Suzanne  (00:05):

Hello, and welcome to The Midlife Business Show with Suzanne Mountain. This is the podcast that celebrates all those of us who are building a business during our middle years. I’m an ex corporate girl who started my business six years ago in my fifties. And I’m loving it. This podcast is here to inspire you with conversations with other entrepreneurs about the messy and magical ups and downs of this period of our lives. Plus, I’ll be sharing simple, actionable step by step strategies to help you build a business with impact and a life that you love.

Suzanne  (00:43):

Hello, and welcome to episode two of the midlife business show. In episode one, I talked about where my core beliefs about building a midlife business comes from and why I do what I do today. I want to talk to you about one of the biggest things I see getting in the way for so many of my beautiful clients, building their businesses and making the impact they deserve today. 

 

We’re gonna talk about how the things you believe can hold you back and how you can shift into your true purpose. 

 

Before we dive into what beliefs are and how to combat them, if they’re holding you back, I want to review the two different mindsets that can affect our moods and lives. A growth mindset is one that encourages self betterment and growth. Anyone with a growth mindset believes they can do better and will do better after they find the tools necessary to make changes in their lives.

 

A limited or fixed mindset is quite the opposite here. A person believes they can’t do anything else to grow i.e. make money, find a new job, or get a life partner. They believe that they have the life they have, and that’s all they’ll ever have. 

Which one of these two mindsets would you rather embrace? Hopefully you said the growth mindset because as the fixed or limited mindset sounds a bit sad, doesn’t it?  

As you might guess, a fixed mindset is fed with limiting beliefs, which is simply anything you believe to be true about yourself, the world or life in general, that limits your success. Very often, these types of beliefs form in childhood.  Consider this analogy.  A baby elephant is chained to a fence. It tries to break free, but it’s too small and weak. As the baby grows up, his size and strength increases, and he could easily break free of the fence, except he remembers as a baby that he couldn’t.

(02:46):

So he settles for a life chained to a fence. 

 

Have you settled in your own life? Sometimes limiting beliefs developed from things our parents said, or by the way they live their lives. 

Generally parents are their kids’ first teachers. So it’s easy to understand why you might pick up on their habits, comments about work or discussions about money. Even if you didn’t understand the meanings back then let’s be fair to parents. However, for many decades, it was unacceptable to change jobs for my parents’ generation. There were days where you’d work with a company for 35, 40 years and retire with a nice pension and a gold watch. Switching positions within the company was acceptable, but in general, people stayed with these jobs, their entire careers. In fact, when I set up my own first business back in the nineties and started freelancing, my dad was really concerned about my lack of job security.

 

This was the time of bricks and mortar businesses. And the fact that I didn’t have that left my dad unable to understand how I could earn money nowadays, with a gig it’s so much easier to start a virtual business. We can literally build the businesses of our dreams. However, my point in bringing up the differences between us and our parents is that we don’t want to blame our parents for embedding limited beliefs in our heads. They lived life the best way they knew how. And now you can do the same thing by working on your own self growth and determining what you want out of life. You don’t have to settle for a job or business that doesn’t bring you joy in this quest for radical shifts. 

First start thinking about what your dream life looks like. I want you to take some time to visualize where you live, what you do every day, what kind of work you do, who you work with, who your clients are, what does your home look like?

 

What kind of car do you drive? 

You can journal about these questions, or you can make a vision board with images. It’s much easier to create a path to your goals if you’ve actually identified those goals first, you are the creator of your dream life. 

And only you can make the changes necessary to find that joy. 

Let’s start off by banishing those limiting beliefs so that you can start believing in yourself and trusting that you can create a joy filled life. We have a lot to get through in this short episode. So let’s get started. As I mentioned, limiting beliefs, our beliefs developed in early childhood about who you are and what you are capable of. The problem is that these beliefs are limiting. So they’re currently stopping you from doing or having something that you desire. They are the excuses that we’ve learned to accept about why we can’t do or achieve something.

Some examples that I sometimes hear is that I can’t earn a six figure income because I don’t have the talent or knowledge to do so. 

Another one is I can’t hire a business team because I’m not trained as a people manager or I can’t go live on Facebook or LinkedIn because I’m not looking my best. I can’t appear as a guest expert in someone else’s group, I’m just not smart enough. Or even I can’t use that app or software cause I’m too old to learn new things. 

Do you notice how all these limiting beliefs start with I can’t.  

Whenever you start a sentence with I can’t, you are setting yourself up for failure. 

