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Your Best Year Ever — Chapter-03: You Can Upgrade Your Beliefs
- Source: /library/Your Best Year Ever/source-file.pdf
- PDF pages: 39–53
- Pages without text: 46
- Note: Includes the Step action plan that closes this step.
3 You Can Upgrade Your Beliefs Impossible is not a fact. It’s an opinion. MUHAMMAD ALI In 1954, Martin Luther King Jr. accepted the ministerial call from Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. He was just twenty-five years old. But what King accomplished over the next decade would radically reshape American society. In 1955, after Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat, King led the Montgomery bus boycott. The US Supreme Court sided with the boycotters in 1956. A year later, King formed and led the Southern Christian Leaders Conference, which helped organize the burgeoning civil rights movement. He also spoke before his first national audience and made the cover of Time magazine. But that was only the beginning. King’s organizing and protest work continued in the late fifties and early sixties with sit-ins and protests, culminating in the events of 1963. That April, King was arrested in Birmingham for disobeying a ban on demonstrations. When he came under fire from local ministers, he responded with one of his most important and memorable works, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail.” A few months later, he led the March on Washington, attended by over 200,000 people. It was the hundredth anniversary of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, and King gave his stirring “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The demonstration galvanized nationwide support for civil rights. Earlier that summer, President John F. Kennedy had introduced the nation’s most sweeping civil rights legislation to date, and
the impact of the march and King’s advocacy was instrumental in its passage in 1964. If that wasn’t enough, Time picked King as its person of the year, and the Nobel committee made him the youngest-ever recipient of the Peace Prize. There was more work to do, but he’d already turned the world upside down. He was just thirty-five years old. What was his secret? Avoiding the Trap of Limiting Beliefs King’s critics in Birmingham thought his actions were “unwise and untimely,” that they violated “common sense.” But unlike King, these ministers were laboring under a limiting belief: they held an idea about the world that limited their range of possibilities. Instead of seeing King’s actions as paving the way for change, they saw them as counterproductive. They worried his actions would cause them to lose ground. But this is just one of a million examples in life where “common sense” is simply another way of saying “widely held misunderstanding.” A limiting belief is a misunderstanding of the present that shortchanges our future. King was surrounded by limiting beliefs like these: The civil rights movement is asking for too much too fast. The movement is stirring up unnecessary trouble. Nonviolence won’t move the needle. Armed resistance is needed. Whites won’t change. Racial reconciliation is impossible. Racism is engrained in the culture. We’ll never change that, let alone the law. And there were many, many others shared by both white and black people, inside and outside the movement. The difference between King and others was that he rejected those beliefs as untrue. Instead, he believed that the times called for urgent action. He believed that nonviolent demonstrations were necessary and effective. He believed that racial reconciliation was a real hope and that hearts—and the whole society— could really change.
Instead of limiting beliefs, King embraced liberating truths. He looked at the same facts as everyone else, but he used a different frame, to use the Zanders’ language from earlier. That’s what his “I Have a Dream” speech was all about. He could see a better future, regardless of what some people said or believed. His frame allowed him to visualize the victory, and he knew in his bones that he would someday realize it as well. These liberating truths freed him to act with determination—and we can do the same thing. Beliefs can keep us stuck. But we can get unstuck by upgrading our beliefs. Trade Your Frame Few of our aspirations will measure up to the accomplishments of Martin Luther King Jr. But they do matter to the one and only life we’ll ever have. And they can make all the difference in the world for us and the people nearest to us. One of my favorite examples of replacing limiting beliefs with liberating truths comes from the Alcoholics Anonymous community. Researchers at Brown University, UC Berkeley, and the National Institutes of Health worked together on a major study. They found the difference maker for people trying to stay sober was belief. Instead of saying, “I can’t resist a drink,” people in AA find they actually can resist. Why? Because now they
believe the liberating truth “Change is possible.” Or instead of thinking, “I can’t get sober,” AA participants swap that for the liberating truth: “I can manage life’s difficulties without a drink.”1 Here’s another example from my friend Don Miller. Don’s a bestselling author and tremendous entrepreneur. But after a string of failed relationships, he figured he was doomed at love. Then out of the blue Bob Goff called. “You know what I’ve noticed about you, Don?” Bob started. “I’ve noticed that you’re good at relationships.” Don wasn’t buying. He was terrible at relationships, and he knew it for certain. But Bob kept calling him and telling him the opposite. He gave example after example of times Don had really bonded with people. “For the next few months there was a yawning chasm between Bob’s affirmation and the way I felt about myself,” Don said. But Bob’s persistence paid off. “Like a trial lawyer he argued his case into my soul, week after week, until the chasm began to close.” Don realized Bob was right. And the more he realized it, the more he was able to act on it and prove it to himself. The new belief enabled him to be vulnerable, hopeful, and act with confidence. It turned out Don was terrific at relationships—and he went on to date and marry the love of his life.2 Let me give you some examples from my own life. I used to believe I couldn’t get ahead because I could barely make enough money to meet our family’s needs. When I recognized that thought as a limiting belief, I determined to replace it with a liberating truth. So I started saying, “I have all the money I need to meet our obligations, accomplish our goals, and be generous with others.” It sure didn’t feel that way at first. But instead of operating from scarcity, I chose to operate from a place of abundance. It wasn’t magic. But it did open new pathways that allowed me to move forward. And the more I moved, the more resources I found to improve my circumstances. Here’s another. “I don’t feel like doing that right now,” I used to say. “I’m exhausted.” I thought my energy was something I had no control over. Either I felt energetic, or not. But then I realized I had agency. I could influence what I experienced. So I swapped that limiting belief for a liberating truth that went like this: “I have more than enough energy to accomplish the tasks I undertake.” I repeated that to myself every time I felt exhausted or tired. It wasn’t long before my reality caught up to my words. In all of these examples, changing beliefs made better outcomes possible.
