Rewire Your Brain for Success: A 2-Step Process to Replace Limiting Beliefs with Empowering Habits

One of the biggest problems that people with Big Hairy Audacious Dreams have is the limiting beliefs that are operating in their subconscious.

Limiting beliefs are simply thoughts you think over and over again. You have been thinking these thoughts for so long that you are no longer aware that you are thinking them. They are like the hum of an air conditioner. If you got quiet and listened carefully, you might hear it but usually, you don’t notice the sound of the a/c at all. It blends into the background noise of your life. That’s what limiting beliefs do, too.

If you aren’t making the kind of progress you would like to be making to make your dream a reality, I’m willing to bet that your limiting beliefs are causing you to either procrastinate or procrastiwork.

If you are a procrastinator, you are intentionally putting off working on your BHAD.

If you are a procrastiworker, you are doing things that you think are moving you closer to achieving your BHAD. But you aren’t actually making any real tangible progress because you are doing things that are not moving you closer to your goal.

If you are a procrastinator and are intentionally putting off working on your BHAD, chances are, your limiting belief is that you are not ready or that now is not the right time.

If you procrastiworking and doing things that are not important to your goal, chances, your limiting belief is that you are not enough.

All of these beliefs – “I’m not ready”, “Now is not the right time”, and “I’m not enough” – are keeping you from getting the results you want.

Why? Because beliefs dictate our thoughts and emotions. Our thoughts and emotions dictate our behaviors and actions. Our behaviors and actions determine our results.

If you believe that you are not ready, you may feel insecure and doubt yourself and your capabilities. You may decide that you need to get another degree or certification or take another online course before you start working on your BHAD. Putting off working on your BHAD until you know more is taking you toward a desired outcome that you don’t want.

If you want to change your results, you must change your beliefs.

Do you want to achieve your BHAD? You must stop believing that you are “not ready”, that “now is not the right time”, or that you are “not enough.”

How do you do that? It’s a 2-step process:

Step 1: Ask yourself these powerful belief busting questions:

1. What is the belief?

2. Why do I believe this?/What causes me to believe this?

3. What is the benefit that I get from holding on to this belief?

4. What is it costing me to hold onto this belief?

5. Fast forward a year. What will this belief continue to cost me if I carry the belief with me?

6. Is this belief true for everyone?

7. Am I ready to let go of this belief? If I am ready to let go of this belief, what is the new belief that I want to replace it with?

8. If I continue to hold onto this new belief, which changes will I see in my life?

9. Am I ready to replace the old belief with the new belief?

Step 2: Make the new empowering belief into a habitual automatic positive thought habit

In Step One, you selected an empowering belief that you want to replace the limiting belief with.

Now you have to make that empowering belief into a habitual automatic positive thought habit.

To do this, you need to rewire the thought pathway in your brain.

Imagine that you are lost out in the woods and you come to a fork in the path. The path to the right is a six lane well marked paved super highway with a flashing “GO this way” sign. The path to the left is a narrow overgrown dirt pathway. Which path are you most likely to take? Easy decision, right?

That’s the decision your brain will take, too, left to its own devices. The brain is lazy and will always take the path of least resistance. And the path of least resistance is the automatic negative thought pathway. In other words, it will automatically go down the superhighway of automatic negative thoughts.

You have to guide your brain down the dirt path until it becomes a six lane well marked paved super highway with the flashing “Go this way” sign.

You do this by consciously replacing the old belief with your new empowering belief whenever you become aware that you have slipped into old negative thought habits.