Speaker 1 (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.

Speaker 1 (00:43):

In last week’s episode of The Midlife Business Show. I talked to you about how to identify your limiting beliefs in order to stop them getting in your way of building a business that has the impact you want and creates the life that you want to have.  This week, I’m gonna continue with this really important topic and share with you some small things that you can do that start changing those limiting beliefs and freeing you up to move forward. If you haven’t listened to episode 2, I’ll suggest that you go back and have a listen and do the exercises that I gave you to do. 

You’ll find that if you do, this week’s episode will make much more sense. Now, the first step to changing your limiting beliefs requires you to recognise them for what they are and then be willing to change them.

(01:36):

So ask yourself, am I happy in my business? 

Right this second, or do I want something to be different? 

Ask yourself whether you are willing to step out of your comfort zone to make changes, or are you content with the status quo? 

Get your mind wrapped around the idea of making changes and fill that thought with light and positivity. 

Remind yourself every day that you are willing to make these changes and soon you won’t need that reminder because it’ll become part of your psyche.

 To get started for each limiting belief, ask yourself this question. What if I’m wrong? 

We’ve got these beliefs so ingrained in our brain that it’s easy to believe they are true, but what if they’re not? Have you ever considered these are lies instead of truths? Why are you so insistent to believe that these negative thoughts that we haven’t tried to prove are really true?

It’s an interesting concept, right? 

To do this exercise. All you need to do is ask the question of yourself. 

If you meditate, do it as part of your meditation, 

Turn it into journal entries, if that’s easier for you.  When you really reflect on this question, you might be surprised at the answers you uncover. 

For example, do you believe that people like you don’t make big money? 

What if you are wrong? 

You might discover that you’ve got an amazing unique approach to what you do simply because you don’t want this limiting belief to ever come true.

Think of the other possibilities that can happen if you choose not to believe this limiting belief. 

It’s such a simple question yet can open your eyes to a new world of possibilities. 

Your next step is to choose one limiting belief to focus on and ask yourself, am I willing to see this differently?

If the answer is yes, then move forward onto the next step.

 If you feel resistance to changing this belief, that’s okay as well. You can continue to move on to the next steps and still see shifts over time. 

That said, if there’s a belief that you feel more willing to shift, you might want to start there. 

Once you see results with one belief, it will be easier to work on the harder or more deeply ingrained ones. 

What I want you to do is to replace each belief you identified with a more empowering belief and write it down. 

For example, if your belief is, ‘if I let people see who I truly am, they’ll reject me’. 

The more empowering belief might look like it’s safe to be who I truly am no matter who is around. If you’re having trouble coming up with a more empowering belief, think about what belief is more aligned with what you want.

What belief can you ease into? 

That’s just a step or two ahead of the limiting belief. 

Sometimes our subconscious won’t get on board right away. We have to ease it into the process. If you find yourself retracting at the thought of your more empowering belief, you might need to scale it back a bit. 

At first, working at your own pace, writing down your new beliefs can feel like a lot of work, but it’s actually the easier part of the process. These new beliefs you’ve written down and now your new mantra or affirmations. Anytime the old thought pops up, repeat the affirmational mantra in its place. Keep these mantras and affirmations in your journal and consider keeping them in the notes section of your phone for easy reference, post them around your office and your home. So you are reminded daily of the changes you are making.

(05:33):

One of the things I find really useful is to stick them on the mirror so that when you look at yourself in the morning, when you’re cleaning your teeth, they’re there to remind you, or maybe even using them as your password or as a screensaver on your laptop. 

Over time, these new thoughts will create new neural pathways in your brain, that fire automatically, and eventually those old negative thoughts will disappear. 

You most likely will be surprised when one day you realise you haven’t had those particular negative thoughts in a long while during this process, your core beliefs will come stronger and more natural over time. Eliminating room for those old limiting beliefs. 

Now here’s the deal. You can’t just say an affirmation over and over to make changes. Every time you read your affirmation, you’ll also want to feel it as if it’s already real for each new belief, visualise what it would truly feel like for the new belief to be real.