It’s not magic. You already have what it takes to move the needle in your life. Everyone’s different and we all have our own portfolio of limiting beliefs. But in all my coaching, I’ve encountered two that many of us share. The first is that we have no power to change our circumstances, and the second is that we lack the resources to do so. I want to look at both of these in turn. When We Feel Powerless Erin Gruwell was a rookie school teacher assigned to a tough, newly integrated high school in Long Beach, California. Her diverse classroom was packed with at-risk kids, some of them gangbangers who hated their teacher even more than they hated each other. “My class has become a dumping ground for disciplinary transfers, kids in rehab or those on probation,” she said.3 Most everyone had given up on these students. The administration didn’t hold much hope she could make a difference. Even her dad thought she should find a new job. Fortunately for her students, Gruwell believed she could succeed with these kids where others had failed. She started by chucking the standard curriculum and assigning “books about teens in crisis,” including Anne Frank’s Diary of a Young Girl and Zlata Filipović’s Zlata’s Diary: A Child’s Life in Wartime Sarajevo. Just as important, she required them to journal about their experiences. In the process and through the years, her kids’ lives were transformed. Against the odds, she helped one hundred fifty students learn, grow, and graduate. Most went to college. Some became teachers themselves. We all have more power than we sometimes give ourselves credit for. According to Stanford University psychology professor Albert Bandura, this power comprises four properties that help us achieve our goals. The first is intention. We can imagine a better reality than the one we’re currently experiencing. And we can work with others and within our circumstances to achieve it. Second, forethought. By visualizing the future, we can govern our behavior in the present and give purpose and meaning to our actions. Third, action. We have the ability to act on our plans, to stay motivated, and to respond in the moment to remain on course. Finally, self-
reflection. We not only act, we know we act. That means we can evaluate how we’re doing, make adjustments, and even revise our plans.4 Erin Gruwell put all of these to work in her teaching. She knew her involvement in her kids’ lives could make a difference. She built a program that would accomplish her intent. She got started, made course corrections along the way, and little by little changed the lives of one hundred fifty students who would have otherwise been left behind—not to mention changing her own life. Whatever our circumstances, we have the power to pursue a better future. Some don’t buy it. They think because they can’t control everything, they can control nothing. But that’s only a limiting belief. By our choices we become active participants in the outcomes we experience. During the final difficult months of the bus boycott in 1956, King preached a sermon to encourage his congregation to live hopeful lives of creative action. “Lord, help me to accept my tools,” he told them to pray. “However dull they are, help me to accept them. And then Lord, after I have accepted my tools, then help me to set out and do what I can do with my tools.”5 To show how powerful our humble tools can be, King pointed to the example of Moses, who discarded his limiting beliefs and led his people to freedom. As we’ve seen, King proved the validity of his point by his own example. The Resource Question Gruwell’s story also reminds us to avoid limiting our goals to our current resources. Resources are never—and I mean never—the main challenge in achieving our dreams. In fact, if you already have everything you need to achieve your goal, then your goal’s probably too small. When Gruwell first started out, she had no budget for books. But her students needed certain books if her plan was going to work. The answer? She got a second job and bought the books herself. As Gruwell’s goals grew, so did her need for resources. Her students wanted to bring Miep Gies, the Dutch woman whose family hid Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis, to the school to lecture. The school didn’t have the budget, so the students held a series of fundraisers to make it happen. And that wasn’t all.
They also raised funds to bring Zlata Filipović, whose book they studied, to America.
