How unhealthy beliefs, thoughts, and actions can sabotage our business
Whether a new entrepreneur or a seasoned professional, and whether you realize it or not, beliefs, thoughts, and actions, play a key role in your success - or sabotage. 😬
I didn’t realize this until I had the desire to grow my business beyond the ceiling it had reached. But, somehow, I couldn’t break through.
What I was doing wasn’t getting the results I desired yet I didn’t know how to do things any differently. I felt like I had tried it all!
So I started exploring something I hadn’t yet; Myself and how I showed up in my business.
This led to me assessing my beliefs and value system and ensuring my values, actions, and beliefs were healthy and aligned. Turns out, there were a few rotten apples I had to clean up.
I am not a psychologist or a trained professional. This post is purely based on personal experience and is not a substitute for medical or psychological advice. I encourage everyone to seek out professional direction that best suits their circumstances.
Beliefs
Your beliefs are the foundation of who you are and how you interact with the world. They are ideas you deem to be true.
“When it comes to business, these beliefs make their way in as we create, ideate, build, and problem solve. ”
We accumulate many in a lifetime. Influenced by our family, friends, mentors, peers, education, and personal experiences. Some are healthy. Others are unhealthy.
Beliefs can evolve. But only when challenged and questioned. Outside of that, they’re on a loop on a subconscious level.
When it comes to business, these beliefs make their way in as we create, ideate, build, and problem solve.
We may have beliefs about what we want our business to stand for (e.g. social, environmental, political causes).
We may have beliefs about how products are manufactured (e.g. local, overseas).
We may even have beliefs about what you want your business to look like (e.g. brick and mortar shop, multi-location franchise, online only).
However, it gets tricky when we get into things like pricing which ties into our belief about money and our own worthiness to earn a fair dollar for what we do. Or, what kind of projects we tackle because of the belief of what we THINK we deserve or how much we can take on. Even, how we deal with customers and what feelings come up if we’re rejected or challenged in some way.
Identify your beliefs
In order to adjust your negative or unhealthy beliefs, you must work to identify them and bring them into your awareness.
Thoughts
Little do we realize that those beliefs convert to stubborn thoughts relatively quickly as situations or circumstances are thrown at us. If we’re not careful, they can become limiting. And sometimes, suffocating or lead to sabotage.
If we believe we aren’t good with money, then that’s what our brains will think; I’m not good with money. And that will influence our decisions and actions surrounding money.
If we think we aren’t educated or experienced enough, we might ignore opportunities that comes our way because you believe you’re undeserving or not ready.
Actions
“When we have beliefs and thoughts about ourselves that are negative or simply untrue, we might hide. Ignore. Refuse to take any action at all which can lead to stagnation and not taking healthy risk to explore our dreams.”
When we have beliefs and thoughts that aren’t quite rooted in truth, as in the above examples, they can cause action that is harmful and detrimental to our success. Especially if the beliefs and subsequent thoughts are unhealthy.
When we have beliefs and thoughts about ourselves that are negative or simply untrue, we might hide. Ignore. Refuse to take any action at all which can lead to stagnation and not taking healthy risk to explore our dreams.
The good news is, we have a choice on what actions we take and thoughts we think. (Outside of a mental illness or disability.) But we must start with adjusting our beliefs.
Challenge
To change these unhealthy beliefs about ourselves, we must challenge them - and make new choices.
Explore the negative beliefs you have about yourself / self worth, money, and business.
Discover the root of how and why they evolved in the first place
Challenge them. Do you believe it to be true today? What real-life evidence do you have to support this belief?
If you discover the belief to be false, you can start changing it through awareness of when it arises and taking action to oppose it
If it is true, what needs to change or what action can you take to change or improve this belief? Can you take a course? Get assistance? Learn a new skill? Hire someone to delegate a task to?
Some professional assistance may be required as this work isn’t easy work and may require some technique beyond your scope of knowledge at the moment. It’s also emotional, frustrating, and challenging so support is always good here. But being stuck is also equally emotional, frustrating, and challenging so why not work towards our ideal?
As someone who has done this work with therapists and coaches (and am still working through some stuff), I can assure you it’s worth the effort to discover new ways of being.
A real life example
For many years, I held a belief that I wasn’t a good enough artist to succeed like my peers and reach the level of success I felt in my heart. (Ahem, it still creeps in once and while, to this day.)
These beliefs led me to thoughts of unworthiness and painted me as an undeserving fraud. Who was I to argue with ME?!
The thoughts eventually turned into action which had a negative impact on my career and business success. It wasn’t too great for me personally either.
When I believed my negative thoughts, I never shared my work or even tried to improve. I never reached out to potential clients in fear of rejection, being ignored, or laughed at. And when clients came to me, I never charged what I was actually worth. Even in my current business, I undercharged for many years in order to please. (My people pleasing is a whole other blog post!)
This led to dissatisfaction as I worked harder for not much more earnings or opportunities. This eventually led to burn out and a lack of respect for myself. Something had to change because this didn’t feel good nor was it helping me reach my ideal goals.
Trying to change the action didn’t work because I was falling back into my belief patterns and got hung up at the start line. So I had to get to the root of the matter which involved therapy, coaching, and group support to help identify and challenge.
This work was so imperative to letting go of self-limiting beliefs that no longer served me. Or had no place showing up in the first place!
Real life results
So what happened when I started changing these unhealthy beliefs? Everything!
I became more of a leader. I set boundaries, was more decisive (without guilt), aligned work and partnerships to what I valued. I even raised prices.
None of it came without a little fear. And it didn’t happen in one fell swoop. It happened in baby steps, over a period of time.
Some beliefs were easier than others to change. While some, I’m still working on. But, it’s improving. And so is my business and how I see myself so I’m excited to see how it all plays out.
What are some of your tips for challenging self limiting beliefs, thoughts, or actions?
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