3 Steps to Overcoming Your Limiting Beliefs and Succeeding in Business
June 6, 2018
You might have heard before that mindset is an essential component of success in business, but it might not have sunk in just how absolutely, and singularly crucial this point really is.
While financial issues can often be overcome, failed business learned from and improved on in the next iteration, and bad market predictions compensated for, a failure-oriented mindset means certain death to your business, and professional prospects overall, for as long as you hold onto it.
Whether you run a high-end business such as Tonbridge Fuels, responsible for delivering a particular commodity to clients, or work in a more idea-based sphere, mindset is the most fundamental single element in determining your success or failure.
Here are some ways to change your limiting beliefs and succeed in business.
Understand that you are not objective, and that your beliefs are self-reinforcing models
One of the hardest but most fundamental things for people to accept, when seeking to master their beliefs, is that they are not objective, but rather are interpreters of the world like everyone else.
Now, this doesn’t mean that your beliefs are wrong — or that your particular skills or observations are worthless or equivalent to anything else. But it does mean that you will only ever comprehend part of reality.
The old parable of the blind men and the elephant is a perfect illustration of this. In the tale, several wise blind men feel different parts of an element to try and determine what it is. The one who feels the ear insists it’s like a fan; another grabs it’s tail and disagrees, insisting that it’s like a rope, and so on.
The true nature of reality and society are more complex and deep than any one person can know absolutely. This means that beliefs are self-reinforcing models of interpretation, based on your temperament and life experiences.
This, in turn, means your limiting beliefs aren’t objective, and that it’s perfectly valid to adopt more productive beliefs.
Expose yourself to stimuli that program your subconscious mind the way you want
Many people believe that they are completely immune to the tricks of marketers. They’ll see an advert, laugh at the blatant gimmicks being deployed, shake their head, and wonder how people could be so gullible.
Then, a month or two later, they’ll wander to the shop and buy the product because it “feels right”.
Images, affirmations, music, and stories all have a tremendous ability to impact the subconscious mind. Exposing yourself to stimuli that reinforce a positive self-image is key to changing your subconscious mind and helping to elevate you from the “ground up”.
Seek out small victories each day, and eliminate behaviours that make you dislike yourself
Positive and negative mindsets are, to a large degree, influenced by how much your daily actions make you like or dislike yourself.
For this reason, you should make it a priority to seek out small victories each day — even something as minor as saying you’ll wash the dishes and actually doing it.
On the other hand, you should also work diligently to eliminate those behaviours that make you dislike yourself, whether that means seeking help to kick addiction, or being more mindful of the way you speak to your loved ones.