Having mentioned in previous posts about my understanding of confidence, it is a state of knowing who you are and what you are capable of. Often, mixed with this 'knowing' comes 'unknowing', which is then referred to as self-limiting believes. This can be one of the biggest resistance in our life that holds us back from being completely free. We just don't think we are ready for it, we are not good enough, it won't work for us. And the list goes on and on.
The conventional wisdom tells us to be aware of self-doubt, when it raises from within, we need to learn to counter-argue with it and eventually we will be able to eliminate the belief. We are also told to continue doing what we want to do despite having those second guessing. These mental training are very effective in the field of professional sports and entertainment. You don't have enough time and your coach won't have enough patience to listen to all your whining, you have to be able to perform despite having negative voice in your ear, you just suck it up and go out there.
However, not all of us are professional athletes, not every minute in our day are spent as if we are in the tension filled locker room before the big games, not every situation in our life we run into are like those epic moments when others putting their lives on your hands. This is when we are more susceptible to self-sabotages and harsh self-critics. It can really get us down.
Another approach to eliminating self-limiting believes is by doing meditations and self-inquiries to see ourselves better, to understand where these self-believes come from and work from there. This is a proven way of self-healing, but it takes time. Moreover, like I mentioned about how environments impact your believes and your outlook to the world, if you are not self-aware enough, your progress gained sitting on the cushion will soon vanished when you enter into your world, when usual things come at you again the usual ways. It can be very frustrating to.
I do believe in meditating and self-affirmative talk. However, i do think that changing our perspective on the things we experience will have tremendous shift in the way we look at things, and this doesn't take too long to change either.
I used to have a lot of self-limiting believes about myself. People always disagree with my believes but they can't prove me wrong. One of the most constant believes that I have about my life is that everything is so much more challenging for me because I am Asian. People will perceive me in a lot of ways that are not true because of the stereotype. I will find challenges in dating, professional life, business life and social life. This used to make so very upset that I just hated everybody and felt so bitter about myself. I was looking for others to validate me and proof to me that my limiting believes weren't true. Yet, I only wanted to hear what I wanted to hear, there would be nothing people could do to convince me if I wasn't ready to accept new perspectives.
I gave up on the idea of changing that self-limiting believe. I didn't see a good point to meditate on it anymore, and there was nothing actionable for me to try to self affirm about those believes. I still had to live my life.
All that changed one day when something just hit me. I wasn't changing my believes, but I had a very different way of looking at my life and from then on, things started to change on its own.
I started to look at my life as a video game that I was playing. In video games, you have different level of difficulties to set depending on your experience and skills. Life is the same way. The easy mode is for weak people, they are born into wealth, have everything set up for them, never have to work and take craps from anybody and they live easy lives. This kind of life is great and easy, just like the easy mode in your video game. It comes with a lot of pleasures and fun, but it doesn't make you satisfied because its easy mode.
Moderate mode is for people that have some strength, that can handle some level of challenges. These people going through lives not so smoothly, they do have to work pretty hard for things.
Difficult mode is for people that are exceptionally strong. These people are born into hardship and challenges, but they are doing the best they can to make the most out of it, They have very limited resources, very limited care and knowledge, they also risk their lives trying to make a living. This life is hard, but it builds your character the way no easy life can. You will have little pleasure to enjoy in this life, but you will gain a lot of satisfaction at the end of it. The more difficult life gets, the higher the difficulty mode is in the video game you are playing.
I basically take my limiting believes and turn it into difficult elements in the video game that I am playing called life, and I manage to convince me that my difficulty level is set to be pretty high. I know this is not necessarily true realistically, but it becomes self-empowering. I know that my life isn't going to be as easy, that's why I am convinced that I am a strong person because I set the difficulty high and I have to strength to get through this.
Ever since then, every adversity I face in life that i think it's because I am Asian has become a gift to my experience. I just look back at the end of my day and smile to myself saying 'Yup, that's right. We are playing hard mode and that makes me better than those playing easy mode.'
Over the years, I even realized that some of the limiting believes is not necessarily true anymore, my belief system has been shaken by new experience I have had since I adept this new outlook to life. It's interesting to say but it is very true that you don't convince your mind if you mind is not ready to be convinced. All you have to do is giving your life a new perspective. If life is killing you in whatever ways, just know that you are playing it at hard mode and you have been surviving nicely. Expect rejections and failures as your limiting belief is telling you, but keep trying again because it is hard mode and your man will die a lot quicker than in easy mode. Hit reset and go at it again.
