A day in the life of Richard Branson

Continuing the discussion from my previous post, here is an example of what happens to people who have let go of their limiting beliefs. And who better to illustrate it than Richard Branson himself...

What can you achieve in your day?

YOUR Limiting Beliefs (and they are yours to keep, unless you decide not to!)

We already spoke about values and beliefs, and how they shape the foundations of who you are. They determine the way you perceive the world, how you react and what action you take, in order to achieve results. And we gave an extensive list of values where you can identify your highest ones, your top priorities in life.

When you look at beliefs, how much do we realise that we are surrounded by limiting beliefs, lurking behind every corner. Yes, we do occasionally recognise that we say words of self-discouragement: I'm going to botch up this presentation, I know it!

But how often do we say to ourselves those seemingly harmless, habitual phrases: "Silly me!"

"This will never work!"

"I'll never get this job!"

“I’ll never learn to cook.”

"I'm so clumsy, I'll probably break something!", 

or even "I'm gonna be late again!"

And these turn into self-fulfilling prophecies - you become unfailingly, chronically, late for every meeting. You always drop things; you never dare to have fun improvising and cook a meal. These formulas for failure block so much of your positive energy, of your potential!

I would go even further and claim that Limiting beliefs, and constantly imposing them on ourselves and others, are one of the unrecognised diseases of the 20th, and 21st centuries!

How often do you hear parents on the street yelling after their children: "Don't run, you'll trip! You'll fall down and break your head!" What a kind, caring, encouraging thing to say to your child, NOT!, over and over again...

Or: "You ain't good for nothing! You can't tie your own shoes."  And the list goes on and on.

What limiting beliefs do to your unconscious mind is to constantly build up a feeling of defeat, confirm your expectations for defeat, and ultimately they make you fit for defeat, instead of success.

Probably if I asked you right now to give me a list of your values, you would come up with three, four, or more ideas, straight away. But if I asked you: “What are your limiting beliefs?”, you wouldn’t have the answer off the top of your head.

So, here is my challenge for you: during the next three days, watch yourself, watch your language. What do you say to yourself – what everyday self-talks can you identify as limiting beliefs?

And if you want to take it up a notch, how about actually counting how many times you tell yourself things like, “I always lose stuff”, “I’m gonna be late again”, “I’m exhausted”, or thinking first thing in the morning: “I can’t be bothered to do any exercises TODAY.” Or when you get stuck with your report, or task, you repeat to yourself: “I can never finish these things on time.” 

See, those nasty little power -, confidence - and success - sabotagers are hiding everywhere!

SO, share your examples here. Maybe you will even come up with some original ideas of how to stop yourself from success… And the more you repeat them, the better you become in developing the skills to fulfill those beliefs.

What do we do next? The next step for you is to reframe these boycotting expressions, and instead of saying: “I’ll be late again!”, you will say: “Today is the first of those numerous occasions when I will be on time. Punctuality is my middle name.”

Or saying: “I can easily go up those three flights of stairs. I am becoming fitter and fitter every single day!”

How about that as a self-fulfilling prophecy!

Believe in yourself!

How To Stop Procrastination - Robin Sharma

After we spoke about the foundations of who you are - your values and beliefs, here is a video with practical tips from the best-selling author Robin Sharma on what to focus on, and how to train the habit "muscle".

What will you declutter from your life this week?

Defining Your Values

What Are Your Values?

Deciding What's Most Important in Life

How would you define your values?

Before you answer this question, you need to know what, in general, values are.

Your values are the things that you believe are important in the way you live and work.

They (should) determine your priorities, and, deep down, they're probably the measures you use to tell if your life is turning out the way you want it to.

When the things that you do and the way you behave match your values, life is usually good – you're satisfied and content. But when these don't align with your values, that's when things feel... wrong. This can be a real source of unhappiness.

This is why making a conscious effort to identify your values is so important.

How Values Help You

Values exist, whether you recognize them or not. Life can be much easier when you acknowledge your values – and when you make plans and decisions that honor them.

If you value family, but you have to work 70-hour weeks in your job, will you feel internal stress and conflict? And if you don't value competition, and you work in a highly competitive sales environment, are you likely to be satisfied with your job?

In these types of situations, understanding your values can really help. When you know your own values, you can use them to make decisions about how to live your life, and you can answer questions like these:

• What job should I pursue?
• Should I accept this promotion?
• Should I start my own business?
• Should I compromise, or be firm with my position?
• Should I follow tradition, or travel down a new path?

So, take the time to understand the real priorities in your life, and you'll be able to determine the best direction for you and your life goals!

Tip:

Values are usually fairly stable, yet they don't have strict limits or boundaries. Also, as you move through life, your values may change. For example, when you start your career, success – measured by money and status – might be a top priority. But after you have a family, work-life balance may be what you value more.

As your definition of success changes, so do your personal values. This is why keeping in touch with your values is a lifelong exercise. You should continuously revisit this, especially if you start to feel unbalanced... and you can't quite figure out why.

As you go through the exercise below, bear in mind that values that were important in the past may not be relevant now.

Defining Your Values

When you define your personal values, you discover what's truly important to you. A good way of starting to do this is to look back on your life – to identify when you felt really good, and really confident that you were making good choices.

Step 1: Identify the times when you were happiest

Find examples from both your career and personal life. This will ensure some balance in your answers.

