As you read these statements, (all of which came from actual clients, by the way) do any of them sound familiar? If you grew up in this society then you undoubtedly were conditioned to have conflicting beliefs about success.
- "Dr. Maya, I want to be successful, but I'm afraid that I wouldn't than have any time for myself, my friends, or my family."
- "I want to be successful, but I fear that I could not endure the amount of stress that comes with success."
- "I can't be successful because I have the belief that I really don't have what it takes."
- "I want to be successful, but I'm afraid that it would jeopardize my relationship with my husband."
- "I want to be successful but I have the belief that if I were I would experience jealousy or my friends and family."
- "I want to be successful, but I have the belief that I would crash and burn, because that happened to me once before."
On the one hand you were taught that to be successful is a good thing and you need to strive for that. On the other hand, on a more subconscious level, you were taught that to be successful you will have to work long hard hours, struggle and sacrifice. When you believe that the sacrifice will be too great, is it any wonder that as you get close to success, you find a way to back away?
The key to getting past your blocks to success is to understand that you have two parts to your mind: your conscious mind, and your subconscious mind.
The best way to think of your entire mind is to picture an iceberg. Visualize how the iceberg is mostly buried under the ocean. Look at how you can only see the very tip of the iceberg. Close your eyes for a moment and just focus on that tip. That tip of the iceberg is called your conscious mind and it is about 1% of your entire mind.
Here's how it applies to success:
Supposing you come to me and you say, "Dr. Maya, I want your help to become successful." Are you aware that statement is coming from your conscious mind and that is only 1% of your entire mind?
In order for me to help you to become successful, I need to help you to locate and identify subconscious beliefs that are holding you back from success, and those are in the subconscious mind, the mass of the iceberg, that 99%.
Do you realize that our parents never taught us how to work "smarter"? They only showed us how to work "harder”?
I bring this up because most of your beliefs about success and what it takes to be successful have their roots in the conditioning you received when you were growing up.
To understand this more, I suggest you take out a clean piece of paper and a pen and make a T diagram.
The left-hand column will be entitled self-limiting beliefs about success in the right-hand column will be entitled empowered beliefs about success.
It might take a few moments to do some soul-searching and reflection so that you can take some guesses as to what subconscious beliefs you may be carrying that are keeping success from coming to you.
Please keep in mind two things:
1. Most of your beliefs about success were formed when you were growing up.
2. These beliefs about success were usually not given to you in a verbal or obvious way. Mostly you absorbed your ideas about success from observing your parents.
The best way to do this when you're looking at your T diagram is to take some guesses right off the top of your head about beliefs you possibly have regarding success. More specifically please notice the "anti-success" beliefs and write them in your left column.
If any of these statements feels familiar, even 1% of the time; put it in your left-hand column:
1. Success means I won't have a balanced life.
2. Success means I won't have time for my friends and my family.
3. Success means I will lose my authenticity and the true values.
4. Success means that I might put my marriage in jeopardy.
5. Success means people won't like me.
6. Success means that I'll get very stressed out and crash and burn.
7. Success means I won't be up to be myself.
8. Success means I won't have a life.
If I were coaching you, I would help you to reprogram each and every one of those beliefs and turn them into Empowered beliefs. I would be using a process that I developed when I was a psychologist for 20 years. Later I refined the process so that it is customized to help real estate agents achieve their full potential.
It's not as simple as just replacing an old belief with the new belief in your T diagram, but that is a good start.
So for this moment right here I would recommend that for every belief that you put in your left-hand column, write an empowered belief in the right-hand column.
For example, if the first belief is "success means I won't have a balanced life", please put in your right-hand column a new belief called "I create success with ease and have plenty of time for my friends my family and myself."
Here's some other empowered beliefs:
1. "I attract people who celebrate my success."
2. "My relationship with my significant other grows stronger and closer the more successful I become."
3. "I create success by working smarter, not harder."
4. "By creating success I achieve all the abundance that life has to offer."
5. "By being successful, I am able to give back fully to the community."
I'm sure you get the idea. But here's the rub: how can you feel good about yourself when you're not doing the things you know you need to do and you're not living up to your full potential?
When you feel good about yourself, then you will start succeeding.
Getting rid of self-limiting beliefs that lower your feelings of self-esteem is no easy job. That's why I always recommend people get outside professional help. The fastest kind of professional help for you as a real estate agent would be mindset coach.