Making limiting beliefs work for you

I went to a weekend foundation training in coaching with the Coaching Academy and my favourite session was the one on limiting beliefs. We all learn beliefs about how the world works, and about how we work. Sometimes our situation changes so much that old beliefs are no longer helpful, and we can take time to reflect on them and update them.

I have been thinking recently that my skill set has outgrown my image of myself. I have been improvising and writing for about 10 years now, but I still feel like a beginner sometimes. The session on limiting beliefs gave me some tools to use to update my image of myself. For me these beliefs are things that we tell ourselves all the time or in response to triggers. The great idea I took from the weekend is that you can update an old belief to work for you.

I’ve never found affirmations to work for me, and I thought this might be a similar thing, but it was very different. It’s a useful exercise to look at beliefs you have and then translate them into more useful ones if they find that they aren’t currently serving you.

Buttressing beliefs

Another pleasing find was a phrase from Neil Gaiman’s lessons on Masterclass.com. He said that a second draft is for buttressing what the story is about. You add in more supports for the story’s themes and ideas and take out what doesn’t support them.

I like that metaphor, and I am going to use it for updating my beliefs. I have goals I want to reach, and useful beliefs are ones that support those goals. I’m gonna buttress my goals with some updated ideas about myself. It’s spring cleaning for the brain.

My Example

I have been organising my writing time and I have been saying to myself :

“If I don’t write at least 2 hours a day then I won’t write enough.”

The intention is to value my writing time, but I just get stressed when I tell myself that. When I sit down in business mind writing is harder for me. It’s more productive if I approach it in the same mood as an improv rehearsal, with curiosity and a lightness of anticipation.

I realised the problem is a collision between two different desires. I want a free process, but I still have to get it done. How can I do that? What beliefs are better suited to buttress my goal?

“I want to write more like I improvise.”

“I am keeping 2 hours a day just for writing, so I can write like I improvise.”

I felt a great relief and excitement when I wrote that down. Before, I was trying to use logistics to motivate play which doesn’t work. If you book a rehearsal room you make sure it’s suitable and make sure everybody can turn up, because you want to be free and concentrate on the work. My original belief was like saying if I don’t book rooms and sync diaries then I can’t rehearse, which is true, but it’s not an idea that you want to carry into the rehearsal. You do the scheduling work then you forget about it.

This was a nice untangling of ideas for me. It’s worth doing this reflection to see how you can smooth things out.

For You

Here is a short exercise you might find useful, it takes about 15 to 30 minutes:

• Write down a goal you want to achieve in the next year or so.
• On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being certain, how likely are you to reach that goal?
• Write out all the beliefs you have about achieving this goal, empowering and limiting. Don’t think- just brainstorm whatever comes up, no censoring.
• Pick one of the limiting beliefs to work on. Ask yourself what helpful intention might be behind the belief. e.g. “Everybody will laugh at me if I sing on stage”, maybe you want to be confident in your singing, maybe you want professional assessment or teaching on your singing?
• Play around writing a new empowering or buttressing belief that will support you taking action towards your goal. e.g. “I want to find a respected singing teacher”, “I want to sing with confidence”, “I want to sing without anybody laughing at me”.
• Write down what you have done so far to reach that goal
• Revisit your 1 to 10 rating, has it changed? Hopefully it’s gone up, if it’s gone down why might that be?

 

 

What moves you?

I visited Oslo last weekend and one of my favourite parts was the Viking Ship Museum.

They have wonderfully preserved ships recovered from burial mounds, along with many of the grave goods that were put there for the deceased. There were goods from all over the Viking trade routes, like buckets made in Ireland, and even a peacock from the Middle East.

The favourite fact I learned is that a sail would cost as much as the rest of a ship. They were incredibly valuable because they took just as much work to make as the wooden hull, and for a long sea journey you needed to harness the power of the wind reliably. A good sail is the difference between being able to visit faraway lands or being limited to your local area.

This made me think about the analogy of motivation. Sometimes creative work is easy, like the wind is carrying you along. Other times its exhausting work and it seems that you are the only person on board rowing. Even worse is when your solo rowing is making the ship go round in circles.

If you want to catch that wind you need to keep your sail in good condition. I wondered what my sail is? What are the habits I can cultivate that will keep me riding that wind of motivation?

The Oseberg ship.

What moves me?

Here are moments that recently lifted my spirits and kept me moving forward.

• Rehearsing a sketch for a show, and being surrounded by other performers rehearsing their bits.
• Sharing work in progress with others, and seeing their work in progress.
• Going to a friend’s music gig in a cosy out-of-the-way cafe I would otherwise never have visited.
• Talking about our processes with a creative friend.
• Seeing the art of the Oslo Town Hall, huge friezes depicting the history and hopes for the future of the city.

There are common themes in those moments, ones that often turn up if I think back to other inspiring moments. For me they are:

1. Being around people making things.
2. Enjoying art from different fields than mine.
3. Talking about the process of making things.

So to keep my sail in good condition I need to make opportunities to be around people who are making things, go to random galleries and performances that I know nothing about and stay in contact with people that I respect and can talk to about my work.

What moves you?

If you are feeling dead in the water right now, write out a short list of moments that inspired you recently. See if there are any common themes in these moments and older ones that spoke to you.

Then write a short list of specific actions you can take to capture more of those moments. Now you have a checklist of things to do to tune up your sails and get back to riding the winds.

Current Workshops

I will be using my passion for sharing your creative process in a series of workshops in London. Tuesdays from 12th March to 21st May. Check out this link for more details. Come down and let’s quest together.