Tweet

Unleash Your Potential by Changing Your Beliefs

Written by: Rene Zamora

Article Overview: This article has a step by step process to indentify and change any of your limiting beliefs. Beliefs are at the core of all our behaviors. By changing beliefs it is easier to change your behaviors.

Unleash Your Potential by Changing Your Beliefs

What keeps us from becoming who we want to be or doing the things we want to do? Why haven’t we started that new business, shared with the boss ideas to help the company, worked out things at home, invited our neighbor over or stepped up to that leadership position that has been waiting for us to fill? There may be numerous reasons; some in our control and some out of our control. Changing what we believe about our life, business or others is within our control and can unleash possibilities you once believed were not possible or very difficult.

My son and I watched the movie Unleashed a few years ago. The main character, David (Jet Li), had been trained to believe he was powerless while wearing a collar. The collar represented a leash his master held on to. Even though he was stronger and smarter than his master as long as he believed his master and the collar held power over him nothing could change. The interesting thing is the collar was not locked or attached to any leash. The only thing holding him back from removing the collar was his belief.

Circus elephants are trained in a similar way. When they are young their leg is chained to a stake. No matter how hard they try they cannot break away. Eventually they stop trying and surrender to the fact that they are stuck. When they are adults it only takes a small stake and rope to re-establish the belief and keep them immobilized. If they tried, they could easily yank the stake from the ground but that doesn’t happen. In fact during fires elephants have had to be cut free from their leashes in order to keep them from being engulfed by the flames.

In both instances, Jet Li and the elephants have created an unbreakable leash in their own mind. This leash is not only keeping them from doing things they would like to do but it has diminished their desire to try. We all wear leashes from which we could easily break free, but in many cases we have become unaware of the control they have over us.

So what do we do? We don’t have to do anything unless we have situations, events or patterns in our life we would like to change. If you are sure you want to change, consider the following questions. This process is much better if you find a friend, manager or coach (like me) to walk you through it. Conduct it like an interview.

1. Identify a recurring situation, event or pattern you want to change.
2. Explore the actions you typically take related to this situation as well as their consequences.
• What is it like when you behave this way?
• What are the payoffs or benefits you get from behaving this way?
• What price are you paying for behaving this way?
3. What beliefs might cause you to behave this way? (Identify several and choose one you would like to reframe.)
4. Identify the distortions of logic within this belief. These would be statements that sound true but are not necessarily true. (ex. If I speak up to the boss I will get fired – the distortions are making it more catastrophic than it is and fortune telling or predicting the future)
5. How might you change this belief to one that is more rational and empowering towards achieving the results you desire? (Come up with several ways of restating this belief, and then choose the one you like best.)
6. Explore how you would feel and behave if you acted from this new belief.
7. Imagine yourself in the future, facing the old triggering event identified in Step one. Your old belief would have been (restate old belief). Instead, you now believe (state new belief). Describe what this is like:
• How would you act?
• How would you feel?
• What would be the consequences of acting and feeling this way?
8. Integrate the new belief into your daily behavior by:
• Writing it down
• Taking action on it for the next several days
• Collecting evidence that verifies it
 Evaluating the results you are getting

You can use this process for any situation in your life that is not working for you, is ineffective, or seems like a leash.

One leash I recently let go of is my willingness to tell others about my Christian faith. My old belief was that if I did, my business would suffer because I would offend someone. I was recently asked to be a keynote speaker on what makes a successful consultant. As I prepared my presentation it was obvious to me that if I left out the impact my faith and spiritual life has on my consulting business it would be like speaking to a Nascar audience about winning the Daytona 500 and never giving any credit to the engine.

To get past my old belief I reframed it to be, “It is good to share what is important to me and allow people to use what is important to them.” My business has not suffered and people are free to use my faith as well as my other teachings as they see will benefit them.
We don’t have to be tied down to old beliefs and patterns in our life. If you recognize you are wearing an old leash, it might not be that hard to remove.

Unleash the person you can be.

Related Articles
  Your Belief System is Why Money is Hard to Get
  Are Your Beliefs Holding You Back
  Ten Beliefs that Must Be Overcome to Find A New Meaningful Career
  Got Limits?
  What's Holding You Back?

