Randy Paynter is the founder and CEO at Care2, a social network that helps people transform their greatest fears into positive things.
Positive beliefs can make it difficult to succeed. However, you have the power to change them.
As a child, I was very shy. I was terrified of speaking in public, so it’s not surprising that I was afraid of public speaking. He wasn’t alone in being afraid of speaking in public. Public speaking anxiety or glossophobia affects 73% of the population, according to research. It turns out, this fear may be linked to a need to avoid being rejected by peers.
Survival was dependent on security in the Stone Age. Successive communities shared food, slept, and hunted together. Being ostracized meant certain death. Even though we’ve come a long ways since then, we still have this survival instinct. Our subconscious creates fears to protect us against rejection (that is, death) and to keep us safe. As a shy child, this type of negative belief was exactly what I had. I thought things like “If I say anything stupid, other people will think I’m stupid” and “It’s worthless.”
Negative beliefs can limit our ability to act and develop over time. Steven Sisgold explains that these foundational beliefs can direct and/or limit our actions, set a course of action, or even hijack our passions. These beliefs can be a little scary.
It is possible to identify these limiting beliefs and turn them into positive, empowering beliefs. Many people have succeeded. These are just a few examples of successful people to inspire you.
The story of the four-minute mile is one of my favourite examples of how destroying limiting beliefs can empower hundreds. Everyone believed that no one could run a mile in less than four minutes until May 6, 1954. Roger Bannister, a British middle-distance athlete and neurologist, broke this assumption by running one in 3:59.4 seconds. Another 37 runners followed his lead a year later. More than 1000 people have succeeded to date. Bannister was the catalyst for the realization by the top runners around the globe that they could run a mile in under four minutes.
A surprising fact is that 40% of world’s millionaires are dyslexic, according to a 2003 study. Dyslexic innovators like Alexander Graham Bell, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein and Thomas Edison were among them. It is amazing that so many people born with a disability have achieved such success. They all found ways to overcome their limitations. Dyslexia, as Richard Branson, dyslexic, puts it, isn’t a handicap. It is a different way to think.
Entrepreneurial self-made man redefines disability to make it not a disability. It is a unique advantage, or point of view that he defines. This type of thinking clearly worked for the billionaire businessman.
We don’t all have the same genes as Jobs and Bransons, so we can’t start with the instinct to transform our limiting beliefs into more powerful ones. It’s not a bad idea to look up the examples of Branson and other brightest talents who have transformed seemingly insignificant “handicaps” into belief systems that drive success.
Tony Robbins, a self-help coach and mentor to many celebrities and business leaders around the globe, says that all personal progress begins with a shift in belief. Robbins recommends that people identify their old limiting beliefs and dig deeper to understand how they caused pain in the past. Then, they should consider how they can do it in the future. This will allow you to let go of the old belief. Next, replace those limiting beliefs by positive beliefs that will affect you positively. Make sure to associate enormous pleasure with these new beliefs. In my professional career, I have replaced beliefs such as “If I try, it might fail” with “If I try, it might succeed.”
My career has seen me give hundreds of public talks. My fear was overcome by me acknowledging my limitations and replacing them with new ones, such as “The only way I can fail is if you don’t do things right here at work.” This requires being a great public speaker. Retrospectiving on my past shows me that turning around my worst fears was key to the success of everything I’ve done, which allowed me to pursue my passion for environmental and social advocacy through power. Technology.
This is the right time to ask yourself, “Which belief is limiting me?” What could you do to replace it?
I’m Rosie Emery and welcome to my blog. After being unemployed for a while after losing my job because the company went bust, I focus my attention on building a new business for myself which is now become rather successful. In this blog I'll be talking about business along with other aspects of life and solving life's problems that I seem to have become so knowledgeable in through my own difficult circumstances. I hope you are able to gain a lot from my posts.
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