• What were you doing?
• Were you with other people? Who?
• What other factors contributed to your happiness?

Step 2: Identify the times when you were most proud

Use examples from your career and personal life.

• Why were you proud?
• Did other people share your pride? Who?
• What other factors contributed to your feelings of pride?

Step 3: Identify the times when you were most fulfilled and satisfied

Again, use both work and personal examples.

• What need or desire was fulfilled?
• How and why did the experience give your life meaning?
• What other factors contributed to your feelings of fulfillment?

Step 4: Determine your top values, based on your experiences of happiness, pride, and fulfillment

Why is each experience truly important and memorable? Use the following list of common personal values to help you get started – and aim for about 10 top values. (As you work through, you may find that some of these naturally combine. For instance, if you value philanthropy, community, and generosity, you might say that service to others is one of your top values.)

Accountability Accuracy Achievement Adventurousness Altruism Ambition Assertiveness Balance Being the best Belonging Boldness Calmness Carefulness Challenge Cheerfulness Clear-mindedness Commitment Community Compassion Competitiveness Consistency Contentment Continuous Improvement Contribution Control Cooperation Correctness Courtesy Creativity Curiosity Decisiveness Democraticness Dependability Determination Devoutness Diligence Discipline Discretion Diversity Dynamism Economy Effectiveness Efficiency Elegance Empathy Enjoyment Enthusiasm Equality

Excellence Excitement Expertise Exploration Expressiveness Fairness Faith Family-orientedness Fidelity Fitness Fluency Focus Freedom Fun Generosity Goodness Grace Growth Happiness Hard Work Health Helping Society Holiness Honesty Honor Humility Independence Ingenuity Inner Harmony Inquisitiveness Insightfulness Intelligence Intellectual Status Intuition Joy Justice Leadership Legacy Love Loyalty Making a difference Mastery Merit Obedience Openness Order Originality Patriotism

Perfection Piety Positivity Practicality Preparedness Professionalism Prudence Quality-orientation Reliability Resourcefulness Restraint Results-oriented Rigor Security Self-actualization Self-control Selflessness Self-reliance Sensitivity Serenity Service Shrewdness Simplicity Soundness Speed Spontaneity Stability Strategic Strength Structure Success Support Teamwork Temperance Thankfulness Thoroughness Thoughtfulness Timeliness Tolerance Traditionalism Trustworthiness Truth-seeking Understanding Uniqueness Unity Usefulness Vision Vitality

Look deep inside yourself

Step 5: Prioritize your top values

This step is probably the most difficult, because you'll have to look deep inside yourself. It's also the most important step, because, when making a decision, you'll have to choose between solutions that may satisfy different values. This is when you must know which value is more important to you.

• Write down your top values, not in any particular order.
• Look at the first two values and ask yourself, "If I could satisfy only one of these, which would I choose?" It might help to visualize a situation in which you would have to make that choice. For example, if you compare the values of service and stability, imagine that you must decide whether to sell your house and move to another country to do valuable foreign aid work, or keep your house and volunteer to do charity work closer to home.
• Keep working through the list, by comparing each value with each other value, until your list is in the correct order.

Step 6: Reaffirm your values

Check your top-priority values, and make sure they fit with your life and your vision for yourself.

• Do these values make you feel good about yourself?
• Are you proud of your top three values?
• Would you be comfortable and proud to tell your values to people you respect and admire?
• Do these values represent things you would support, even if your choice isn't popular, and it puts you in the minority?

When you consider your values in decision making, you can be sure to keep your sense of integrity and what you know is right, and approach decisions with confidence and clarity. You'll also know that what you're doing is best for your current and future happiness and satisfaction.

Making value-based choices may not always be easy. However, making a choice that you know is right is a lot less difficult 

in the long run.

Source:

http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_85.htm

Tony Robbins Solve Your Inner Conflict

How do you change an area of your life? In three major steps:

Have a clear target, model the best, align your life with your values.

Do you have an honest list of your values?

Be Congruent with Your Values

Your beliefs and values determine how you perceive your environment - yourself, your immediate family, but also your circle of friends, your colleagues... They are the filter, through which you make sense of everything that happens to you in your life. The beliefs pyramid illustrates the relationship very clearly:

It is not the events in life that shape you, but your belief about what those events mean. And even more importantly, if what you do in your life - hour by hour, day by day, is not in harmony with your highest values, you live in a conflict with yourself, and start sabotaging your goals, and the results you claim you aspire to.

SO, what are the steps to achieve congruency:
1. Elicit your highest values
2. Audit your current behaviour against your true, genuine values and beliefs
3. Take the necessary massive action and make changes to align what you do with your true self.

Only when you raise your own standards and make no compromise when achieving your goals and aspirations, can you get the results you want and deserve.

Your relationships begin with YOU

Hi guys

The over-arching theme of my posts for the next few weeks will be RELATIONSHIPS. And we will start with the most important one of all - your relationship with yourself. Because how you treat yourself is reflected in the way you treat and connect with others, which in its turn is projected in the way others relate to you…

“To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance”, said Oscar Wilde.

How well do you know YOU? 

What is your purpose and mission? What inspires you, what makes you tick?

We will focus on values and beliefs, and how they are connected to your perceptions and goals.

How do you get confidence, and how do you persist in order to get a breakthrough?

Share your comments on the articles and videos I select for you on my blog.