Article Tags: adults, belief, boss, circus elephants, desire, fires, flames, instances, jet li, leadership position, leashes, life business, neighbor, new business, possibilities, rope, stake



Related Forum Posts
Re: Search Engine Optimization - A lot of SEO in terms of on-page optimization is trial and error. Changing just one word can have a huge impact on your rankings.
Your age? - Hi Nana, Have you voted? You can give your age group a boost. What is your Potential? On another forum I read of a 17 year old, who always earned some money. He washed cars and had regular repeat income. Eventually he gave it to his friend, then he did the newspaper round. Then he learnt about the Internet and games. Got fed up and began to learn programming. Eventually he earnd a good income and by the time he was your age, he earned beyond 100,000 Australian Dollars. Give yourself a vote. Kindest Regards Beat "Unlock People's Potentials!!"
How She Does It - Interesting to see what are the most popular threads in this folder, judging by how many hits each thread gets. There must be a lot of moms out there who want to start businesses. I'm currently reading How She Does It: How Women Entrepreneurs are Changing the Rules of Business Success, by Margaret Heffernan. Some interesting statistics: Between 1997 and 2006, privately held businesses owned by women grew at 3 times the rate of all American privately owned firms, women's companies are creating jobs and growing profits at twice the rate of all firms and are responsible for more payroll than all of the Fortune 500 companies combined. This book tells the stories of a few women who have made it big...recommended reading so you know that "you can do it, too."
Re: Cold Calling - In my experience the problem with hiring cold callers is that many of the successful candidates already realize that they have a talent for sales and are already working for themselves. Most of the candidates that would take a job cold calling most likely do not have solid selling or client service skills. I used to work for a brokerage firm in Victoria and we hired co-op students to cold call. In my opinion that was a mistake. Potential clients can sense inexperience very quickly and without a seasoned cold caller on your team prospecting will be very challenging.....the key is to find someone with skills that isn't already doing there own selling....tricky. Good luck Phil
Manufacture of POTATO Flour / POTATO Powder - Manufacture of POTATO Flour / POTATO Powder About Project Setting up of a unit for manufacture of potato powder About Product and its use: Potato powder is increasingly being used in a variety of food preparations like snack foods (Mc Donald, Pringle, Haldiram namkeens etc.), soups, curries and other dishes as a thickening agent. Its use at present is mainly in hotels, restaurants, but acceptance in household is growing due to its inclusion in items like ready to cook soups, dals, curries, etc. Market Potential: The potato powder is supplied in bulk to the manufacturers of the various snack food items and restaurants/ hotels. The major demand is in cities like Mumbai, Delhi , Chennai, Nagpur , etc. The demand is much more than the supply at present and is likely to grow with the increasing popularity of the snack foods and other items where potato powder is used as input. There is good potential for its export also. Production process and technology: Procurement of potato -> Washing -> Cooking -> Pulping -> Drum drying -> Potato Powder -> Packaging -> Marketing The plant and machinery can be used for producing other products like fruit powder, tomato powder, etc. Key risk factors: Availability of adequate quantity of suitable chip varieties, which are used for powder making (like Kufri Jyoti, Kufri Chipsona) is the major factor which could affect the project. Availability of alternatives to potato powder for thickening like tapioca, corn starch etc., could affect the market of potato powder adversely. However at present there is no problem Quality control and Statutory Requirements The unit need to obtain a licence under FPO 1955 from the Ministry of Food Processing Industry Clearance from State Pollution Control Board Capacity of processing raw material (potato): a) Indigenous technology - 32 MT/ day of potato for 90 days per annum. b) Imported technology - 96 MT/ day of potato for 90 days Capacity utilisation is assumed on 90 days basis as the storage facilities for these varieties are not commonly available. However, capacity utilisation can be increased if the existing cold storages are modified suitably with an additional investment of about Rs 2000/ MT. Potato powder recovery: 17% of the raw material. Cost of raw material (potato): Rs 2500 per MT, Sale price of powder: Rs. 55000/ MT. Manpower requirement: a) Indigenous technology: Skilled and trained - 2 Nos; Unskilled - 3 Nos b) Imported technology: Technical - 2 Nos; Skilled - 2 Nos; Semi-skilled - 3 Nos. Power requirement: a) Indigenous technology: 40 HP b) Imported technology: 60 HP Water requirement: a) Indigenous technology: 1,50,000 litres per day. b) Imported technology: 5,00,000 litres per day. Contact Us for FULL Project Report and Project Implementation Consultancy alphabeta24365@yahoo.com


Share this article with your friends. Fund someone's dream.

Leave a comment below or share on the left and you'll help support entrepreneurs in Africa through our partnership with Kiva. Over $50,000 raised and counting - Please keep sharing! Learn more.

Tweet

Newsletter

Get advice & tips from famous business
owners, new articles by entrepreneur
experts, my latest website updates, &
special sneak peaks at what's to come!

Name:
Email:

Popular Articles

SEO – Link Building Secrets

RULE YOUR BUSINESS LIKE A SHINE STAR

The Biggest Domain Name Myth

Suggestions

Email us your ideas on how to make our
website more valuable! Thank you Sharon
from Toronto Salsa Lessons / Classes for
your suggestions to make the newsletter
look like the website and profile younger
entrepreneurs like Jennifer Lopez.