Are You Arguing with Yourself?
David Freund, Chief Leadership Officer

Are you arguing with yourself? I’m really asking you to think about this question. Are you arguing with yourself? Are you arguing against your own company? Subconsciously, are you arguing against your own ideas for the future or the plans your organization has? If you allow yourself to dwell on thoughts about why you can’t do something, you are arguing against yourself. You are giving in to self-limiting beliefs.

Over time, we have developed our self-limiting beliefs from past experiences and the overall environment that we grew up in. These beliefs were then strengthened by the choices we made as we became adults. Self-limiting beliefs manifest themselves in thoughts that work against our desires and goals. We actually present an argument to ourselves that something we want isn’t possible. We fight for what is familiar to us, rather than what we truly want.

A common area where self-limiting beliefs show up is in the amount of time, or lack thereof, that we think we have. As a leadership trainer and executive coach, I frequently hear “I don’t have time,” or “we can’t afford to have people away from the company for training.” One that I always love is, “If we invest in training they will just leave.” My response to that would be to consider the consequences of not training your team and having them stay. Think of the missed opportunity.

Seriously though, believing that there isn’t enough time is a self-limiting belief. Everyone that was ever born has only had, and will only get, 24 hours in each and every day. Yet some accomplish amazing things. They refuse to give in to self-limiting beliefs. Rather than asking “can I?” or “can’t I?” they asked, “how can I?” They looked at their daily agendas and determined how to say no to the good to make time for the best.

Self-limiting beliefs stop us from going back to school, applying for the job we really want, and buying the house we would love to raise our family in. They stop us from taking relationships to a deeper level or embarking on an adventure of our dreams. Don’t give in to your self-limiting beliefs. Challenge them and determine where they came from so you can restrict their influence in the future. Next, develop empowering beliefs that can take the place of the limiting beliefs.

Looking for more on this topic? Listen in to Episode 87 of The Next Page podcast where Marisa and I will discuss this further.

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