Let’s talk about limiting beliefs and how they can hold you back from a successful business. A limiting belief is any interpretation, thought, a feeling of the world around us that is defined as “holding us back or putting constraints on us as we set to build our business or our life. A limiting belief is often a negative thought that prevents us from growing or taking risks. There are two types of limiting beliefs, real or true and the second is a falsehood. Real or true limiting beliefs are most often negative and tend to limit what we can do in life. Here are a few examples of a real limiting belief, “I’m never going to be six foot four and I am never going to be able to be an NBA player, an astronaut or astrophysicists.” I am never going to grow to the proper height, and I don’t know anything about being a rocket scientist and therefor this is real because they are actually true.
The second type of limiting beliefs is the false and unrealistic expectations that we hold about ourselves and our businesses. An example of this type of belief is “I’m not worthy of having a successful business” or “I am not worthy of making money” or “I can’t help people in the way I want.” (i.e. not taking insurance or conducting home visits) These beliefs get in the way of how we interact with our clients and the way we build our business. These beliefs are often unconscious, and some are ingrained in us from childhood or experiences that we have had. Think about that teacher or parent that told you that maybe you “can’t draw or you not a good artist”. One limiting belief that I had for a while was that I couldn’t build a successful private practice with multiple practitioners in multiple location. Other therapists told me “that my business model won’t work, people won’t want to work with you when they can become a single proprietor. However, I have been able to build my group practice and I have found that people like the environment that we’ve created.
Many of us have also been told things like “you’re not supposed to make money as a therapist”, and in many graduate schools’ social workers and other healers are told this is a profession of poverty, that we must give back. I agree that we must give back, however, when we can’t make our bills, we burn out quickly and ultimately, we are not helping clients. These false beliefs are fixed, and we do not give them up easily. We feel that they are true, and we have evidence of that. We also worried about what others will think of us. We become afraid we are going to fail and lose it all, we hate to fail and when we do fail, we feel like we are going to die. I am here to tell you; you won’t die I promise. You may be embarrassed, sad, lose money or clients, but you will not die.
So how do you handle limiting beliefs.
First, you must know that the belief is false. We must stop and figure out where did this belief come from.
Second, we must hold it up in the light so to speak, is this belief true like a physical barrier that I’m not going to overcome or is there another way to think about that belief and maybe figure a work around. One limiting belief one of my coaching clients had was that no one will pay her cash fee. I told her let’s try and see if that is true. We changed her fee and she was able to get 6 clients within a month. Her perceived value by her clients greater because she charged more. Do an experiment to test that belief like we did with setting her fees.
Third, ask a trusted colleague about your belief.
Fourth, see the belief as a challenge, an opportunity to be creative and find a way to make it work for you. Use a bit of inspiration to see the obstacle, but nothing more. Do not give it power to take away your joy.
Fifth asked a business mentor or coach if this something reasonable and if it’s holding you back.
You can’t create the business you want if you let others define your business with their beliefs about who you can become. Get rid of the people that rain on your parade and are not supportive of your plans.
I want you to think about succeeding, find those limiting beliefs and ask yourself this question “what’s stopping me from going to that next level? I would love to hear what some of your limiting beliefs are and how you have managed them.
Check out also my video on Limiting Beliefs.