The other day I was working with my client, “Sally” on her network marketing business and she said something that caused me to stop the call instantly.
“I’m not a good recruiter.”
My client who would never see herself as an excuse maker had a limiting belief!
A limiting belief is a thing you believe about yourself that puts a limitation on your abilities.
We all have thoughts and feelings that are less than helpful. It only becomes a belief though when it becomes attached to the phrase, “I am.”
I have some less than helpful thoughts and feelings. Are we ever going to sell anything? Am I good enough to be a leader? I don’t know if I even know what I’m doing. Those are a normal part of being human because we instinctively are super aware of threats for our survival. But I work really hard not to attach an “I am” because then it becomes a part of an identity. One that tripped me up a few years ago was when I started to believe I was a sales trainer who couldn’t sell enough.
In the past 24 hours, I’ve encountered clients in 1-on-1 coaching or a mastermind with these thoughts:
- I am a hot mess
- I am a pain in the butt to you as my coach
- I’m not good at relationships
Can you relate to any of this?
The biggest problem isn’t having the beliefs. The biggest problem is that we can’t see that we have the beliefs. We can’t see the label when we are in the bottle.
I tried to write a story post for social media being transparent about my limiting beliefs. I couldn’t think of any. I asked my business partner what she thought mine were, she couldn’t see any either.
So that means I’m perfect and have no limiting beliefs right? Nope, I’m sure I do. (Don’t respond to this by telling me what they are LOL, I’m way too fragile to take that feedback right now. My coach has me covered on this, trust me)
It’s that once we become aware of a limiting belief, we can easily correct it and it no longer imposes limits on us.
So I have a really quick 5-minute exercise for you, if you want to make sure limiting beliefs don’t sabotage your business.
- Brainstorm (without judgement) the beliefs you have about your abilities in your business
- Next to them, write an “L” if it’s a limiting belief, or “E” if it’s an empowering belief
- If it’s a limiting belief, ask yourself, is this true?
- Write down next to it the answer to “what is true?” and then “what is truest?”
- Once you know what is true, jot down an action you will do to reinforce that.
BOOM! Now any limiting beliefs you have will start to get weaker just by bringing them to light.
And what about “Sally” and “not being a good recruiter?” What was true was that she hadn’t yet adopted the identity of a good recruiter and therefore wasn’t looking for opportunities to reinforce that identity. What was “truest” was that if “Sally” made a commitment to be a great recruiter she would create a large team because the evidence shows that anything Sally has committed to with a positive mindset, she has figured out in the past.
I hope this was helpful for you as a start. On 11/24 I am doing a full workshop on “The Top 5 Mindset Mistakes Network Marketers Make When Trying To Overcome Limiting Beliefs” in the Emerge Surge. The Emerge Surge is our coaching group. To join is only $47 a month but this is the Surge’s birthday month! So the first 2 weeks are on me. Join the Surge with a 2-week free trial here to get access to this awesome workshop (live or recorded):emergesales.kartra.com/page/14days