How You Limit Your Success
Often I see people limit what they think they can accomplish, how much they can earn, and the impact that they can have on others. More often than not, this is caused by the story they are telling themselves. What is your story? What are you telling yourself on a daily basis?
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
These stories often come from your beliefs or adopted from things you have heard people say about you over and over again.
You may have grown up with belief systems that it wasn’t good to have a lot of money, you shouldn’t talk to strangers, you can’t earn more then your parents, etc. You may have grown up with people telling you that can’t do what you want to do, you aren’t smart enough, pretty enough, talented enough. You may have grown up feeling like you had to prove yourself or earn the acceptance of others. You may have been supported and encouraged to do your best. You may have never been able to compete with a sibling or you were the sibling that had to be the best. All of these experiences and beliefs that are formed from a young age shape our stories. The stories we tell about ourselves.
I know my story was always that I couldn’t talk to people. When I did, it usually ended up a mess. Although I was shy, I was also confrontational, direct, and had no filter, which often ended up going down a really bad road when I did speak. When I was younger, it was much better that I probably didn’t talk a lot. Although these experiences created a belief that I couldn’t talk to people. This approach served me well when I was younger (kept me out of a lot of trouble) but did not serve me when I got into a career where I had to talk to people.
Are You Boxed in By The Stories Your Tell Yourself?
The story you tell about yourself, what you can and cannot do, sometimes boxes you in to a level of success that you don’t even realize is there. If you are bumping up against yourself, not being able to take the next step or reach the next level in your business, you may be bumping up against an invisible box you have put yourself in.
The box is invisible to you because it’s sides sit in your blind spot. You bump up against it again and again, and you just cannot figure out why you can’t get past this one point in your business. Some of you call it a block, some call it a pattern, or you just feel stuck not knowing how to step out of the invisible box you have created from your stories.
How To Break Free from Old Patterns of Behavior
You can break free. It’s really pretty simple when you are willing to look at the stories you’re telling yourself. I know some of you are really attached to your stories. But, if they aren’t serving you, they are just allowing you to take yourself out of your game, to play small. It allows you to stay hidden and not be seen. This is the benefit of hanging onto our stories that we don’t always see.
If you are bumping up against an invisible wall and feeling blocked, stuck, or overwhelmed, take a moment to follow these simple steps to break through to a new story that will serve you better:
- Be honest with yourself and write down the three stories you tell yourself the most.
- Are these stories serving you?
- Are your stories based on past experiences and beliefs?
- Write down three new stories that would support where you are going.
- Write down at the end of the day three things that happened that day to support your new story.
When you look at what your stories have been, if they are serving you now and where they came from, you know where you’re at. Then you can begin creating a new story that supports your goals and who you are becoming.
The old stories just support the past. Step into your future, and begin creating new stories that support all that you can become and what you can accomplish.