Skip to main content

HOW TO BREAK THE BELIEFS THAT HOLD YOU BACK

 In the beginning, repeating a habit is essential to build up evidence of your desired identity. As you latch on to that new identity, however, those same beliefs can hold you back from the next level of growth.

When working against you, your identity creates a kind of “pride” that encourages you to deny your weak spots and prevents you from truly growing. This is one of the greatest downsides of building habits.

The more sacred an idea is to us—that is, the more deeply it is tied to our identity—the more strongly we will defend it against criticism. You see this in every industry. The schoolteacher who ignores innovative teaching methods and sticks with her tried-and-true lesson plans. The veteran manager who is committed to doing things “his way.” The surgeon who dismisses the ideas of her younger colleagues. The band who produces a mind-blowing first album and then gets stuck in a rut. The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.

One solution is to avoid making any single aspect of your identity an overwhelming portion of who you are. In the words of investor Paul Graham, “keep your identity small.” The more you let a single belief define you, the less capable you are of adapting when life challenges you. If you tie everything up in being the point guard or the partner at the firm or whatever else, then the loss of that facet of your life will wreck you. If you’re a vegan and then develop a health condition that forces you to change your diet, you’ll have an identity crisis on your hands. When you cling too tightly to one identity, you become brittle. Lose that one thing and you lose yourself.

When you spend your whole life defining yourself in one way and that disappears, who are you now?
Military veterans and former entrepreneurs report similar feelings. If your identity is wrapped up in a belief like “I’m a great soldier,” what happens when your period of service ends? For many business owners, their identity is something along the lines of “I’m the CEO” or “I’m the founder.” If you have spent every waking moment working on your business, how will you feel after you sell the company?

The key to mitigating these losses of identity is to redefine yourself such that you get to keep important aspects of your identity even if your particular role changes. 

Ex.
“I’m the CEO/leader” translates to “I’m the type of person who builds and creates/innovate things, give jobs to people and also help other people to grow as an individual” 

When chosen effectively, an identity can be flexible rather than brittle. Like water flowing around an obstacle, your identity works with the changing circumstances rather than against them.

Habits deliver numerous benefits, but the downside is that they can lock us into our previous patterns of thinking and acting—even when the world is shifting around us. Everything is impermanent. Life is constantly changing, so you need to periodically check in to see if your old habits and beliefs are still serving you.

A lack of self-awareness is poison. Reflection and review is the antidote.

Chapter Summary 

  • The upside of habits is that we can do things without thinking. The downside is that we stop paying attention to little errors.
  • Habits + Deliberate Practice = Mastery
  • Reflection and review is a process that allows you to remain conscious of your performance over time.
  • The tighter we cling to an identity, the harder it becomes to grow beyond it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Maximizing Your Profits with Scoring

SETTING YOUR MAXIMUM INTRADAY TRADING LOSS First things first: set a max intraday trading loss. There will be days when you just do not have it. Why do you think coaches pull their players when they are not playing well? They are more harmful on the field than off. When you are underperforming, you are hurting your team and your trading business. You need a system to yank yourself over to the bench. A stop loss is your answer. TRADING BASED UPON THE TIME OF DAY A good trader makes note of what time of day it is, when he trades most profitably, and adjusts his trading to fit such times. Your numbers at the end of the month will not reflect your true trading potential. Make the most trades with the most size during the trading periods that statistically are most profitable for you. Money saved during your weaker trading periods is money earned. Consistency The fact is that most trades you make will start working for you right away. But the new traders also hold stocks that are trading ag...
Post a Comment
Read more

So what is your money blueprint set for?

Are you programmed for managing your money well or mismanaging it? Are you a spender or a saver ? Wealth principle: The only way to permanently change the temperature in the room is to reset the thermostat. In the same way, the only way to change your level of financial success "permanently" is to reset your financial thermostat. You can become an expert in real estate or the stock market. All of these are tremendous "tools." But in the end, without an inner "tool-box" that is big enough and strong enough for you to create and hold on to large amounts of money, all the tools in the world will be useless to you. Your income can grow only to the extent that you do. Remember that the first element of all change is awareness.Watch yourself, become conscious, observe your thoughts, your fears, your beliefs, your habits, your actions, and even your inactions. Put yourself under a microscope. Study yourself. Wealth principle: Consciousness is observin...
Post a Comment
Read more

Wealth File #4 Rich people think big. Poor people think small

Wealth principle: The law of Income: You will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the marketplace. The keyword is value. It's important to know that four factors determine your value in the marketplace: supply,demand,quality and quantity. The factor that presents the biggest challenge for most people is the quantity. The quantity factor simply means, how much of your value do you actually deliver to the marketplace? Another way of stating this is, how many people do you actually serve or affect? Most people choose to play small. Why? First, because of fear. They're scared to death of failure and they're even more frightened of success. Second, people play small because they feel small. They feel unworthy. They don't feel they're good enough or important enough to make a real difference in people's lives. But hear this: your life is not just about you. It's also about contributing to others. It's about living true...
Post a Comment
Read more