To Don’t:
•Don’t judge yourself as you dig into your programming. We each have our own to deal with.
•Don’t try to fast-forward through the process. It will take time to undo years of unconscious beliefs.
•Don’t let your limited view of yourself stop you in your tracks. There’s a more powerful version of you beneath that limited view that you are trying to reach.
Do Instead:
•Remember that your experiences have shaped who you are today. You wouldn’t be the kickass high achiever you are without them.
•Stay curious and compassionate. Treat yourself as you would a dear friend.
•Invest the time and energy it takes to get started. You only need a few minutes of focused time each day.
Summing Up
Your personal sources of programming provide critical insight into how you got to where you are today. In our quick-fix way of life, it can be tempting to fast-forward to the remedy, but there’s no way around doing the deep work. Roll up your sleeves and get to it. The understanding you will gain about yourself and others as you do this work is priceless. You will walk away with a newfound appreciation of who you are and how you came to be, beginning to chip away at the self-doubt that keeps you from moving forward. I encourage you to keep a journal as you work your way through the process. There’s no better way to pleasantly surprise yourself than to look back and see how far you’ve come.
Remember:
•You’ve been programmed by many influences at work in your life, including your family dynamics, socioeconomic status, geographic location, political and religious influences, social network, etc.
•Limiting beliefs are formed through our experiences and sources of programming. There are two basic lenses through which we see limitations: the lens through which we view ourselves and the lens through which we view the world.
•Up to this point, you have been heavily influenced by the external world and its expectations, which naturally leads to stagnation as you are not expressing who you truly are, rather marching to the drumbeat that many others are marching to in the absence of a personal definition of success.
•Understanding your personal programming lays the foundation for going from a lack of fulfillment to empowered self-expression and intentional creation.
Get out your journal or laptop and begin your self-examination by contemplating the following questions.
1.Create a table or list and write down the thoughts that come to mind for each of these categories: family dynamics, socioeconomic status, geographic location, political and religious influences, social relationships, and whatever else comes to mind for you. Think in terms of the influence of each of these on you from early life until now. If one of these categories is particularly significant for you, spend some additional time focusing on just that area. For instance, if your family was active in the church and you suffered abuse at the hands of someone respected, how did what you were taught influence the way you decided how to handle the situation? Remember, do not judge yourself. Programming is incredibly powerful. Nothing you did or didn’t do is reason to be down on yourself. It just is, and now is the time to understand why.
2.Start identifying your limiting beliefs. When you consider doing something new or out of the ordinary, what thoughts pop into your head? If it helps, review the list earlier in the chapter until you get rolling. You can separate these into beliefs about yourself versus beliefs about the world around you, if that helps with focus.
3.Once you have some of your limiting beliefs down on paper, ask yourself the following about each:
a.Are they your words or someone else’s? Have those words been spoken before, about you or around you?
b.Do they contain absolutes, like always or never? Those words should be automatic triggers to identifying that particular belief as untrue.
c.Do they point fingers or look externally rather than internally? For instance, a thought like “They always gang up on me” looks outward to blame instead of inwardly asking “Why am I tolerating this?”
d.Are they excuses? Are you saying to yourself “I don’t have time” to do what should be high on your priority list? Again, the point is not to judge yourself, but to see where you are participating in holding yourself back.
As you keep track of your thoughts throughout this process, remember to date your entries and to keep your journal handy. If you have an important realization when you’re out and about, you can use the voice memo app on your phone to quickly record your thoughts and review them later when you have time to sit down and listen. Even if you’ve never journaled before in your life, now is the time to begin. Writing or otherwise communicating what’s happening in the analytical part of your brain helps get the other side of your brain engaged in processing, which will lead to breakthroughs for you as you continue through the process.
Now that we’ve established how good high achievers are at meeting the expectations of the world around them, it’s time to talk about the most damaging set of expectations you will ever be subjected to—those imposed upon you by participating in toxic relationships. You may be wondering why we need to talk about your relationships in the context of transforming your success mindset. It’s simple, really; try as you might, it’s impossible to compartmentalize your work life and your personal life. When something is amiss in one aspect of your life, it shows up in the other, whether you recognize it or not. As a high achiever, you’re accustomed to endurance, bearing pain and discomfort even when it doesn’t serve you. Interpersonal programming is just as critical to growth in all aspects of your life as all the external sources of programming we just covered. It’s easy to dismiss what’s happening in our relationships with others in our lives when we are focused on a single area like work. However, when toxicity is present, it is pervasive, infecting every aspect of how we think and operate. Toxicity can be obvious, but it can also fly under the radar, impacting you in a vague and disquieting way that you have a hard time articulating. You may be tempted to dismiss it because it’s hard to justify how you feel to others, or you may have a sense of shame for being in a toxic situation that you feel powerless to change. Whether you can put it into words or not, it’s having a profoundly negative impact on your life that must be addressed ASAP.
The interactions and experiences we have with those who have little to no regard for the people around them can cause us tremendous pain that inflicts long-lasting damage. It’s like a poison that you continue to breathe in as long as you tolerate interactions with people who do this to you. We may convince ourselves there is no other choice. What if the person poisoning your atmosphere is your boss, spouse, parent, friend, or child? The proximity of the relationship can lead to a sense of defeat before you’ve begun. How is it possible to change the dynamic that you’ve participated in so fully when you know the reaction of the person in question is what you want to avoid at all costs?
Not only is it possible, it’s absolutely necessary. No matter how much you accomplish in every single aspect of personal development, if you do not clean up the toxic leaks in your life, you will not make it as far as you want to go. Toxicity is the ultimate mind poison. It ruins your peace of mind, puts you on edge, makes you feel cornered, and steals any chance you have at joy. Worst of all, you participate in your own destruction when you allow it to go on unchecked.
If