If you decide to try any of these things, you’ll always have that nagging voice at the back of your head, feeding you nonsense about all the reasons why something can’t happen.

Speaker 1 (06:47):

The voice can also cause you to give up too soon and without getting all the facts. 

 

Instead, we want to turn those beliefs around in, into positive affirmations, which encourage you to try. Even if you feel frightened or unprepared with the internet, there’s no reason for not finding the information. You need to create an action list of what it takes to achieve your goal. Educate yourself first, create a plan, then take action. 

Limiting beliefs aren’t your fault. They are usually shaped by observing your family, society, and environment and your own experiences before the age of seven. According to psychological experts, beliefs in general, aren’t bad; they developed as energy saving shortcuts that help you make sense of the world when you were young. 

That said, whilst you didn’t  create these beliefs, they are your responsibility to deal with. Once you become an adult, if you want to experience the up levels on your vision board, you have to learn how to create your life from intention. Not from pre-programmed beliefs.

 These beliefs can show up in any areas of our lives. Any way you’ve felt like you are not achieving what you want or you can’t seem to make forward. Progress probably stems from an underlying limited belief for many business owners. This might show up in areas or fears like the fear of success or failure. The fear of being visible, being truly seen, maybe being rejected or judged, and also around money. That feeling of not having enough or even being scared of having too much. However, if you want to step into your purpose and truly make an impact on the world and build the business that you desire, you have to deal with the thoughts that a whole holding you back as the late Louise hay said, if you are accepting a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you.

Suzanne  (08:50):

The good news is that beliefs are super malleable. You can change them and move beyond them. Think of them as the keys to opening the door to unlimited opportunities. Just imagine if you could release any negativity you have around money so that you can make more of it without guilt or shame or anxiety, feel more confident asking for what you want and going about, what you truly desire, feel safe and excited about showing up and being seen. And so much more is what radically shifting your beliefs can do. Now you’ll find that there are several different schools of thought about how to shift your limiting beliefs. But this model of change is one. Most people agree that beliefs lead to thoughts. 

Thoughts lead to behaviour. 

Behaviour leads to action and action leads to results. 

This means that each limiting belief in your life has an accompanying thought.

And in order for you to shift the thought so you can create it a different behavior and therefore a different action and result. You need to identify the thoughts that make up the beliefs we’ll need to change these thoughts, both cognitively and behaviorally. When you change your thinking, then it’s easier to change your behaviour. 

For example, instead of saying, ‘I can’t open a coaching business because I don’t know how to find clients’, you can change that to something a bit more positive. Like ‘I can open a coaching business because I know how to coach and I want to help people’. And I’m not afraid to ask questions about how to get started. 

Keep repeating that positive thought and you’ll gain some confidence and motivation to do the necessary research. To set you on your way to opening that business. Here are a few exercises to help you get started identifying your specific limiting beliefs.

 

I recommend you grab a journal or a notebook so you can drop down notes or ask hard moments. 

 

These exercises can be enlightening and you’ll want to make a place to note down your revelations to review a later date. 

So exercise one, think of a situation in your business that you are not satisfied with, where your results are not in alignment with what you really want to be do or have what areas of your business feel stuck or stagnant. Where have you not been able to make progress despite your best efforts? 

For example, maybe you are not happy with the amount of money you make. I want you to write down ‘ I can’t make more money because….’, and then whatever reasons show up in your mind, after the word because, write them down. This is a limiting belief and thought, and is properly stopping you from moving forward.

To continue the example, ‘I can’t make more money because I’m afraid I’ll lose it all. And I’ll wind up more broke than I am now’. 

The limiting belief then is if I make money, I lose it. 

You can also take a step further and identify where this belief came from. 

Ask yourself, when was the first time I felt this way or had this thought? This can provide invaluable insight into the fact that this belief is not a universal truth, but a belief.

Repeat this for every area of your life, where you feel you might be stuck or unsatisfied. 

Here’s an alternative exercise. If nothing comes up in the previous exercise, get you a notebook out again and as you move through the week, notice and write down the negative thoughts that crop up at the end of each day, go back through and ask yourself for each negative thought.

Is that a fact? If the answer is no, it’s likely to be a limiting belief. 

Also note down how these beliefs affected your mood and your motivation. When they appeared, did you lose steam and want to take the afternoon off or did it make you reach for the fridge? If nothing else, noticing how these beliefs affect your actions and are holding you back can be a real wake up call. 

