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Dear Future Me,

It ain't logic that gets people out of bed in the morning. If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you. Find your vision, and zero in on it.

Stay Excellent,

J

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Dear Future Me,

Today's post is an academic article I wrote for my stress management class this summer. The topic is self-limiting beliefs, a topic I feel to be both hugely important and glaringly missing in today's self-improvement and stress management conversation. Enjoy.

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NO LIMITS:

Why Self-Limiting Beliefs Matter

and How You Can Overcome Yours

  "Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy. Human beings have the awesome ability to take any experience of their lives and create a meaning that disempowers them or one that can literally save their lives."

-- Tony Robbins, motivational speaker

(Source: Wikiquote)

  "There is nothing more powerful than the made-up mind."

-- Lewis Gordon Pugh, first man to swim across the North Pole

(Source: Wikiquote)

        "Cause sometimes you just feel tired, feel weak /

And when you feel weak, you feel like you wanna just give up /

  But you got to search within you, and try to find that inner strength /

And just pull that shit out of you /

And get that motivation to not give up, and not be a quitter /

No matter how bad you wanna just fall flat on your face, and collapse / 

 -- Eminem, "Til I Collapse" 

(Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1xXYeNrW9k)

    What are self limiting beliefs?

Beliefs are mental notions and assumptions we have about ourselves and the world around us. They are formed from our interactions and experiences growing up, and play a large contributing factor to our identity. We hold them as absolute truths, even though by nature, they are usually subjective, emotional, psycho-sociologically-based, and irrational (Su, 2009). Self-limiting beliefs (SLBs), then, are beliefs that limit a person from doing something, even though they are otherwise perfectly capable of doing it. Usually, they are formed because as children, people run up against expected norms of behavior, and they take away from the experience that something personal about them dictates they should not do the behavior.

Sadly, these beliefs often continue unaddressed and unconsciously into adulthood, and their simple premises usually have far-reaching consequences. Oftentimes, they include beliefs like I don’t deserve to be loved, I’m not pretty/handsome, or I’m not smart enough. Without proper action, self-limiting beliefs such as I don’t deserve to be loved can spiral into relationship attitudes where one partner is tolerant or even welcoming of the other partner’s negative behaviors, creating a vicious circle of confirmation bias. The admission of these toxic influences into a person’s psyche and mental domain can be significantly stressful over long periods of time.

  Can exploring your self-limiting beliefs help you manage stress?

Make no mistake, everyone has self-limiting beliefs, or else everyone would never find some reason to stop doing anything. The significance of exploring, identify, analyzing, and ultimately dissolving and overcoming self-limiting beliefs cannot be understated. What would you do if you knew you could not be stopped? If you are a college student, imagine how well you would do on your exams if you knew you had to succeed despite any obstacles or challenges. Then, imagine how confident, accomplished, and capable you would feel if you knew no exam would ever be tough enough for your resolve and ability. All other potential stressors would thus cease to be interpreted as threats. Thus, you could focus more of your life on enjoyment.

Ironically, as easy as it seems to look at these beliefs on paper and dismiss them, they often rest at such deep levels of our identities that it is difficult to isolate and extract them in the first place. However, breaking the vicious circle is indeed possible with concerted effort. Stress management techniques such as meditation, journaling, and guided imagery, used in tandem, can be profoundly helpful towards achieving this.

The first step, of course, is to identify the self-limiting belief. This can be done through active questioning, increasing awareness of the present, and meditation. Since thoughts and actions consistently follow beliefs, one can start by observing and examining their actions. Awareness and meditation can bolster this by exercising one’s power of observance. By questioning the “Why” of an event, one can deduce a truth that leads closer to a self-truth.

Once a self-limiting belief is discovered and isolated, motivational speaker Katie Frieling offers a four-step introspective process for addressing and overcoming limiting beliefs (Freiling, 2010). The first step is questioning whether the belief is absolutely true. The second is accounting for the personal cost of the belief. Third, she questions who the viewer would be without that value – most likely a “value creator.” Lastly, Freiling asks to consider the value’s reverse and how this might be true. She admits initial resistance is likely, but ultimately worth overcoming.

Lastly, in order to overcome the limiting belief, new habits of thought and action must be paved so that they become stronger than, and replace, old ones. Here, guided imagery is a valuable tool in shaping the context of new behaviors. By working backwards from these visualizations of one’s future self, one can break down a complex target outcome into smaller, executable actions in the present. Ultimately, fulfillment of these smaller goals towards an overarching one creates a positive self-fulfilling narrative, one in which stressors facilitated by old behaviors shrink or disappear.

Unfortunately, research and mainstream media attention on self-limiting beliefs either skirts the topic or merely scratch the surface. Advertising campaigns like Nike’s “Just Do It” and Adidas’ “Impossible is Nothing” are such examples. Western medicine is also prone to diagnosing this abstract field as motivational or psychological disorders, and thus resorting to medication and missing the point. Actual research tends to cover individual, disjointed parts of the overall picture, such as the study covered next.

  What has research discovered about self-limiting beliefs?

