How to destroy your limiting beliefs... right after breakfast.

and a story about golden retrievers.

Improve your life is a weekly newsletter focused on self-improvement.

I write about looking inside and doing your own inner work.

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Thanks for reading and enjoy. -Ian

That’s you after you destroy your old, false beliefs about your potential.

I chose to write a set of actionable and tactical steps for overcoming your limiting beliefs after finding out through research that this is one of the major obstacles for people looking to get into inner work. 

My goal with this newsletter is not simply to tell you the concepts and methods that have worked for me, but to give you actual, tactical, step by step processes to work through your stuff. So, let’s tackle limiting beliefs. 

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Golden Retrievers are your model, they DGAF.

I wrote the outline for this post while sitting in Northern Michigan in my car under a perfectly clear sky in the gravel parking lot of an inland lake near my house.  I was lucky enough to be watching two very friendly golden retrievers chase each other while fetching a ball and swim in the lake.  Right next to the dogs swimming in the water was a mother duck and eight or so ducklings just diving under the water swimming back and forth, playing, that’s what was happening, all these animals were doing nothing but playing.  What a lesson. 

Sitting there, I realized, you know who doesn’t have limiting beliefs, golden f…ing retrievers, that’s who.  That’s where we want to go, towards the attitude of golden retrievers, animals in general, basking literally every second in the ocean of potential and the potential of the moment.  Nothing more nothing less. 

The only thing a golden retriever thinks to itself is something like;

“next moment of joy please, thank you”  

We, though, are modern humans, and as conscious beings we do have limiting beliefs. These false beliefs cause problems.  Here’s what I came up with, as an exercise to destroy your limiting beliefs.

(and for the record, yes I did this exercise as I was writing this.  It’s all real friends. ) 

You are not limited.

Right out front, I want you to know that my primary belief regarding our limiting beliefs is that they are culture bound.  By this, I mean that because we exist inside a culture first, everything we believe about what we are capable of is filtered through this culture and cultural constructs¹.  

An example: You want to completely change your life and move to a foreign country and teach English as a foreign language.  You will, undoubtedly, encounter resistance and opposition to this idea from all of your cultural connections.  Your family certainly and likely the majority of your friends.  That one friend you have that has already had a similar adventure will be the exception to this rule.  This endeavor is not a standard component of the culture and because culture is self reinforcing, you need to expect resistance², and push back. This is cultural filtering. 

The hard part, as with all resistance, is pushing through this to the other side and having the adventure, doing the thing, buying the ticket, taking the ride.  This is really the baseline of all of my writing here.  Pushing forward.  It works for me, so I have high confidence that it will work for you. 

The two step process:

Fortunately for us, this week, the tactical process for getting behind your limiting beliefs is straightforward.  You get them out of you, look at them and then destroy them with facts.  Here’s my example.

If you clicked on this post, you likely have at least one, if not multiple, limiting beliefs which you would like to dismantle.  I want you to think of at least one, or as many as you’d prefer.  Write these beliefs down in detail.  

Here’s my example of my limiting beliefs: 

1.I cannot be a therapist because it is too late in life, too costly and too time consuming. 

2. I cannot retire by age 50 because that is too difficult and ridiculous.

3. I cannot be a professional writer because it is now impossible in the age of AI

The act of writing these beliefs down moves the energy through you.  That’s what you need. You want that thought in your head, gripping you, to come down through your arm and onto the page.  You need to pour it out.  That’s just how it works for our us humans. 

We are conscious so we need to let the energy of consciousness move through us.  This movement is half the battle. This is why journaling works so well and you can become addicted to it just like anything else.  We get all the same dopamine rush when we are able to filter all of our thoughts out of us instead of clattering around in our head like a screw loose in an engine. 

Time to destroy.

Now that you have your list, you are going to write three, at least reasons why these limiting beliefs are not true under each one.  It’s that simple.  The reason this is so effective is because your Self, your inner knowing, your calm center, the opposite of your ego, already has these reasons ready to go.  

Here is my example of my destruction list:

1. I cannot be a therapist because it is too late in life, too costly and too time consuming. 

   1. It’s never too late to do anything in life if you are determined enough.

   2. Many people wait until midlife to change their profession.

   3. It only takes three years to complete the training.

2. I cannot retire by age 50 because it is too difficult.

   1. Of course this is possible, many people have done this, it’s all about your mindset.

   2. This is only a math problem.

   3. If you really want to, you will find a way.

3. I cannot be a professional writer because it is now impossible in the age of AI.

   1. There are still thousands of professional writers working, it’s a time and consistency game.

   2. Humans will always want to hear real stories from other humans.

   3. You are already building a body of work, just keep going.

Massive benefits:

Now that you have this list of exactly why your limiting beliefs are not true, you are beyond the belief.  You have come to understand that it is simply not true.  And the best part is that you knew this all along, because you had a list of absurd reasons all along.  The magic of this exercise is that you were able to so easily disprove all of these beliefs.  Your Self knew that they were incorrect and how easily it could disprove them. 

It’s almost as though time is a flat circle and the Self can see everything. It just makes sense. 

We see a line. The Self sees everything. 

Regardless of how it works, you now have solid proof that these limiting beliefs are indeed both absurd and not true

Now you make a plan.

What will you do with this knowledge?  You now know that your ego was trying to trick you.  But, now you need to make a plan of action.  It’s not enough to have tackled the belief, you have to lock in on something.  If one of these beliefs was something that you really want to do, and it very likely is, now you can harness the power in knowing that you know what you are capable of. 

Let’s say you have narrowed down your list of beliefs to that one specific idea about yourself. This is where all the power lies.  Now, decide to work on this.  With your newfound confirmation of what you are capable of, you filter your energy down to make this a reality. Focus on it intently. This is a very simple concept, but it works.  Focus on one thing, idea, project and you will make much faster progress.  Remember that your Self already saw this exercise through, you had to go through it in linear time.

Take what you have learned and put it to work.

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Did this two step system work for you?

Which limiting beliefs did you destroy and what is the plan now!?

1. For the deepest of dives on this, listen to Terence McKenna explain this concept and please report back, I’d love to know what you think!

2. For more on resistance read this.