Self-enabling or self-limiting beliefs – your subconscious doesn't know the difference!

Imagine you’re a paperboy or papergirl walking up a driveway toward a house with your papers and a big dog attacks you and bites your bum!  Firstly, you feel some pain in your bum and secondly, for the first time you’re having thoughts like “some dogs bite” or “why did the dog bite me?”

Imagine you go up the next driveway and another different dog bites your bum.  Again it’s a painful experience for you.  Your earlier thought, that some dogs bite, might now change to “quite a lot of dogs bite”, or “why are these dogs biting me?” 

Imagine you walk up a third driveway and another dog bites you  – your bum is very painful now and you might be thinking and BEGINNING TO BELIEVE that “all dogs bite!” 

Go up the fourth driveway and you see a dog slavering, growling and teeth showing…

“How will you behave when you see the 4^th dog showing its teeth, growling and slavering?” 

Was your first thought to run away?  Were you paralysed, did you attack the dog? 

The point is our beliefs drive our behaviour.  Because we have built up a belief that “dogs bite” and our past experiences cause us to believe this to be true we become motivated to behave in a way that avoids being bitten again. 

Our belief that all dogs are aggressive causes us to behave in a way that leads us to avoid dogs.  However, we all know that NOT ALL dogs are aggressive.  Therefore our belief that all dogs are aggressive can be described as a self-limiting belief because we miss out on the opportunity to enjoy the friendship and company of nice dogs.

By way of another example - Someone close to you is very practical and as a young person you help him or her to do some work around the house (DIY).  They tell you “you are good with your hands”.  Each time this experience is repeated your thought that you are good with your hands is reinforced.  After time you will begin to believe that you are good with your hands.  When in the future you are asked to do DIY – you will probably be interested in the opportunity, have a positive attitude toward the job and value the outcome you can achieve because you believe you are good with your hands and therefore good at DIY.

So once more we believe that it is of great importance to ask ourselves:

“Is this a destructive or constructive belief, behaviour, thought or feeling for me?” 

Don’t take the chance; make sure you build self-enabling beliefs.