Speaker 1 (06:35):

What does, ‘ it’s safe to be who I am no matter who is around’ look like?  

Imagine yourself in different scenarios, pledge yourself with positive feelings of pleasure. 

When you do this visualisation, when you start associating your new empowering beliefs with pleasure. You automatically feel more motivated to do whatever is needed to shift your limiting belief. 

You might also want to visualise or journal the following to get the creative juices flowing by asking yourself, how will I feel differently when this belief no longer exists. 

Now visualisation can be done anywhere except while driving.

 And it doesn’t have to take much time. However, experts suggest developing a visualization habit or ritual similar to meditation to reap the most benefits. The process works best. If you have a quiet space and can close your eyes to envisions yourself in this new belief, picture yourself in the future, living this ideal life that you have imagined reaching all your goals.  Visualise yourself in your office, ready to conquer the day with confidence. 

Did you know that some famous people have used visualization techniques to attain success?  

Before he made it big as an actor,  Jim Carey imagined himself as a movie actor and wrote himself a cheque for $10 million and dated it for 1994. Oddly enough, he earned 10 million for the film, dumb and dumber in 1994. Isn’t that amazing! 

Arnold Trane visualized his ideal body form before reaching his body building fame and Oprah Winfrey used affirmations and vision boards to pull herself out of poverty. 

But shifting your limiting beliefs is an ongoing process. Personal development never has an end point. And even after doing this work, you might find new beliefs showing themselves. I often say to my clients, another level, another devil, because each new level of success or going outside your comfort zone will bring up new beliefs that you need to shift.

(08:57):

But now you will have the tools for changing those limiting beliefs on your own. And eventually your new beliefs will feel a hundred percent true to you. 

Now, while affirmations will take you far, the trick is that you also have to work on changing your behaviour. Affirmations and mantra are not magic. There are no magic fairies waiting to fulfill your every desire. So changing your beliefs, which in turn can change your life requires action on your part. Keep reciting your affirmations daily, but also start acting as if your new belief is true. For real change to occur. You need to believe one  hundred percent in your soul that your new belief is true. 

However, it does take time to get that in place, reciting your affirmations along with acting, the role will help move the change process along often, starting with small changes and seeing that you didn’t pass up.

The opportunity to stand in your expertise will give you the confidence necessary to make bigger or different changes to your demeanor. You might even discover that making small changes was easier than you thought, which should give you confidence going forward to continue making changes. 

Here’s another example. If your new more positive belief is about how you are capable of managing large sums of money, you’ll want to think about how a good money manager would act when you receive your next payment from a client, what would that person do, feel, say, think,  and then do that.

 Let me be clear. I’m not advocating that you change your personality or pretend to be someone you are not with this particular exercise. We’re primarily focusing on adapting the behaviours that can turn a limiting belief into a positive one. Authenticity is too important in this day and age, you’re not an actor on a stage.

(11:13):

 Once you start adopting the behaviour and taking actions in your life, things will become easier. It’s like a snowball effect. Making changes to your behavior often leads to more confidence, which leads to a willingness or an excitement to make changes in your business, which can lead to an excitement to focus more on other parts of your life too. 

Your new confidence will also be evident to your business peers, your family, and friends, and can make your life happier in general and less stressful. 

But I hear you taking action is scary. 

Not everyone gets a thrill from stepping out of their comfort zone. 

The good news is if you’re doing your affirmations readily, it will get easier. Every time you take a new action. 

The bad news is if you avoid this step because it’s scary, you’ll just feed your old limiting belief.

So nothing will ever change. Which scenario do you prefer? 

You don’t have to have massive sweeping changes all at once to see radical shifts over time. Very often, even just one small step in the direction of the new more empowering belief will help you solidify your new idea as the person you want to be. Think of these changes as baby steps or stepping stones. You’re not jumping from step A to step Z in a single move. You need a roadmap to get you there. 

There’s nothing wrong with taking multiple small steps to change your limiting beliefs. 

