If you’ve been on a journey of personal or professional growth for more than an hour, there’s one thing you’ve probably learned: No one grows to become a better leader or entrepreneur by accident. It requires effort, intention, and determination. Everything worthwhile is uphill.
To make it up the growth slope, we need to figure out the best route and make steady progress on the way up. That often means removing obstacles that are in our way. Leaving them there will slow or even stop your growth progress. Removing them can free you to run toward your growth goals.
And most of the obstacles we run into aren’t related to our circumstances – they have more to do with the man or woman in the mirror. What kind of obstacles are these? They have to do with what you believe.
Think about this: While it’s true that belief alone rarely gets you where you want to go, belief usually does determine whether or not you even try to get there at all. And time and again, three negative beliefs have stopped smart people in their tracks and limited their growth.
As you read these descriptions, ask yourself if you hold any of these beliefs. If you do, they are holding you back from reaching your full potential. When you replace them with positive beliefs and assumptions, you’ll remove limitations and free yourself to grow.
1. Scarcity.
How do you view options? Resources? Opportunities? A person with a scarcity mindset believes that those things are limited – that we’re all competing for a finite number of resources or options. Kevin Myers puts it like this: they see the world as a pie with only a certain number of slices, and everybody is competing to get some.
For some people, this belief motivates them to be their best in order to grab their fair share of the pie. But for many, a belief in scarcity demotivates them, because they believe the odds of winning one of only a few slices simply aren’t in their favor.
If you struggle with a belief in scarcity, choose instead to practice abundance thinking. Instead of seeing only limited options or resources, choose to believe that they are abundant. In other words, if you see others grabbing all the pieces of the pie, you don’t need to panic – just bake another pie! Believers in abundance choose to focus on possibilities, and this enables them to pursue them.
2. Insecurity.
If scarcity says the world doesn’t have enough, insecurity says I’m not enough. Insecurity is a minimizing of one’s self – it’s seeing your abilities, talents, and strengths as deficient in some way. When you believe you’re not good or talented enough, that’s an obstacle to growth. After all, why pursue any goal if you don’t think you’re capable of reaching it? Insecure people may recognize chances to advance and grow, but they don’t believe in their ability to seize those opportunities.
If you struggle with insecurity, practice confident thinking. Choose to believe that you do have something to offer. Every life is unique; you are the only person on earth who brings your skills, talents, and experiences to the table. That’s worth something! Believing in your abilities empowers you to use them – to succeed and to grow.
3. Powerlessness.
A belief in powerlessness comes out of the assumption that we have no ability to affect our world. Powerlessness often begins with a wound – perhaps from someone in authority ignoring or dismissing your voice – but it hardens over time into a mentality that cannot recognize personal responsibility for anything that happens in life.
If you struggle with a feeling of powerlessness, embrace responsibility. That means owning what you can do and releasing what you can’t. No one can control everything, but with the things you can control, take full responsibility. Or, to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, do the best you can with what you have, where you are.
Share your thoughts, insights, and experiences in the comments below! Let's inspire and support each other on this journey of continual improvement and self-discovery. Your input may just spark a breakthrough for someone else.
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