The more they determined to step out, the more the necessary resources appeared. Their determination was the difference maker. “There is no deficit in human resources,” as King said in his 1964 Nobel lecture, “the deficit is in human will.” Resources are necessary, but they’re never the precondition for success. The perceived lack of resources is often a benefit in disguise. In fact, dealing with constraints can trigger a cascade of unforeseen rewards. For one, they force us to rise to the occasion and give our best to the pursuit. Easy resources make for weak performance. Economist Julian Simon called human creativity the ultimate resource, but often limitations are needed to unleash it. A lack of resources spurs resourcefulness. Limited resources also builds resiliency and confidence. The more times we overcome difficulties, the more capable we are of overcoming whatever comes next. In short, an apparent lack of resources might be the most important resource we have. Our limiting beliefs keep us from seeing that. But here’s a liberating truth: we live in a world of genuine abundance, a world full of the resources we need to pursue our most important goals. That doesn’t mean you won’t ultimately require the resources you currently lack. If your goal is big enough, you’ll probably require more and different resources than you assume when you start. But start. A lack of resources is never a good excuse to stay put. Treat it instead as a prompt for what to tackle as the next step toward your goal. Revise Your Beliefs You don’t have to be hemmed in by limiting beliefs. You can exchange them for liberating truths. I’d like to suggest a simple six-step process to help you do that. Please note: It’s good to have a notebook or journal for this exercise. First, recognize the limiting belief. I mentioned several giveaways in the last chapter. If a belief reflects black-and-white thinking, it might be a limiting belief. Same thing if it’s personalizing, catastrophizing, or universalizing. It could be coming from past experience, the media, or your social circle. Whatever the content of the belief, no matter how true it
seems, it’s important to recognize that it’s just an opinion about reality— and there’s a good shot it’s wrong. Second, record the belief. It might be something like, “I don’t have enough experience.” “I don’t have the right experience.” “I can’t write.” “I always quit.” “I’m not creative.” “I always fail eventually.” “I’m not very good with money.” “I’m not very disciplined.” “I’m terrible with technology.” Let’s be honest. It could be anything. We all have our own challenges. The first time she did this exercise, Natalee, one of my 5 Days to Your Best Year Ever course alumni, was the tired young mom of two. She had recently quit her job and moved with her family to a new city. “One of my limiting beliefs was I just don’t have enough energy,” she told me. “I can’t get to this because I’m trying to provide for these two little humans.” That was just the start. Another of Natalee’s limiting beliefs: “Maybe I am meant to be mediocre and maybe I’m just meant to have a life of insignificance.” I had a friend who was laid off from his job in his midfifties. I’ll call him Greg. The Great Recession was in full swing, and he had a really difficult time getting reemployed. Over the course of three years, I started seeing this story taking root in his thinking. He would say, “Well, I’m just too old.” He also had two graduate degrees. Then the story became, “I’m overeducated.” Greg’s situation was tough, no doubt about it. But the culprit was not his age or his education. It was his beliefs about his age and education. Try to jot down your limiting belief word for word. By writing it down you externalize it. Now you’re free to evaluate it. Third, review the belief. Start by evaluating whether the belief is empowering. Try to look at it objectively. Is it enabling you to accomplish the outcomes you want, or is it preventing you from doing so? Be honest. “It was hard to see those words on paper, and I realized that I thought that
about myself,” Natalee admitted. Until she wrote it down, it clouded her thinking. By externalizing it, she was free to confront it. It’s important to note that people are sometimes addicted to their limiting beliefs, just like Charlie from earlier. Maybe it gives them a sense of certainty. Maybe it gives them a sense of drama or significance because they think they’ve got the world figured out. Honest evaluation is the key to freedom. Fourth, reject or reframe the belief. If a limiting belief is false, you can simply reject it. Sometimes this is a straight swap like my personal examples above. That’s what Natalee did. “When I saw those limiting beliefs I wrote down about me, I realized that those came from such a dark place,” she said. “That’s just not who I was. That was almost coming from somewhere else. Writing down the opposite of that—those liberating truths —felt so good to say something positive about myself and to begin to taste that confidence and see the hope and possibility of what I could become if I really started to believe in myself.” To pull this off, you might need to martial a case, just like Bob Goff did for Don Miller. Bob took Don’s limiting belief (“I’m no good at relationships”) and offered him a liberating truth in exchange (“I’m good at relationships”), then pressed his case with supporting examples. Reframing is a bit more involved. Many limiting beliefs have a kernel of truth in them. That’s what makes them so convincing. But they’re not the whole truth. If a limiting belief is true or partly true, you don’t have to settle for it. You can always recast the story. Take the example of the media. Yes, there’s a lot of bad news, but it’s only part of the picture. Against what news anchors are always saying, the evidence shows the world is actually getting better in a number of key areas: The number of annual hours worked continues to fall. The number of democracies in the world continues to rise. The number of people enslaved continues to fall. Violent crime rates continue to fall. The number of wars continues to decrease. World life expectancy continues to rise. Pay and college degrees awarded to women continue to rise.6 And the list goes on.
