Limiting Beliefs

In an episode of the Biggest Loser, the contestants were challenged to run a race. The race wasn’t designed to be a simple undertaking. Each participant was required to wear a special belt. Attached to these belts were weights in increments of the amount of weight they each had lost over the past few weeks. Some of the participants ran with 50 or 60 pounds attached to that belt. By the end of the race, the weights were discarded.

Those weights were a reminder to the contestants of their earlier lives, how difficult movement, especially running a race had been for them. A reminder of how difficult their lives were when they carried around all that extra body weight. The excess weight held them back, hindered them. Their former body weight kept them from living their lives at their best.

Like these weights, you may be carrying around a heaviness that holds you back, that prevents you from living your best life. These weights may come in the form of what you have chosen to believe about yourself. And certain beliefs may be slowing you down, tiring you out, convincing you that you’ll never finish that race. In coaching, we call these types of beliefs (or weights) limiting beliefs.

So I offer you a powerful coaching tool—PERMISSION.

Permission to LET GO.

Let go of the lies you’ve been told and have chosen to believe about yourself. The ones that have become too burdensome for you to carry. The ones that prevent you from living out your life purpose.

Here are some examples of LIMITING BELIEFS that I have heard (and sometimes have believed myself) over the years:

I’m not good enough.

I’m not smart enough.

I’m not strong enough.

I’m not young enough.

I don’t have enough experience.

Wherever your thoughts dictate that you are not enough…well, therein lies a LIMITING BELIEF.

These beliefs will never serve you.

In fact, they can eventually destroy you. They are a burden and over time, they wear you down to a point that even thinking about your race becomes overwhelming.

Let go of these BELIEF PATTERNS.

Renew how you see yourself.

Do not carry the burden of someone else’s opinion of you. Do not carry the weight of a negative self image. Free yourself of that belt, you no longer need to wear it.

And letting go of these beliefs, you will find your race not only easier, but an amazing and uplifting experience.