In “The effects of guided imagery exercises on perceived academic self-efficacy” by W. Schlapkohl, the researcher examined how guided imagery exercises and imagery ability impacted the perceived academic self-efficacy (PASE) of college students who self-identified as low-achieving, particularly with respect to study skills and anxiety. This dissertation was chosen because it directly linked college students, stress management, and self-limiting beliefs in a university-backed study.

Participants in all groups identified self-limiting academic beliefs and discussed study skills. Relaxation and imagery participants were taught and encouraged to use diaphragmatic breathing, autosuggestion, and relaxing imagery.

Results showed significant improvement with imagery groups over relaxation and control groups, suggesting guided imagery’s considerable promise as an academic tool. The students' beliefs in their capabilities, not their anxiety levels, best predicted their subsequent academic attainments. Furthermore, self-limiting beliefs could be overcome by clearly defining such beliefs and replacing them with images of success.

This dissertation was chosen because it directly linked college students, stress management, and self-limiting beliefs in a university-backed study. It did, however, lack long-term follow-up with how strongly the new belief stuck. Such discussion would be better explored in research about habit-building techniques.

  How has exploring my self-limiting beliefs improved my stress management?

To illustrate how I have used these techniques for my benefit, I first offer the story of my relationship struggles. Recently, my ex-girlfriend and I broke up, and I was left with several disheartening beliefs. Although she reasoned she wanted more time to focus on herself, and she had repeatedly told me that I was the best person she had ever dated, I took away from the experience that I had done things and behaved in ways that had pushed her away. So the initial question of “Why did she abandon the relationship?” became a question of “Why did I act in a way that pushed her away?”

I realized this was because I felt she had done things that made her untrustworthy and made me lose respect for her. So, then, why had I chosen to stay with her, despite her actions? In short, I believed she had already demonstrated things that I valued, and that she was capable of change. Furthermore, despite all my life experiences that demonstrated my ability to change and be loved, I didn’t love myself enough to leave, and I was trapped by my high expectations and requirements of love. Ultimately, my self-limiting belief was I will never be worthy of love and admiration.

Thus, the time came for me to break the vicious cycle. I realized that because I viewed love as a perfect concept to be achieved, I would never feel I was worthy of love and admiration, even if it was genuine, until I accepted and loved myself for who I am, warts and all. That being said, simply realizing these things wouldn’t make everything different overnight. Since then, I have been working on ways to accept and love myself, including seeing the good out of all situations, re-framing perceptions of my memories, imagining what I perceive to be a happy life, and taking small steps towards that.

  What can you do now?

  Self-limiting beliefs are a complex and toxic topic to navigate. They constitute what seems to be an essential aspect of human nature and are difficult to overcome. However, with a combination of stress management techniques, they can be identified, analyzed, and overcome. In my own life, I have been trapped by my own high expectations of love, and those expectations are ultimately what contributed to my recent breakup. However, I have applied the same techniques I advocate here to my benefit, and I am well on my way to seeing positive changes. I strongly encourage you do the same. Once you have started, there is no limit to what you can end up with except that which you place upon yourself.

  Works Cited

Freiling, Katie. "4 Steps To Overcoming Limiting Beliefs - YouTube." YouTube. 

Schlapkohl, W (2001). “The effects of guided imagery exercises on perceived academic self-efficacy.”

Su, Tina. “6 Steps to Eliminate Limiting Beliefs.” ThinkSimpleNow. Simple Life Media.

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Best,

Finally Moving

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Simple ≠ Easy.

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Time doesn’t heal all wounds – new things coming into your life do. ...You can spend 10 years in psychotherapy talking about feelings and have nothing change. Conversely, you can go out and start bringing change into your life today and never talk about your feelings once, and your feelings will change.

Chase Amante, MarkManson.net

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Forgiveness is the final form of love.

Reinhold Niebuhr

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Vulnerability is not weakness.

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Dear Future Me,

This is Part Two of a series of introspections I am writing. This blog is a response to an assignment topic, "Why is it better to view love and sex as a gift, and not an obligation?" What follows is my history, attitudes, personal story, and lessons learned. Enjoy.

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This topic is particularly difficult for me to write about, as I am fresh out of a relationship where this was one fundamental problem I didn’t fully grasp until it was too late. Over time, I feel I came to view the love and sex she had freely and generously offered to me as obligations, and not as the gifts they truly were.

Some personal context first. Having grown up surrounded by business, I have always tended to view and relate to things through a business-oriented perspective. My parents have owned and operated their own small business my whole life, I started my own small business when I was 14, I participated actively in entrepreneurship clubs in high school, and I have operated my own side businesses throughout college.

Where this falls short, however, is in the area of personal relationships. Relationships are not business. I repeat, RELATIONSHIPS ARE NOT BUSINESS. This has always been a tough concept for me to accept, because my strength has ironically sabotaged my happiness in relationships, no matter how fervently I’ve tried to enforce it. It’s not unlike playing a game of tennis against a wall. Eventually, the wall always wins.

