What’s holding you back from your desired levels of health, wealth, and happiness? These 7 powerful questions will help you identify the obstacles and get you unstuck instantly.
1. What do you want?
Example using “Dave.” Dave: “I want to be happy. I want to make $100K. I want to lose 20 pounds. I want to stop procrastinating.” The gap from where you are now versus where you want to be creates frustration and inner turmoil. It’s like trying to go from one side of the river to the other side without a bridge. To get unstuck, you need a bridge to get to the other side of the river. That bridge can be you, a friend, a seminar, a book, a coach, a psychotherapist, etc.
2. What would you like to feel as a result of getting what you want?
Dave: “I want to feel alive and happy and live up to my potential. I want to feel deserving, good enough, and not guilty.” If you feel undeserving, guilty, or not good enough, it means you have acquired faulty negative core beliefs from childhood. You need to uncover the earliest incident that caused you to not feel good enough, etc.
3. Do you have the courage and confidence to go after what you want?
Dave: “No, I keep procrastinating. I’m afraid most of the time. I make excuses. I’m not meeting my sales quota at work. I’ll get fired if I don’t get my act together.” Lack of confidence and courage means you don’t believe in yourself. Successful people allow themselves to fail because they know eventually they will succeed. To get on the path to success, you must have the courage to take risks to fail and then pick yourself up and do it all over again because success will come after a few failures. Again, identify the negative core beliefs that hold you back from being courageous and confident.
4. Do you believe you deserve to get what you want?
Dave: “Yes and no. I want it so badly but a part of me says: ‘Who do you think you are? You’re never going to amount to much. Mom always said you’re not as smart as your brother.’” Beliefs => Thoughts => Feelings => Actions Dave’s beliefs… “I’m not deserving. I’m worthless. I’m not going to amount to anything.” These beliefs create thoughts of… “Who do you think you are? You’re not good enough! You’re not meant to make a lot of money.” Dave’s thoughts create his feelings of… “Ugh. I’m afraid to make the phone call to try to sell to the next customer. I’m a loser.” Dave’s feelings create his actions of procrastination and the need to soothe his anxiety with unhealthy foods. Procrastinating and eating junk reinforces his original beliefs that he is worthless and not deserving of success and or a fit body. Dave needs to uncover the original incidents that created his negative beliefs that he is worthless, guilty, and a loser. He needs to overturn those negative beliefs. Then he will believe he deserves health, wealth, and happiness. Like Dave, you become what you think about – a self-fulfilling prophecy. What happened to you that caused the negative beliefs that, “I’m not worthy; I’m not lovable; and/or I’m not enough?” Were you bullied at school? Did you feel rejected and unloved when your sister was born because mom didn’t have as much time for you anymore? Did your parents divorce when you were young? These types of events can be the root of why you don’t love yourself unconditionally.
5. What are you afraid of if you succeed? What will not be in alignment?
Dave: “My sales quota will increase. I’ll have to work harder which means I’ll have less time with my kids. My siblings and cousins will make fun of me for being a ‘rich and thin snob.’ I’ll have to buy a new wardrobe if I get fit and I can’t do that because I’m broke. I’m afraid I’ll be teased for eating healthy foods.” The consequences of success holds Dave back from taking action. He doesn’t want to lose the love of his family and friends and he doesn’t want to empty his wallet to buy new clothes. We are hard-wired to seek validation through friendship, family, love, and belonging. Dave is stuck because he is afraid he won’t belong anymore if he were to become more successful and fit than the people he hangs out with. “You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” – Jim Rohn. In order to move forward, find a new tribe where you are the smaller fish in a pond of big fishes. The big fishes will support you to grow to their level. When Dave feels good about himself he will know what he needs to say to his family and friends so that he doesn’t feel abandoned when he achieves success and a fit body. Dave needs a confidant or coach to get him through this zone of discomfort of finding a new tribe where he feels he belongs.
6. What are you afraid of if you fail?
Dave: “I’ll be humiliated if I fail. It’s easier to keep struggling financially and to keep struggling with my weight. If I lose weight and gain it back and/or make money and then get fired if I can’t keep up with the demands of a better job, my friends will be laugh behind my back and say ‘See. I knew he was going to fail.’” Most of us have memories of humiliation. Our psyche doesn’t want us to ever experience that pain again. Dave is subconsciously afraid of the painful consequences and that’s why he is stuck. To overcome fear of failure, you need to visit the parts of you that hold the memories of the original humiliating experiences. Your highest self of today can tell that part that you are lovable and enough. When that part feels heard and unburdens itself of the humiliation, you will no longer be afraid of failing or succeeding. What humiliating and shameful experiences hold you back from taking the risks to go after what you want?
7. What do you need in order to get what you want?
Dave: “I need to feel that I deserve to make $100K and that I deserve to have a fit body. I need to let go of the negative old tapes I keep playing of my mother and sister criticizing me whenever I try to improve myself. I need to love myself and believe that I can do this.” If you can’t look in the mirror and say, “I love you. You are awesome. You are beautiful!” you will inevitably sabotage yourself when you try to move forward. That’s why it’s important to find and overturn your negative core beliefs.
How to discover and overturn your negative core beliefs so that you can move forward again.
Dave’s answers showed you that fears drive most of your behaviors. Fears hold you back from expressing your true self and living to your full potential. Fears are likely rooted in negative core beliefs from old hurts that you probably aren’t conscious of. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs shows that Dave is trying to self-actualize (become the best version of him) through skipping the self-esteem stage. He can’t skip self-esteem and go from love/belonging to self-actualization. He will achieve health, wealth, and happiness when he overcomes his low self-esteem.
To get unstuck for good and achieve health, wealth, and happiness, you need to have self-esteem. You will have high self-esteem when you heal the parts of you that hold faulty beliefs such as, “I’m not lovable. I’m not worthy. I’m not enough.” For example, when you were two-years-old mom brought home your baby sister and she stopped paying attention to you. You took on the belief that “I’m not lovable” because she wasn’t hugging you as much anymore. Then more rejections happened at school. You were bullied or someone you had a crush on rejected you. Negative experiences like these reinforced the “I’m not lovable” belief you acquired at two-years-old. In order to heal the “I’m not lovable” belief, be with that two-year-old part of you that is sitting on the floor, desperately waiting for mom to pick you up and hug you. Tell that part that you didn’t get hugs because mom was exhausted caring for the baby. Bring that two-year-old onto your lap and give her hugs and tell her that she is lovable and that she is enough. Now you have a new image of your two-year-old self. She’s got her arms around you. She’s no longer going to hold you back from your dreams. She’s going to give you the confidence you need to take risks to get to the next level of your life. Because you love yourself now, you will have the confidence and courage to overcome your fears and take risks to get unstuck. What negative core beliefs are you holding onto that are keeping you stuck? If you identify what they are through the answers to these 7 questions, you will overturn the faulty beliefs, feel better about yourself, and get unstuck instantly and moving forward again. photo credit: JIGGS IMAGES via photopin cc
