Great Escape Podcast episode 26 - What are your self limiting beliefs?

- [Stuart] It struck me recently that one of the things that holds a lot of us back from doing anything is we think we can't. There's that saying, you know, if you think you can't, you probably can't. And the reality is that most people who tried to do something were just people who tried to do something. They weren't geniuses, they weren't called to do it, they weren't somebody famous to begin with, they were just them. They had an idea, they went and they did it. And they may well have failed the first couple of times they tried it, or the first three times they tried it. But actually, did they fail, or did they find a way that it didn't work? Or did they find a way that, actually, it could be improved if we do it like this? So all of these things led me to think that the reality is that for most of us, the only thing that's holding us back is our own self-doubt, our own belief that we can't do it, our own belief that we, in some way, aren't up to the job. And the reality is that that's rubbish. The reality is that for almost all of us, if we can get the right training, or the right experience, or the right perseverance even, we can actually do most of the things that we want to do. Now yes, there are people whose muscle structure means that they are genetically predisposed to being an exceptionally fast 100 meter sprinter, and for me, you know, I'm never gonna be that person, apart from being too old now. But in other aspects, if I wanted to learn to play an instrument, no, I might not be a virtuoso pianist, but I could learn to play the piano pretty well. I'm currently learning to fly a new kind of airplane. It's pretty challenging. It's harder trying to do it when I'm in my 50s than it would've been if I'd tried to do it when I was 18, but it's still perfectly doable. Learning to run our own business, to start our own business, is just another skill. It's perfectly learnable, it's not that arcane, it's not some kind of weird, voodoo, black magic. It's basically a sequence of things to do. Whatever situation we find ourselves in, finding a way out of it is almost always possible. And almost always, and certainly in the conversations I have with people, the thing that's stopping them is their own self-belief. It's not any external force, other than the things that they've given power to. And certainly in my own life, the times when I have felt most trapped are because I've relinquished power to some external person or set of circumstances. And actually, the beginning of the recovery, the beginning of the change, the beginning of the process to freedom came when I took back control, which is perhaps a phrase with way too much political meaning at the moment, but let's not go there. But when I decided for myself that that external force wasn't going to have control over me, and there's always the challenge because you have to be self-aware enough to understand what the true limits are, and you have to be self-aware enough to realize that you have created limits for yourself that are smaller than that. But still, for most of us, the thing that is holding us back is our own limiting belief. And if we can honestly reflect upon those beliefs, and honestly look at what are the ways in which we've limited ourselves, and probably do this with friends and family who can give us an honest reflection on well, okay, if this power, no, if this limit is something that you've put upon yourself, what is the true limit? You know, Stuart, you're never gonna be a world class 100 meter sprinter. May not be the thing I want to hear, but actually somebody needs to tell me that and I need to let them tell me that because it's true. Stuart, you could be a lot fitter than you are. Yeah, yes, I could. And the fact that I'm not is something that I've told myself that no, exercise is hard, or getting to the gym is difficult, or losing weight, yeah, but I just want that next bar of chocolate. Those are all things that I can fix myself, those are all things that I'm telling myself as a way of preventing myself from getting fitter. So this week, as you're thinking about your life, have a think about what are the limiting beliefs, what are the things that you have told yourself are true, but actually, they aren't. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Great Escape Podcast. You can find other episodes at all the usual places, on iTunes, Stitcher, and Spotify, or at the website, https://greatescapepodcast.com/episodes. And if you'd like to contact me to talk about any element of this episode or others I've covered, please go to https://greatescapepodcast.com/contact, and you can find all the ways of getting hold of me there. 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