Healthy relationships involve giving and reciprocating love. No obligations, no expectations. What this all means is quite simple and looks obvious on paper, but is difficult in practice. When you take a girl out for dinner, for example, the underlying dynamic is not a contract that says, “You get a steak. I get a blowjob.” Unless she’s a prostitute, of course.

Furthermore, before jumping to any gender-demonizing, it’s important to point out its opposite. For example, many girls I know will leave for the bars carrying no money on them, fully expecting guys to pay their way the entire night, and taking pride in their ability to do so. But then what happens is a man who laments, “I buy women drinks and get numbers, but why won’t they call me back?” and a woman who complains, “All that these men want to do is buy me drinks and get in my pants – where have the decent guys all gone to?” 

As terrible and self-serving as this expectation would suggest, it illuminates what I feel is a widespread, ill-conceived notion in dating. Where this hypocrisy falls apart is the simultaneous willingness of men to act on this perceived expectation, and the willingness of women to capitalize on it, sweeping any guilt under the rug. Furthermore, the mutual unhappiness comes from the divide between two different sets of expectations simultaneously being unmet. As far as this goes, the best winning move is not to play at all. 

In my case, my relationship started falling apart because we didn’t communicate these expectations openly and honestly enough. Had I begun re-framing my beliefs and expectations and following up with action sooner, I might have avoided the trap of viewing love and sex as obligations. The more I let myself fall into that trap, the less compelled she felt to give those to me as gifts, and vice versa. Over time, what started as a beautiful, altruistic relationship spiraled downward into something we didn’t value enough to maintain together. 

I wish I had said and done more to show how much I truly loved and appreciated her. But, when all is said and done, that is my pain alone to bear. That being said, if reconciliation comes one day, or a new opportunity, I will apply this lesson wisely. People are their own, and owe nothing to you. If a woman gives her love to me, it’s a gift that is mine to cherish, because it is hers and hers alone to give. When that expectation is shared, both of us have that much more to appreciate and build on.

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Best,

Thanks Giving

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Dear Future Me,

I am re-discovering writing as a way of capturing my thoughts and feelings, and as catharsis. 

This blog entry was written in response to a paper assignment for my Human Sexuality class, about the nature of stating values as facts ("Fat people are immoral"), as demands ("You should not have lunch with your ex"), or as beliefs or preferences ("I would prefer it if you didn't have lunch with your ex, because I would feel disrespected and he is fat").

Enjoy.

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I had my conversation about value statements with my girlfriend. I told her about the three ways to express values: as a fact, as a demand, and as a preference or belief. I gave her examples of each form of expression as they related to our relationship, and told her that I preferred the third one the most, because it would make us happiest together over the long run. She agreed, for the same reason.

The difficult thing about stating values in a relationship is that it is very easy to get tied up in value conflicts, and oftentimes, the way those conflicts are communicated and perceived have unintended consequences in the relationship. One way this concept applies to relationships is in the area of personal boundaries.

Consider the scenario in which either person has weak boundaries. As a result, one person tends to impose their values on the other, or the receiver lets their own values get steamrollered by the imposer. In the long run, people change the values that constitute who they are, because of the control they have over their own boundaries.

Admittedly, oftentimes people make these changes to make their partner happy, and sometimes they are genuinely better people as a result. However, if these inner value shifts happen largely because of weak boundaries, eventually the negative inner conflicts created thereby run the risk of outweighing the perception of positive changes.

This realization manifests itself in breakups, where each person feels an identity crisis post-breakup. Because the values they have incorporated over the course of the relationship makes them seem like significantly different people from who they were first entering the relationship, many people feel the desire to “rediscover” who they once were. In this case, some new values stick, and others are dropped simply on the basis of why they were incorporated.

In my case, I was too forceful about certain values I wanted her to change, yet I was unwilling to fully accept that she was unwilling to change them. As a result, we had built up a wall of intolerance that hampered our ability to communicate as a couple. It was a hard lesson learned, but one worth learning.

The best way to combat this scenario is to select a partner who has similar values. Beyond that, the healthiest way of maintaining happy relationships in this area is to communicate values as preferences, not demands or facts, and to respect each other’s boundaries. This way, each person can rest assured that their feelings are heard, and each partner has the freedom to act or not act on what has been communicated. 

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Best, 

Kintsukuroi

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Hanging on leads to hangups. Gotta learn to let go.

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Gettin' over

One day at a time.

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Give so much time to the improvements of yourself that you have no time to criticise others.

Christian D. Larson

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A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.

Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway

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I've become so numb, I can't feel you there

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I'm not over you yet. I miss you, even now. But every day, it gets easier to deal.

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Trance is my favorite because of songs like this. It's amazing how fully the lyrics can capture the essence of an emotion.

Just let your fears go You might find your way back home Let your fears go You might find that you’re not lost

Sunlounger - Lost

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It's been two months since I've seen my baby, but I'm back :)

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Dear Future Me,

It is done. Karaoke and goodbyes last night. Time to move on.

Sincerely,

Lost Over Long Distance