Are limiting beliefs holding you back?
What you believe subconsciously often tends to reveal itself in reality.
For example, let’s say you are facing personal challenges. Your friends suggest that a psychologist may be able to help you. You are skeptical, but decide to book an appointment anyway.
You may have the following limiting belief:
“Therapists can’t help me, I know people who have wasted a lot of money on therapy and nothing changed. I can deal with this myself.”
Whether or not it is true, false, justified or irrational – this belief will limit your ability to benefit from the psychologist’s advice. Understand that the psychologist will only be able to help you if you are open to their suggestions and actually believe that they can help.
Limiting beliefs like this exist (in abundance) when we start talking about money, investing, trading, and business. Such limiting beliefs can literally cap your ability to become a profitable investor and trader.
Here are some common limiting beliefs we’ve come across in new traders:
- “I probably won’t make money, but I’ll give it a try”
- “I probably wouldn’t be able to trade full time”
- “Money doesn’t grow on trees”
- “What’s too good to be true usually is”
- “Only institutions make money from trading, not ordinary people like me”
- “I could lose everything if this doesn’t work out, it’s very risky”
- “If I’m not good at this, it may not be for me”
What you focus on is what you will end up with.
If you don’t think you will make money, you won’t!
If you don’t believe you will be good at trading, you won’t be!
Try this at home
If you want to carry out an experiment to test the power of limiting beliefs, go to the bank and withdraw $100 in 5 dollar notes. Take your $5 notes, stand on a busy thoroughfare during peak hour and offer the passersby a free 5 dollar note.
You might be amazed to find out how many people see you, see the 5 dollar bill, yet still look away and continue walking.
Many years ago a group of psychologists conducted this very experiment to see how people reacted when offered “free money”. Less than 5% of the people who walked by took up the offer. They concluded that limiting beliefs about money, the accumulation of money, and the concept of “easy money” were primarily responsible for the amazing results.
Limiting beliefs may arise from ideas and phrases that were ingrained deep into your subconscious from a young age.
Beliefs such as:
- “To make money you need to work hard”
- “Money doesn’t grow on trees”
- “We don’t get given money in this family”
- “Nothing ever comes to us without a hidden catch. Avoid opportunities that are different.”
- “Money just doesn’t come easily”
- “I shouldn’t talk to strangers”
Catch phrases like this are frequently used by middle-class parents all over the world, so is it any wonder that hardly anyone takes “free money”?
For the 95% who “missed out” on the $5, I wonder if they’ll even think of that scenario again? The strange man waving money at them in the subway. Would they ever realize that their limiting beliefs cost them the ability to make $5? Perhaps more importantly, would they ever realize the incredible income opportunities that they are blinded to by limiting beliefs? Would they carry on throughout life holding onto limiting these beliefs? Would they pass them onto their children down the track? How is that going to affect the lives of their children?
In this modern day of global connectivity, money is literally all around you right this second. It’s waving at you. Plug in the right tools, procedures, technologies, philosophies, and beliefs – and you can pull more money out of the system than what you could ever spend.
When presented with an opportunity, will you take it? Or will you walk by in disbelief?
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