Now don’t judge yourself for any belief or negative thoughts that come up. You’re simply observing them so that you can change them. 

We all have limiting beliefs. Even the most confident entrepreneurs can struggle with this negative self-talk at times. Even after they reach a pinnacle of success that most with envy crushing, these limiting beliefs will also allow you to do good in the world. Think about when you reach your financial milestones. What good could you do when you reach that milestone?

Speaker 1 (13:44):

How could you help others?

I want you to take a moment and think about Thomas Edison. Who’s known for inventing the light bulb. He and his associates worked on 3000 different theories for creating this type of light bulb all in the course of two years. 

What if he had limiting beliefs and gave up on this idea because it was too hard or they simply couldn’t figure it out. We might not have lights in our house. Can you imagine that?

Whatever limiting beliefs you uncover, write them down in your journal or notebook or even in your phone app. Once you’ve determined what your limiting beliefs are, you have to acknowledge that these are beliefs, not truths and therefore it’s possible to shift and change them. The shift doesn’t happen overnight, but the first step is in acknowledging the beliefs and trusting that you can shift your thinking.

Speaker 1 (14:40):

As your mind shifts, you’ll feel more confident which leads to taking action. You will believe that your business can grow. 

So go back to your list of limiting beliefs and for each negative belief, write down the following. How does this belief currently impact my life? Write down everything that comes to mind. 

For example, let’s go back to the,’ if I make money, I’ll lose it’  belief.  Maybe it currently impacts your life in the few ways, are you afraid to raise your rates because you don’t want to lose clients and therefore feel overwhelmed and burnt out most of the time, then take it one step further. 

How is feeling overwhelmed and burnt out most of the time impacting your life?. 

Maybe it’s costing you money because you literally feel too overwhelmed to take on more clients. 

Or maybe it’s impacting your relationship because you’re always canceling on your friends last minute or yelling at your kids or your partner.

Suzanne (15:39):

Maybe you are afraid to say yes to new opportunities. Even ones you’d love to say yes to because you don’t believe you’ll have the energy to follow through. And it makes you feel like you are not growing your business can down each of these negative effects until you can’t think of anymore. 

Now, I want you to think about the future. How will continuing to live out this negative belief affect your future?

 What will you lose out on by continuing to live out this belief?

 Think about the effects in one year three to five years and perhaps 10 years. 

For example, continuing to believe if I make money, I’ll lose it over the next year. You won’t hit your income goals and you won’t be able to save for the family holiday you want to take next year. 

 

Whatever that dream purchase you’d love to make is.

Speaker 1 (16:33):

And if you continue to, I believe it over the next three to five years, the overwhelming burnout might affect your health. Even more negatively. 

You’ll miss out on multiple opportunities and you’re likely to continue to feel stuck in your business and unable to make changes. You’ll have wasted all that precious time. Of course, all these are hypothetical, but you get the gist. 

These two exercises can help you truly see how imperative it is to your higher purpose that you shift these beliefs, no matter what your limiting beliefs are. There are always consequences that you are living with. Whether you recognize it or not, life won’t be effect all the time, but working on changing these beliefs can actually help your mental attitude and outlook. Once you’re clear on what you are limiting beliefs are and what they’re costing you now and potentially in the future, it’s time to start shifting.

Speaker 1 (17:31):

Just so you know, when you do those exercises, you might feel some sadness or a bit of disappointment. Sometimes people feel like it’s a punch in the gut to really have their limiting beliefs and the harm they’re doing on a piece of paper, right in front of them. As someone who used to let bad days drag her down, I’m here to say it’s acceptable to acknowledge those feelings. But to remember that we’re all turning this around, acknowledge the facts of the situations and then get excited that these can be changed. You can also think of this as a wake up call as a way of telling yourself that things must change or you’ll be stuck in the same cycle for years to come. 

Just think about what you can achieve and how fantastic it will be. Once you start to tackle these limiting beliefs, I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you struggle with limiting beliefs and come join my free Facebook group, the business confidence cafe, every Monday, we start the week with Monday mantra your opportunity to set your intentions for the week. In next week’s episode of the midlife business show, I will continue this really important topic and share with you some simple things that you can do to start changing your limiting beliefs so that you feel more powerful and in control and right away

Speaker 2 (19:03):

Take care.

Okay, that’s a wrap today. Thanks for listening, please subscribe, rate  and review the midlife business show. And if you’ve enjoyed it, tell your business, buddys all about it. Bye for now.