I have a lot of beliefs other people find weird. One of these is my belief that if my knee hurts, then I need to exercise it. Most people believe that if something hurts you stop exercising. I’m a rebel. I just can’t think like that.
A few years ago, I fell while skiing and tore both my ACLs (this is the ligament in the middle of your knee). I spent a year in physical therapy getting back full use of both my legs. When my knee hurts I know that I haven’t been exercising it enough. Why do I know this? Because I pay attention to what happens to my body. I didn’t do my workouts a few times when I was on holiday in New Zealand and all of the sudden I had this knee pain. I was really worried at first. Could this mean that the operation didn’t work? Could this mean that my leg isn’t really fixed? Or could this mean that I need to keep exercising my leg so it doesn’t hurt? I chose to believe the latter. Why? Because it is more helpful to me to believe that my knee is hurting from lack of exercise rather than it being permanently damaged or me exercising too much, don’t you think?
For me I just figured that the equation I was working with was:
Restricted movement = Restricted life
Our beliefs shape many of our results in life. If you believe it’s impossible it is. If you believe it’s doomed, it is. If you believe your worthless, you are. There is nothing that is going to happen until you change your beliefs. Your actions are all based on your beliefs. If you believe you are worthless, than you won’t spend time or money on yourself to improve. If you believe it’s impossible, you won’t take any of the action required to make it possible. In NLP we call these limiting beliefs. They limit our choices in life. NLP is all about expanding choices. It is about lifting our awareness and discovering new meanings.
The next time you come across a belief that limits you, ask yourself, “What else could I believe?”
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