Shifting from Destructive Beliefs to Constructive Beliefs
Posted on November 08, 2013 by Christa King, One of Thousands of Health and Fitness Coaches on Noomii.
Your thoughts manifest your reality and we often don’t notice how damaging they can be. It's time to become aware and shift them!
About a month ago, I was reminded of how a client’s beliefs can influence their ability to overcome challenges and insecurities and achieve their goals. These core beliefs can support or limit their efforts, as well as have a real impact on progress.
Of course this had been a topic in both my hypnotherapy and coaching training. But it was after this presentation that I really started to key into my clients’ belief systems and clearly saw the need to support them in: A. identifying destructive beliefs, testing their validity (or lack thereof), and then making a shift to a constructive belief.
With ease, I found my own way of navigating this process with them. It’s been so successful with my clients that I wanted to share it with my Guided Lotus subscribers.
Become aware of destructive beliefs. Whether you believe it or not, your thoughts manifest your reality and because they can become so automatic and routine, we don’t even notice how damaging they can be. I often point these out to my clients and am frequently met with a surprised reaction – they didn’t even realize how much their thoughts were holding them back!
Test the validity of the beliefs.
Sometimes a negative thought is true and accurate (not just a leftover subconscious program from childhood). For example, “I can’t become a medical doctor without an advanced education and going to med school.” Fact. We can test that to be true by researching education requirements ourselves or relaying on our life experience and/or feedback from others that showed where that’s true.
Often times, destructive beliefs are based in fear and insecurities, housed in our subconscious. For example, “I can’t make a six-figure income without an advanced degree.” As a coach, I would take this opportunity to really question the client on the evidence they have to support this is true. Then I’d ask the client to test to see if there were any examples they could think of where this wasn’t true.
From this part of the process they get VERY clear about what is true and more importantly, what ISN’T.
Reframe the Destructive into Constructive. Now the fun part! Once my client can see the holes in what they thought was true, I invite them to come up with a constructive belief to replace it. I’m working with a client now that felt she lacked the connections to find a job in her chosen field. Upon exploration and testing, she found it to be untrue and was able to not only reframe the statement, but also clearly identify the connections she DID have! Two more destructive statements popped up, “I can’t start my job search until I have my ducks in a row” and “I can’t do something I love and make money at it – prosperity and creativity can’t coexist.” So as an exercise, I invited her to test the validity of those statements and if she found them to be untrue, to reframe them into constructive beliefs. I bet you can imagine the shifts she’ll be making here!
I genuinely hope you find this exercise helpful. If you’re finding it hard to identify and shift those limiting thoughts, then I encourage you to reach out for support. Visit www.guidedlotus.com to request your FREE 30-minute session.
