Imagine yourself changing a limiting story you are currently telling yourself and everything changes for the good. An old story about life, your age, your identity, your abilities, marriage and other people can feel so true and at the same time be sadly limiting and causing you pain.
It recently happened to me when I realised how my internal script of being quite useless at marketing and selling our services and even hating it, paralysed me. When I started looking at my successes in that area, realising the value that I have added to other people’s lives and that selling is serving, I could come up with a different story. I wrote down empowering statements, started reading it again and again. Suddenly my energy levels got higher, and so also my creativity. And now that is starting to flow into action with the expecatation of great new clients and contracts.
But also listen to this. A fantastic, high potential woman in a senior leadership position went through a transformation. She is well educated, but her traditional beliefs in what her ancestors expect from her got her stuck. She believed that she is bound to and responsible for her current area, and that as soon as she moves away her life will fall apart. She was shying away from possible promotions which could change her life and that of her children, but might require her to move to another city. Then, after rethinking this and revisiting her Christian beliefs, she got insights and truths that truly set her free. She also remembered her father and grandfather as people who always encouraged her to dare, risk and excel. Then, one day she stepped out of her old beliefs into a new life of freedom to live her dream. Nothing had been the same since then. She now has a great position, has her own business on the side-line, buy and sell properties to build her financial portfolio, and even adopted the children of her deceased sister. The old story threatens to come back at times but she has learned how to counter it with a new story and with proof how it benefits her. She still cherishes her culture, but no longer let it limit her.
Our stories consists of belief systems and the problem is that they “feel” so true. After a while it becomes our normal “default mode”. We tend to live in the story, as the main actor in the “movie”. The story becomes part of your nervous system, guides your neurological dynamics (thinking and feeling). In order to change a belief you have to be rewired. But how?
To change the story you have to change the belief system. A belief system is like the roof of your house, built on walls with a foundation. To live under a “new roof” (new belief system), you have to destroy not only the roof, but everything supporting it. Otherwise, the roof just come back again. Your belief system is supported by your interpretations of events and experiences. The human brain selects, deletes, distorts, personalises and generalises information. Then it uses the distorted information to support what you believe. You don’t see life as it is, you see life as you are wired! And that steers your life.
Therefore, you have to be purposeful about this. Here is an intentional process which you may change or add on to.
- When your belief system no longer works for you, limits you to live the life you envision for yourself, causes you or others pain: STOP.
- Awareness of negative consequences. Become aware of what this belief system brings to you. In my case, it was paralyzing me not to sell and market our great products and services to the people we can serve and help. It also kept income and happiness away from me, and brought stress, unhappiness, and a feeling of unworthiness. It made me sad and even made me feel that maybe this job is not for me. Whatever your dysfunctional belief is, see and feel the pain it brings and decide to move away from that, telling yourself “this must and will stop now”.
- Crush it. Knowing the pain it caused, the “house” (belief system) must come down. Destroy and counter your false interpretations and arguments that supported the belief, especially where your brain distorted, deleted and generalised information.
- Replace it. Replace the old story and its belief system with a new one. Bring in better statements as the foundations and walls of the new house. See and feel how you live in this new story, and feel how this new belief system will empower you and the joy and gain it will bring. Yes, smile and shout or sing, but make sure you feel excited and happy about this.
- Reinforce it. Make time daily to repeat your new belief statements untill it is part of who you are. Meditate and/or pray about it. See yourself enjoying to act it out. Take on a posture that will support it. Speak and act as someone that believes it. The more and more you do this, the more it will become part of you. The new story will become your new life.
- Enjoy and celebrate every success and every blessing that comes your way because of this new belief system.
My friends, rewriting your story and getting rewired can change your life, helping us to make better decisions, taking better actions, realising better goals, and be the light you were made to be. So, what’s your story?
