Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

How do you identify "blind spots," imposter syndrome, and negative belief systems that stall your personal progress?

Most of us are aware that we have blind spots, but getting to them is a problem. Who would tell you? Blind spots mean you can’t see them directly yourself. You have performance reviews in your work and your partner may be, if they’re honest, good at telling you when you leave the seat up, smudge your lipstick or have bad breath. But you're thinking blind spots, those things that lead to your behaviour, like why you’re late to certain things or panic about deadlines for example, don't necessarily show your unhelpful thinking. 

I remember one person I worked with on a multinational project was a member of Mensa but would shout on business calls to the States. That was a cute blind spot, but didn't necessarily impact on his performance detrimentally. A general manager who is known for getting stuff done, but doesn't consider all the data or capacity of their staff has a clear blind spot – speed, unless it’s a crisis, isn’t more important than accuracy or long term relationships. That's the kind of underwhelming performance that we’d want to know about in our lives. These often come from negative belief systems that originate from a position of fear and stall our personal progress. Catching these is important work.

The single most transformative habit isn't water, exercise, knowing how to meditate or journal, but rather catching yourself mid pattern and choosing differently in real time. Not in hindsight, but in the tangible moment. Often called a micro interruption, it’s worth more than any change in long term habits.

The way to do this is to start with your point of frustration.

For example, common blind spots can be with things like this: are you struggling with overthinking or having an overly harsh inner critic? This could be a blind spot. Were you aware that it usually shows in your body first? The pain in your chest, stomach head or neck Is your body giving you a clue. It often starts with a thought. This type of thinking can produce negative cortisol or adrenaline spikes that, long term, can affect your physical as well as your mental health. So it is worth tackling.

Overthinking often comes when we aren't in the present, but think about the future in a way that is so negative that we get completely unrealistic, increase anxiety and even the ability to problem solve well. Overthinking usually isn't about the present but the worst of what can go wrong in the future. It is imbalanced thinking. Catching this can change it significantly. When you start to spiral out, not be able to sleep, and constantly focus on the negative, you realise that this is not useful.

Then you can start examining what exactly it is that you're afraid of. As Seneca discovered, going to your fears is more useful than shutting them down.  This famous stoic writer said "We suffer more often in imagination than in reality."  As a very wealthy man, he was afraid of being poor. He faced it by taking very simple meals twice a week and living in one room in those two days. He faced his fear. Even if it was a little extreme.

 I remember a psychologist I knew who talked about his mother's dramatic saying of “If you don't do well you'll be sleeping in a gutter.“ So one day he tried it. He lay down in a relatively new gutter and discovered it wasn't as uncomfortable as he thought. He had such an amazing sense of humour and found it useful because he could see things from a perspective he hadn't seen before. Instead of listening to the fear he explored it, and found that it wasn't as bad as he thought or that his mother had made out. This is true of most of our fears, if we would only explore them. And he had some fun with it - another good tool.

The idea, backed by neuroscience, is that you don't suppress the thought but go with it. Then, when you are overthinking, or when imposter syndrome kicks in, you accept the thought, see it as a fear to face, and then let it go. Most times, the fear subsides. One practitioner goes a little further and says ”What if the opposite is true?” By asking the opposite, your brain changes even more. 

For example, a person I knew decided to do something about his social anxiety and explored his fear. He decided to ask a different question when going to a social gathering: “Why aren't you as good as me?” He’d  identified what he used to ask himself was: ”Why are you better than me?” and turned the question around to change the state of his brain. (Neither thought was true – this was correcting an imbalance.) His body started to relax, he found he drank less alcohol and enjoyed himself more. It improved his confidence, not just socially, but at work as well. He added being grateful to his daily habits too. Catching his blind spot and dealing with it in the moment changed his life.

If you'd like help with finding out how to do this for yourself in more detail, please give me a call.

Written by me, not AI.