self-limiting beliefs are stories you believe to be true about yourself which are simply not true! Often these stories come from really well-meaning people in your life, the people who are closest to you or messages you picked up / misinterpreted as a child or young adult from important influencers in your life.

Time and time again, I see people I admire and respect, see themselves in a totally different self-deprecating light. This is a life-sentence they have given themselves in the form of self-limiting beliefs which are unfortunate labels and stories that are just not true, but because they are things they believe, you make them true! As I write this article, I am listening to Tony Robbins for the 10,000th time; this time delivering a message around how to achieve total clarity. Today in my connection group put together by Karyn Ross, I was inspired by other members including Jennifer Ayers and Dorsey Sherman to post about this “quote” I happened to mention during the meeting, I don’t remember it exactly but it goes like this….

The goals you set for yourself are often governed by your self-limiting beliefs.

Now, I know the “goal-setting” is not the limiting factor, as we do often set big hairy audacious goals and take little to no action to accomplish them, because we do not believe that we are capable of achieving those goals. The point of this article here is simply this,

If you have trouble accomplishing goals you set for yourself, you need to do something different, get out of your head, seek new mentors, find new mentees, become part of a new community or multiple communities.

In my case the difference has often been a new way of thinking (usually through new books) and the catalyst to support the adoption of this new way of thinking is almost always, the people I choose to let go or surround myself with. In this specific case the “master mind” group we have set up is essentially an action based book club and we are focused on implementing the principles of one book to help us accomplish our goals. This book is also the book we refer to in our virtual lean green belt training sessions and it is called the Four Disciplines of Execution or 4DX for Short written by Sean Covey and Chris McChesney.

In the couple meetings our informal mastermind group has had, I have already challenged the integrity of my initial Wildly Important Goals based on broader experience and paradigms of the broader group, in support of designing a goal that helps with a more long term, sustainable outcome that helps us build capacity and secure a solid future for PACE.global.

I would be remiss to finish this article without expressing a very important point. If we look hard enough at our history, we have all had some form of success in the achievement of goals. For me, this success comes from the social motivational energy brought forth by positive, supportive, honest individuals who are looking for a mutually beneficial relationship. What is your proven formula for successfully achieving your goals? What is the indicator that truly helps you believe that the achievement of the goal(s) is indeed possible? I would love to hear from you.