As long as the end result is a positive belief that gives you confidence. It doesn’t matter how small you have to make those actions. One of my favorite books is Atomic Habits. by James Clear.  The author describes how to create new habits by taking one tiny step every single day.

For instance, instead of trying to do 50 pushups, try doing one or two each day for a week on day eight, not only will you be used to doing your short sets of pushups, but you’ll be ready to do three or four. 

Not only are you getting used to the idea of doing pushups every day, but you are slowly building yourself up to your goal of 50, without pain or muscle strain. By the time you reach that magical 50, you’ll feel strange if you don’t do your pushups because it’s become an integral part of your life. The same is true with reciting these affirmations and mantra and small changes. Also remember your new actions don’t have to be perfect. They don’t have to yield a particular result to count. Make sure to acknowledge to yourself when you’ve taken an action. You could write it in a journal or decide to treat yourself to celebrate.

No matter the action it’s worth acknowledging. When you see small wins building consistently, you can make it a game with yourself. See how long you can go without breaking the winning streak or decide how you’ll treat yourself after X. Number of actions have fun with it while remembering your ultimate goal. Changing those beliefs. The great news is that just showing up every day and taking some kind of action in the right direction is exactly what will move you forward towards your purpose. 

Your purpose inevitably becomes clearer as you build new habits and your old beliefs about who you are and what you are capable of. You’ll be focused on looking forward and  literally won’t realize when those limiting beliefs disappear. Most likely you’ve always had an inkling that you were meant to do something. Maybe you even know what that something is, but your beliefs have stopped you instead of having regrets and saying, oh gosh, I’m too old now to change.

Speaker 1 (15:31):

Start the process of changing those beliefs and moving forward. If you commit to showing up every single day and taking one more empowered action, you’ll find that your purpose feels more tangible and within reach. 

 Instead of wishing you had started the process sooner, you’ll feel invigorated to continue the process, especially as you get closer to that goal. If you’re finding the taking daily action part hard, take a cue from Atomic Habits.  

James Clear recommends the two minute rule, do the thing, whatever action, the ideal or new empowered you would take for two minutes. You can do anything for two minutes, whether it’s shooting off an email to someone you want to contact or having a look at your business bank statements, the odds are that the first two minutes will break the ice and give you the momentum you need to keep going. 

 

Or have you heard the term eat the frog? It means to do the hardest thing first to get it out of the way. 

Once it’s done, you’ll feel relief and possibly a sense of achievement, which can put you in a good mood for the rest of the day. If you’re a journal lover considered journaling your feelings, as you embark on taking these actions for some of you, it might not feel like a big deal to take action and make changes, but for others getting stopped in your track with fear rather than staying stuck, journal about your feelings, repeat your mantras and revisit the journal to write about the results of your actions. When you see that the action was easier than you thought, or the reaction from others was pleasant. You’ll find it easier to take additional actions. If you are a visual learner, consider tracking your actions on your calendar or in your planner or journal.

(17:28):

If you prefer digital tools to paper and pair,  use mind mapping software to create a map of your goals. Along with the steps you need to take to make that goal a reality, make it a habit to look at your mind map first thing, every day, even before email or social media. 

 Visual learners need to see the evidence in order to realize just how much progress they’ve made and having your actions written down in one place is a real time favourite. Over time, you might find that these minor actions add up. You might not see the results on a daily basis, although sometimes you might, but if you look back in 30 days or six months, you’ll notice radical shifts. 

Just remember to approach this process with an open mind, an acknowledgement of your beliefs, a willingness to change, a determination to complete the exercises and the desire to create a road to your future dreams. If you’d like to do some more work on your limiting beliefs or on building your midlife business, come and join me in my free Facebook group ,The Business Confidence Cafe. 

 

You’ll find the link in the show notes along with details of other ways that you can connect with me.

Speaker 1 (18:53):

Okay. That’s a wrap for today. Thanks for listening, please subscribe, rate and review The Midlife Business Show. And if you’ve enjoyed it, tell your business that is all about it. Bye for now.