Do you set goals for your business or life?
Do you wonder why you might not be achieving your goals?
Are they the right goals?
Is there something else going on that’s stopping you?
Do you really believe that you can achieve them?
Do you set your goals and then suddenly realise you are going in a different direction or not doing the actions you need to do to get you to your goals?
Are suffering from procrastination or self-sabotage regularly?
Often, it’s what’s happening in our subconscious mind that determines whether we are going to be able to achieve our goals or not.
Beliefs
Our beliefs will affect whether we will achieve our goals.
When your goals are aligned with your beliefs you are in control and it increases the likelihood of success of your goals. When your goals are not in alignment then you will be less likely to achieve them.
What are beliefs?
A belief is an attitude or conviction about the truth of some idea or concept.
They help us make sense of our surroundings since we can’t process all the information coming at us in detail.
They can be helpful but sometimes can be negative or limiting. For example, if you have a belief that you are not smart, successful, techy, or creative is this going to affect you in business?
These beliefs will influence your thoughts and behaviours and whether you do the tasks to achieve a certain goal.
One of my early business goals was start my own podcast. I had to learn how to use Audacity for my Ignite Your Life podcast and I believed that I was not techy. This certainly set me back and made it hard to achieve my goal of learning it.
For a long time, I kept saying to myself that I am not techy, this held me back in a lot of areas where I wanted to achieve in my business.
When I turned this belief around to, I can always find a way with the tech, I have been able to reach my goals quicker whether I learnt to do it myself or got help and support from others.
What are some of the beliefs that you might have that can stop you from reaching your goals?
I’m not good enough
I’m not worthy
I’m not techy
I’m not creative
If I’m successful I might have to do so much more work and never see my family
Money is hard to come by
Clients are hard to find
If we have beliefs that we are not worthy, or enough, this can affect us achieving our goals. It may not look like that though; it could be manifesting as ‘safe’ problems such as procrastination or self-sabotage.
Safe Problems vs Risky Problems
Who has suffered from procrastination or self-sabotage?
These are known as safe problems. Problems that can come from our subconscious, our underlying belief about something. Safe problems keep us busy, distracted, and focused on the external instead of the internal.
Risky problems are constantly with us. When we deal with them, we stop denying ourselves, rejecting ourselves, judging ourselves and shaming ourselves.
Willpower is not always enough to power through to achieve our goals.
We have to see what’s driving our decisions or actions.
Are you brave enough to look there though?
How will we find out what is deep, that risky problem that is hindering us if we don’t go inward.
People can be fearful, scared of getting to what’s really going on. They may have a fear of success, failure or they just aren’t good enough and don’t want to bring that to light to deal with.
Let’s look at what procrastination and self-sabotage are:
Procrastination: is an successful way to not have to face up to life’s responsibilities. It’s a problem that provides safety from potential wounding or obstacles. If we don’t even attempt something, we don’t have to face dealing with tough circumstances.
The Risky problem here is that we do not trust ourselves, we doubt our thoughts, our feelings, our perceptions and ideas. We believe that we are not enough to handle what may happen.
Self-Sabotage: is a great way to keep us protected from life’s setbacks. If we sabotage our own efforts, we don’t have to risk dealing with what we see as a unfriendly world. No one gets to judge our actual effort, only we do. We confirm to ourselves that we are not worthy.
If I have a goal to gain 5 new clients in this quarter and halfway through the quarter I find that I have only 1 client and have not actioned the tasks that would lead to getting 5 new clients, what do you think is happening here?
Procrastination; self-sabotage; overwhelm……
What do I do about it?
More marketing, more actions……are they the right actions?
Do I stop and take a moment do go deep, to look inside to see what is happening?
Quite often we don’t take the time to stop and look at what’s happening, we just beat ourselves up about it.
Another example is about money beliefs.
What’s some money beliefs out there?
Money is hard to come by
Money is the root of all evil
I’ll never be good enough to be financially successful
If we have some of these beliefs how will we be able to get our 5 clients which in turn increases our revenue.
You must find out what beliefs you hold either consciously or subconsciously that are hindering you achieving your goals.
Awareness
First and most important part of the journey is awareness, we cannot change what we are not aware of.
Are your beliefs from when you were a child, does it come from your parents, your family units, your teachers, religion, the news at the time?
If we believe any of the limiting statements that are stories in our mind, we then look for evidence to support this and potentially here we have only 1 client in this quarter, so this supports our belief that I’ll never be good enough to be financially successful, that money is hard to come by or I’m not worthy to be successful.
So, can we change our beliefs? Is it easy? How would we do it?
It’s not necessarily easy but it can be done.
Step 1
Look at the goals you have achieved and haven’t achieved. Take a moment to reflect on what type of goals have been unsuccessful.
Step 2
Use some tools that help with bringing those limiting beliefs surrounding those goals into your awareness:
mindfulness,
meditation,
journaling,
getting a coach,
belief session,
affirmations,
gratitude.
These can all help to see what our beliefs are that might not be serving us in achieving our goals.
If we don’t bring them to our awareness, they can keep affecting us.
Step 3
Use the tools but use them to put yourself in an area of discomfort. Be okay that to challenge long held beliefs that you may experience some negative emotions.
Step 4
Take it easy on yourself, take small habit-forming steps to change the belief, get the feelings and emotions attached to them.
Activity
Start with sitting in meditation or quiet time and let your thoughts come in about why you are not achieving your goal. No qualification just let it come in. Feel the emotions that this brings up and where in the body. Once you have that journal whatever comes up around this. Now don’t just leave the journal there, go through it and identify each belief that pops up. Do this for any area of your life. Examine the goals that you are achieving and not achieving and see what is underlying in your beliefs with both.
When you become aware of what's holding you back you will notice huge changes in how you achieve your goals. Break out from what's holding you back from achieving your goals NOW!
If you want to get in touch contact me through my website www.leanneblaney.com or email me at leanne@leanneblaney.com
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