Author: Joshua Arimi (39 Articles)
When I learn something beneficial in life, I want to tell it to everyone so that they can do the same. Where you are, what you have, what you will become is as a direct result of what you choose to think. Change your T.
Author: Joshua Arimi (39 Articles)
When I learn something beneficial in life, I want to tell it to everyone so that they can do the same. Where you are, what you have, what you will become is as a direct result of what you choose to think. Change your T.
Most likely you have seen incredibly nice and amazing photos or videos of Indians or tourists in Asia riding on elephants. An elephant is normally a very big and strong animal. I have always been wondering how do they manage to tame elephants until it is possible to ride on them?.
Most of the elephants are tamed while they are young. Taming is done by tying one leg of a calf of an elephant with a very strong rope to an immensely strong post. This makes it immobile. So whenever the calf tries to move it becomes impossible. The calf keeps trying and trying to release itself and eventually it becomes apparent that it can not untie itself so it resigns to fate-it gives up. This inability to untie itself or cut the rope makes it to succumb to the idea that it can never move whenever it is tied with a rope. This idea repeats itself in its mind whenever it tries to get itself off the rope. After this ideas occurs many times it becomes a belief leading to the calf to believe that it is impossible to cut the rope.
After the young elephant develops this belief, the owner is happy because he can then train it. The trainer starts the training regime. As the calf grows, becomes big and puts on alot of weight the trainer keeps on tying it with rope. By this time the mind of the grown up elephant is already conditioned that it is impossible to break itself lose. Actually the owner starts to use weaker ropes which an elephant can cut, but the elephant keeps believing that it cannot cut the rope.
Similarly, that is the same way that we think of ourselves. We have different ‘trainers’ who have used different techniques and ways (ropes) to instill different negative ideas into our minds. The recurrent of these ideas has led us to develope what I call limiting beliefs. With time we have developed several limiting beliefs. Like an elephant these limiting beliefs or negative thinking patterns have put us at bay from achieving what is actually very easy and possible.
Some of the ‘trainers’ that have led us to have these limiting beliefs could be our parents/guardians/teachers, society, media, friends or even ourselves. Let us look how each of these ‘trainers’ influence us to think negatively and have limiting beliefs
Parents/guardians/teachers.
To start with let me make it clear that this category of people does not wish us to have limiting beliefs. However, due to their ignorance or circumstances they have spread some viruses in form of limiting beliefs to us. For example imagine a case of a mother who is a medical doctor by profession. She has always wished her daughter to follow her footsteps and become a doctor. However, her daughter wishes to become a musician and she has a Passion for it. One day the daughter comes home very happy after scoring good grades at school, she starts singing at her highest pitch in the house celebrating her achievement. Her mother wishes she can keep quiet. At some point the mother becomes impatient and shouts at the daughter. Shut up! you have such a ugly voice, I don’t think such a voice is good for singing. Your guess is as good as mine. The daughter gets disappointed and discouraged and shuts up. Every time she tries to sing at home the mother repeats statements with similar connotations that she is a poor singer. The daughter believes she is very bad in singing. This could eat her aspiration to become a singer. In this case, it was not the intention of the mother to curtail dreams of her daughter, but her wish that her daughter becomes a medical doctor led her daughter to believe that she is not good as a singer.
You might think this is an over exaggerated example. We have all heard statements like, you are too short to play basketball, you are not as clever as so and so.. etc. One of such a real-life case is of Ricardo Izecson dos Santos Leite alias Kaka the Brazilian footballer who is currently playing for Real Madrid football club of Spain (earning £200, 000 per week) , previously-up to this summer- he has been playing for AC Milan of Italy. By the way Kaka is one of the finest footballers in the world. Kaka was very skinny while in school to the extent that one teacher insinuated that he can never make it in football. Kaka never bought to such a limiting idea. He aligned his thinking with his goal to become a footballer and he excelled beyond imagination.
Society
We were all born in a society. The society that we were born in has its own ways of life called culture. The society always and will always want us to live according to pre-set cultural behaviours and practices even if we think they are not good for us. These pre-set cultural practices have led us to think in a certain way. The thoughts we have developed due to social cultural practices sometimes are very limiting while others are very progressive. Out of experience most of the demands by the society are limiting to our wishes.
Media
On of the key culprit of spreading the virus of limiting ideas in the 20th and 21st century is the media. The media can be in the form of TV, newspapers, magazines, movies, internet etc. Lets take for example the TV personalities. Normally the TV companies employs only the so called people with ‘perfect bodies’. This has led us to have notions that if you don’t have the either ‘best body figure’ or ‘looks’ you are not good enough or you are a lesser human being. This has led most people to have low self esteem and confidence due to the way they look.
Ourselves
Lets not have holier-than-thou attitude. We are also to blame for most of our limiting beliefs. There are some ideas that we have harboured in our minds over time that limits us. Over time, these ideas have been embeded in our subconscious mind and its difficult to realise them unless if they are pointed out by someone else. Below are some of such ideas:
- They are all wrong. You always think that your way is the one and only way of doing things, others can never do anything good. e.g. If you are a supervisor and your manager needs a report, you write it yourself because you think your juniors can never do it right. This puts strain on your valuable time and adversely affects your productivity.
- Should, would, could thinking. You know what you are capable of doing and what to do to change your life but….e.g. I know that I should do to stop smoking but I might loose friends…. This type of thinking has left you stuck on your negative habits for ages.
- Negative notion. You presume you know what other people are thinking about you and its all negative. e.g. She thinks I hate her, I will not talk to her. Imagine refusing to talk to your supervisor because you think she hates you! Its at your own peril.
- Unsubstatntiated conclusions. Most people make conclusions without concrete evidence. This limits you from seeing the reality. e.g. He smiled at me, he has crush on me or My boss looked at me like this or that this morning, he must be very mad with me.
- Nobody is trustworthy except me. There is this category of people who think everybody is out to cheat them, lie to them, steal from them etc. e.g. all men are cheats. The people who have a belief like this live in constant fear and mistrust.
In the next post I will outline how to overcome these limiting beliefs. I hope this article has brought to your attention or reminded you some of the limiting ideas that are hindering you from achieving your goal.
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