Step-by-step Guide to Expose Self Limiting Beliefs — Midori by the Sea — Issue #3

Happy New Years Eve!! Woohoo!

Among all your celebrations, this newsletter gives you the gift to unpack your self-limiting beliefs. Becoming aware of them is the first step to your success! Learn from the guy who picked up Tango that changes his life at age 30.

From hip thrusting to tango swaying

Not long ago, my friend was forced to dance at our party. Everyone’s eyes popped. I could only describe his signature move as a vertical pelvis penetration into the air.

So he brushed it off by saying “I told you I can’t dance!”

Unfortunately (and fortunately), he met a woman who loved Tango dancing, and there he was, paying £25 an hour to embarrass himself in a class (joking not joking!)

But the miracle came, with a bit of help and structure, he learned to soften his rigid body and swayed to the beat🕺🏿. Now, he is a fantastic Tango dancer and as his friend, I am forced to watch videos of him dancing👀.

So here is my question:

What kind of limiting labels have you given yourself?

What negative things we say about ourselves, is going to become true as a self-fulfilling prophecy. There’s no magic in this, just logic and psychological conditioning.

One label is enough

This is an eight-week journey to self-discovery and effective new year resolutions:

• The first week (recap here) we evaluated our past and see what we want to do more of;
• The second week (here), we rethink whether our work allows us to do that, or if not, what can we do to improve the situation strategically (and the answer is not always quitting).

In the third week, I’m asking if there are any limiting thoughts that stop you from doing more of what you like.

If there are, and for our new year resolutions and goals to become true, the method is not about willpower and positivity, but reconditioning!

Journaling or tape recording

First, state

The most important action we must do to identify self-limiting beliefs is to state them loud and proud. If you are a visual person, write them down in a journal; if you learn through hearing, record it as a voice note or something.

All of them, everything you say you can’t do, or you are born to be.

I don’t assume you want to know mine, but here are some (real) examples:

• I believed I was born to have a fat upper body
• I believed I was bad at skating
• I believed I would not make it as a writer

Being aware of your brain activities is already 40% into success, I am honestly not joking. Many of us find solutions without considering the underlying intention, that’s a recipe for failure. Ask everyone who has done yo-yo diets, quit smoking, etc. Same story every time.

Then, pick

For each belief, we need to identify the ones that we are most frustrated by. For example, I am not bothered that I don’t ice-skate, but I’m really passionate about becoming a proper writer.

We will overstretch ourselves if we want to do everything at once. So let’s pick the serious ones we need to do first.

The less important one, for me, would be ice-skating, our awareness of the belief is sometimes enough for us to break through effortlessly. Say if someone invites me to ice-skating next time, I can consciously say yes.

Third, recondition

Reconditioning means change the narrative through daily affirmation.

If we are overweight, we will tell ourselves exercise and diet will work because it’s science. What’s stopping us from losing fat, is our stubborn belief. We have now got rid of that, and everything else is pragmatic techniques.

If we are poor, we will tell ourselves financial jargon and a good job are there for us because it’s making money works for us is not a dream, it’s actually well researched (start with this book, personal fav).

State them all out in your journal or voice note, once and for all. Be absolutely clear to yourself.

Plot Twist: now you forget about your beliefs

I spent 3/4 of this newsletter asking my readers to state and change their beliefs, and now I’m asking you to forget it. Yes, this is a basic manifestation. If we focus on psychology, we will never actually action. It’s like people who keep going to therapy will always be psychologically damaged.

We can graduate from our beliefs because our beliefs are now positive, pragmatic and stable. This means those steps above MUST NOT BE missed. There’s a difference between people who work blindly on autopilot and people who work with clarity.

We need to action, NOW.

It’s a lot to take in, I know

Some people need to go to therapy for years to get the above thousand words into their practice.

My aim is to gather a niche of people who are trying to transcend from the ordinary, i.e. the intimidating word of enlightenment.

If you can totally echo with my words above, I think you are in the club! If you can’t, try the steps. There’s no harm identifying the negative stuff we say to ourselves anyways, inner criticism, etc.

Plus, now you have read this newsletter, there’s probably not going away anymore. Being conscious of our beliefs is already in your thinking process!

So share this with other people who need to hear this and get a slap on boxing day! This Sunday we will come to critiquing (!) your set new years resolution because it’s the 2nd of January!

What? That’s too late?!

Nope, it’s not. I promise you. Just write whatever new year resolutions you want to write. And we will take a hard look at it on 2nd Jan, next Sunday.

See you!

Midori x