Do you have an identity that is serving you in your current life stage? What's an identity? Well, it's a set of beliefs (often unconscious) you have about yourself that determine what you allow in your life, in your relationships, what you allow yourself to buy, how you dress. All of these things are driven by your set of core beliefs about yourself, or your belief system.
Our beliefs are created from very early on in life. Your mother might have said 'oh she's not the sporty one. Kate is the sporty one, Claire is the bookworm." And straight away you begin to internalise the belief that you're not sporty, when in fact, that's not necessarily true.
The next step in that process that firms up your belief that you're not sporty is that you go out into the world looking for evidence to prove that it's true - e.g. you might try tennis and on day one you don't play well and you say "of course I didn't play well, I'm not sporty so i'm no good at tennis" and you might give up before you've even given yourself a chance. That's an example of a self-limiting belief. You're limiting your potential because of your beliefs. But now that you've found a tiny piece of evidence that in your mind proves your belief, it starts to become fact in your brain.
So ask yourself now - is the identity (set of beliefs) that you're currently acting out of serving you as you enter into this next season of your life (e.g. midlife)? If yes, wonderful! If not, then we need to start questioning the foundation of the beliefs that make up your identity.
You could also ask yourself "Is the identity that I have about myself allowing me to fully step into the next phase of my life, or is it holding me back?" Once you create awareness around those beliefs, then we can start the work of unpacking and dismantling them and reframing them into a belief set that enables success, and even makes success seem easy!
How to find your self-limiting beliefs as they relate to weight loss? Well - if I said to you right now, imagine yourself totally nailing your workouts, walking daily and nailing a macro-based diet, literally losing weight every week and sailing towards your weight loss goal - what kind of resistance comes up for you? You might find words like 'can't' or 'no time' or 'too busy' appearing in your head - so question each of those, are they 1) serving you and 2) really true?
So here are the six steps:
Question the foundation of that belief. Where did it come from? Is it event true?
Create a new belief despite lack of evidence. For example, if you have a belief that you're not sporty, create the opposite belief - e.g. "I am enthusiastically health-focused, strong and fit" or if you have a belief that you're "no good with technology" and you fear using an app to track your weight loss, you could declare "I welcome the support of technology in my health journey". Create this even though you might believe in your soul that it's not true!
Practice the new belief. Write it down. Elaborate on it - e.g. who are you really, and how do you show up for yourself in this new phase of life (e.g. midlife).
Do some short sprints in that new identity. Try it out for size in short time periods. For example, go to the gym and do the workout in your plan while declaring that you are "enthusiastically health-focused, strong and fit".
Start to notice evidence that supports your new belief. Once you start to notice evidence to support the new belief (your brain would previously have ignored this evidence in order to protect the old belief), you find it easier to start acting in line with that new identity. An example would be that you start showing up for your workouts, and even feeling some strength in your body, maybe even noticing some gains - e.g. some moves get easier, or your form is perfect on a particular move.
The new identity becomes fact. Our new belief is just a fact now in our minds, so we simply automatically act in accordance with the new belief because that's just who we are - e.g. "I am enthusiastically health-focused, strong and fit" - fact.
This is not necessarily an easy process to go through - some of our self-limiting beliefs are very deep-rooted. But once we create awareness around them, we can begin the process of dismantling and reframing them.
The only limitations are the ones we put on ourselves! Once we get out of our own way, anything becomes possible, and certainly following a weight loss plan becomes effortless!
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