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One of the prominent reasons for our financial success or failure is linked to beliefs, which are stored in our subconscious mind about money. If these beliefs are positive about money, then there is a very high probability to have successful financial life. But if these beliefs are not positive, then most of the time we are in trouble for money. In this case, money is going to be a struggle for us.
Below insightful EXERCISE will help you to identify self-limiting beliefs about money & also way ahead to change those beliefs for your financial growth. (Courtesy ‘The Most Powerful Goal Achievement System in the World’ by Mike Pettigrew)
Power of ‘Because’
The English language contains a wonderful word that can help you to uncover all sorts of limiting beliefs. That word is “because”, and whenever you see the word “because” in a sentence, it is always followed by a reason.
This means you can use the word “because” as a tool to uncover all sorts of reasons — both conscious and subconscious — why you cannot achieve something.
In this exercise, you will be reading a sentence about not being able to succeed financially, and you will be reading that sentence aloud. Then you will write out 10 reasons why you cannot achieve it.
Get the Input from Subconscious Mind
You need to do the first part of this exercise as quickly as you can without really thinking. Don’t be logical, just read the sentence aloud, and write down your first reason as quickly as you can. You need to just write down the first thing that comes into your mind, no matter how foolish it may seem. This exercise is not about coming up with logical reasons. Rather, it is an exercise you need to do as quickly as possible, without really thinking, or analyzing, or even judging your reasons. When you do this, some of those reasons will be coming directly from your subconscious mind.
It’s your subconscious beliefs and attitudes that we want to reveal in this exercise. If you do the first part of this exercise slowly, then it will not work nearly as well for you.
Exercise Steps
Here are each of the steps in this exercise in more detail, and in this case, we are uncovering limiting beliefs about wealth:
Step 1: Speak the following sentence out loud “I can’t become rich because…….”
Step 2: Next, as quickly as you can write out a single reason why you can’t become rich.
Step 3: Next, speak the same sentence aloud again “I can’t become rich because…….” and quickly write out another reason why you can’t become rich. Repeat this exact same process (of reading the sentence aloud and quickly writing your response) until you have at least 10 reasons.
Step 4: Now look at each of your reasons, and you may be surprised by what they reveal!
If you are currently not rich and you believe it may be difficult to become wealthy, then I’m sure you have written down all sorts of valid reasons why that is so. It’s easy to come up with lots of reasons why you can’t achieve something, particularly if it’s a big, long-term goal.
For example, you might come up with some of the following reasons that could show you the unhealthy attitudes and beliefs you currently hold towards money and wealth.
I can’t become rich because:
- Money doesn’t grow on trees
- Rich people are greedy
- If I was wealthy, everybody would hate me
- There is only so much to go around
- Money is the root of all evil
- Rich people are smart, and I’m not
- Rich people are arrogant
- It will be too hard to achieve
Please make sure you have at least 10 responses before you complete this first step of the process. If you want to keep going and can come up with more than 10, then it could make this technique even more effective.
Scoring
Next, look at each response that you have written and give yourself a mark from 1 to 10 for each one. If a response has a strong feeling attached to it, then give it a mark between 6 and 10 – the stronger the emotion, the higher your rating. On the other hand, the responses that you don’t really believe or that don’t have a strong feeling attached to them — mark between 1 and 5.
You are looking for the responses that have the most emotional charge associated with them. The ones that you feel most strongly about, even if you cannot rationally explain why.
So, go through your list of responses and score each one. Those responses that scored between 6 and 10 are most likely the attitudes and beliefs that are currently holding you back the most.
For this example, I have included sample ratings for each response as follows:
I can’t become rich because:
- Money doesn’t grow on trees SCORE: 1
- Rich people are greedy SCORE: 7
- If I was wealthy, everybody would hate me SCORE: 7
- There is only so much to go around SCORE: 3
- Money is the root of all evil SCORE: 3
- Rich people are smart, and I’m not SCORE: 9
- Rich people are arrogant SCORE: 5
- It will be too hard to achieve SCORE: 10
Those highlighted in bold are the scores of four beliefs that could possibly have the greatest emotional charge. Of course, your own scoring may be completely different from the examples.
Create Your List of Opposites
The next step in this technique is to create a new list of responses, but this time you are creating beliefs that are the complete opposite of the previous ones. Also, for this step only select those with the 4 highest scores / the highest emotional charge.
This time, you can take as much time as you like to come up with reasons that counteract those 4 beliefs with the highest emotional charge, as you are no longer trying to draw forth your subconscious beliefs. Rather, you are trying to do the complete opposite – discover logical reasons that will cancel out your limiting subconscious beliefs.
Write out as many opposite reasons as you can for each of these 4 limiting beliefs, and again the more you can come up with the better. The effect that this will have is to loosen the grip these limiting beliefs currently have over you.
Eliminate Those with the Least Emotional Charge
When you have written out these counteracting beliefs for each of your four limiting beliefs with the highest scores, start eliminating those with the least emotional charge.
Remove each one until you have a single powerful empowering belief to counteract each one of your four limiting beliefs.
So, in the previous example, these are the four beliefs with the highest emotional charge. In other words, the limiting beliefs with the most potential negative effects on your life and achievements.
I can’t become rich because:
- Rich people are greedy SCORE: 7
- If I was wealthy, everybody would hate me SCORE: 7
- Rich people are smart, and I’m not SCORE: 9
- It will be too hard to achieve SCORE: 10
And here are examples of the best opposite beliefs we have come up with for each of them.
I CAN become rich because:
- Rich people are generous and contribute to society
- When I am wealthy, I will have more time to help others, who will appreciate me
- I can easily learn how other people became rich and copy what they did
- It’s easy for me to attract wealth because I choose thoughts of gratitude and abundance
Create Affirmations
The final step in this process is to convert these empowering new beliefs into affirmations that counteract the limiting beliefs that you have uncovered.
Your final list will be very helpful in creating the affirmations that will help you to reprogram your subconscious mind and overcome the limitations that have been holding you back.
These affirmations must be written in the present tense. They also need to be positive, personal, and specific.
Here is one way we can write the empowering beliefs as affirmations:
- I am rich and generous and love contributing to society
- I am wealthy and have lots of time to help others, who appreciate me
- I am learning from rich people and become even richer myself
- I am attracting wealth easily, and I choose thoughts of gratitude and abundance
As these are only examples, you need to do this exercise fully yourself to discover your own self-limiting beliefs about money. You can then create opposite beliefs and convert those beliefs into affirmations that cancel out your limiting beliefs and their effects on your life. Beliefs have the power to control our destiny.
You can do a similar exercise to examine your deep-seated attitudes and beliefs in several other areas to become truly effective and deeply transformational.
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.” – Thomas Aquinas