In response to Greg, who blamed his unemployment on his age, I pointed to the fact that older workers often have assets employers covet and which are perfectly suited for the entrepreneurial environments, including life experience, intellectual capital, and deep social networks. Researchers at Duke and Harvard studied startups earning at least $1 million and discovered the founders’ median age was thirty-nine. “Twice as many were older than 50 as were younger than 25,” said Vivek Wadhwa, who led the research team. “In a follow-up project, we studied the backgrounds of 549 successful entrepreneurs in 12 high-growth industries,” he added. “The average and median age of male founders in this group was 40, and a significant proportion were older than 50.”7 Age has its advantages. And it’s the same with youth. Early in my career I felt I was too young to succeed, and I hear people say similar things all the time. But it’s a convenient excuse. Some of the most energetic and effective executives and business owners in my Free to FocusTM productivity workshops are in their twenties and thirties. I’ll come back to Natalee’s entrepreneurial story later, but she’s in the same boat. Another friend, who’s not even thirty, owns multimillion-dollar online properties and nearly a hundred convenience stores and gas stations. If you think your age is the problem, you need to reframe. When we obsess on what’s wrong, we miss what’s right. It skews our view and blinds us to opportunities all around us. Perhaps you think, “I’m not a details person.” Fine. Is being a details person a necessity? You could accept that it is and stall out. Or you could reframe it and say something like this: “I’m not a details person, but I can always collaborate with someone who is or outsource the details.” Fifth, revise the belief. This is where it gets interesting. I’m not talking about simple affirmations, though those can be helpful and have their place. I’m talking about reorienting your thinking around a new and liberating truth. If, for instance, you think, “I’m too old to be considered for that job opportunity,” you might say, “I have more experience than other candidates.” Conversely, if you think, “I’m too young for that job,” you might say instead, “I’ve got more energy and enthusiasm than other candidates.” Imagine the difference that perspective makes in a job interview. The old “truth” holds you back. The new one gives you a foothold for real progress. Make sure you write down the revised belief.
Sixth and finally, reorient yourself to the new belief. Start living from the perspective of this new, liberating truth. You might not fully buy into it. That’s fine. Try it on. It may feel awkward at first, like putting on a coat that’s too big. But if you keep telling yourself the truth, it will eventually fit, and you’ll get more comfortable with it. Every time the old belief crops up, reject or reframe it and restate the liberating truth. The trick is to start living as if it’s true. The more we do so, the more we bring our experience into alignment with our expectations. What Are Your Limiting Beliefs? So let me ask you: What are your limiting beliefs? They could be beliefs about the world, others, or yourself. What are the stories and expectations that prevent you from living the kind of life you want, the kind of life you were meant to live? If you haven’t already, I encourage you to write down your limiting beliefs. Draw a line down a page. On one side place your limiting beliefs. On the other write corresponding liberating truths. Consider the side with your liberating truths your new personal manifesto for achieving your goals. You have what it takes. Upgrading your beliefs is the first step toward experiencing your best year ever. The next step is to get resolution on the past so you can move confidently into the future.
STEP 1 ACTION PLAN
- Recognize the Power of Your Beliefs “Our thoughts determine our lives,” as the Serbian monk Thaddeus of Vitovnica said. Both positively and negatively, your beliefs have tremendous impact on your experience of life. Recognizing that fact is the first stage in experiencing your best year ever.
- Confront Your Limiting Beliefs We all have limiting beliefs about the world, others, and ourselves. Four indicators you’re trapped in a limiting belief are whether your opinion is formed by: ‣ Black-and-white thinking ‣ Personalizing ‣ Catastrophizing ‣ Universalizing It’s also important to identify the source of your limiting beliefs, whether it’s past experience, the news media, social media, or negative relationships.
- Upgrade Your Beliefs Get a notebook or a pad of paper and draw a line down the middle of the page so you have two columns. Now use this six-step process to swap your limiting beliefs for liberating truths. ‣ RECOGNIZE your limiting belief. Upgrading your thinking starts with awareness, so take a minute to reflect on what beliefs are holding you back. ‣ RECORD the belief. In the left-hand column, jot down the belief. Writing it down helps you externalize it. ‣ REVIEW the belief. Evaluate how the belief is serving you. Is it empowering? Is it helping you reach your goals? ‣ REJECT/REFRAME the belief. Sometimes you can simply contradict a limiting belief. Other times, you might need to build a case against it or look at your obstacles from a better angle. ‣ REVISE the belief. In the right-hand column write down a new liberating truth that corresponds to the old limiting belief. ‣ REORIENT yourself to the new belief. Commit to living as if it’s true.