Your Current Reality - What's Happening Now? (Part 1)

Hello, and welcome to Edition 4 of “How to Live Life on your Terms”!

In Editions 2 and 3, I talked about getting clear on what your terms are and what you want your life to look like. Today it's time to explore what's happening in your life now. We can't get to where we want to go if we don't know our starting point. We have to assess where you are now compared to where you want to be, so you can figure out how to bridge that gap. What's happening in your current reality that's stopping you from living life on your terms? This includes your external reality and internal reality. Today, I’m discussing your internal reality. The reality we create in our minds.

Image by Gerd Altmann

HOW OUR INNER REALITY CREATES OUR OUTER REALITY

People underestimate the role our inner reality plays in creating our outer reality. To demonstrate this, let’s talk about Jane.

Jane is 35, single and unfulfilled. One of Jane’s life terms is to have a job she’s passionate about. She’s tried many different jobs over the years but the same thing happens every time. She starts with all the enthusiasm in the world, hoping this will be the one she will finally be good at and will make her happy. But after 6 months, she's not as happy as she thought she would be. Her enthusiasm and motivation start to dwindle. Within a year, her managers are expressing concern about her performance. She takes this as a sign this isn't her perfect job and it's time to move on, before being fired.

This pattern isn't just showing up in her career but in other life areas too. You see, Jane was bullied at school. She also had high-achieving parents who wouldn’t accept anything less than the best from her. As a result, Jane developed the belief she was never good enough and unworthy of love and approval. This created a fairly cold inner reality for Jane. Constant thoughts and self-judgements of being unlovable, not “enough” and unworthy made her feel miserable and empty. To (subconsciously) escape this inner reality, she focused on her external reality. Hoping something “out there” would make her feel better “in here”. A new job. A new boyfriend. A new apartment in a new city.

In the beginning, she did feel better. But after 3-6 months, the "happy hormones" and brain chemicals associated with honeymoon periods, novelty, infatuation and escapism would start to decline. Old thoughts of unhappiness, unworthiness and being unlovable crept back in. This then put even more pressure on her outside reality to “fix” her internal reality. Higher benchmarks and expectations were set. More expensive stuff, “better” boyfriends, “better” jobs, bigger apartments etc. were now needed to make her feel whole and worthy. But nothing outside was ever enough because on the inside she was not enough.

When she looked out into the world and in the mirror, all she would find was evidence of her unworthiness and not being enough. If she did get what she wanted, she would talk herself out of any satisfaction it would bring. "It's not enough." "He's only with me because..." "I should be doing more." Or she would sabotage her success and happiness by behaving in a way that would lead to her rejection. Affirming her belief she's unworthy and not enough.

Jane’s external reality was one of disappointments, drama, inconsistent success and short-lived happiness. Why? Because her internal reality was one of “I’m unworthy of anything more.” What she believed on the inside is what she projected and experienced on the outside. Her inner world created her outer world.

HOW OUR INNER REALITY HOLDS US BACK FROM LIVING LIFE ON OUR TERMS

Jane's example shows the role our internal reality plays in creating our experience of our external reality. It also shows how Jane's beliefs of unworthiness and not being enough stopped and sabotaged her ability to live the life she wanted.

If our inner reality contains limiting beliefs around our worthiness, capabilities, “enoughness”, power, significance etc. our ability to create and experience our dream life will be limited. We will either:

 1)   not take the action required to live life on our terms – believing we’re not capable of achieving success or facing failure, or we're unworthy of it

2)   take action but then sabotage our efforts and accomplishments (by either quitting or setting ourselves up for rejection/failure)

3)   achieve our goals but not experience the fulfilment that comes with achieving them. Either because we’re unworthy of fulfilment. Or our goals, and we, are not enough.

Our beliefs are only a part of our inner reality and what creates our external reality. If you want to find out more, there are hundreds of books out there about how we create our internal world and external world. But for the sake of today's newsletter, we're only focusing on beliefs. Specifically, some of the most common limiting beliefs people have (subconsciously) and how they hold us back from living life on our terms.

MOST COMMON LIMITING BELIEFS (which do you relate to?)

1) “I’M UNWORTHY”

• Holds us back because we set the bar too high to prove our unworthiness or leave situations (jobs, relationships etc.) before our unworthiness is discovered. Instead of living life on our terms, we do what others will perceive as worthy. We block and sabotage experiences and feelings of happiness, love and success because we're unworthy of them.

2) “I’M NOT (GOOD) ENOUGH”

• Constantly seeking to prove our "enoughness", we become high/overachievers, personal growth addicts, perpetual students, often leading to burnout. But nothing we do is enough. A constant pursuit of feeling whole and enough in the future holds us back from being fulfilled in ourselves and our reality now.

3) “I CAN’T TRUST MYSELF, OTHERS OR THE WORLD”

• Fearing being hurt, betrayed or let down we become “Ms/Mr Fiercely Independent” focused on individual survival. This holds us back because we try to do everything ourselves (which slows our progress), don't form deep and meaningful relationships or gain the support we need to succeed and be happy in life.

4) “I’M POWERLESS”

• Feeling powerless we gain our sense of power from external results and power symbols e.g. big house, fancy car, fancy job title etc. Power-hungry, we alienate the people we need for happiness and success. Or we act the victim “that’s not fair”, blaming everyone and everything for our misfortune and not taking responsibility for our own lives.

5) “I’M NOT ALLOWED TO BE CAPABLE”

• Normally from being over-parented, we crave the freedom to do and have what we want. This holds us back because we don’t do anything we don’t want to do. Even if it's what we need to do to achieve our goals. We don’t commit, get lost in too many options, focus on easy tasks irrelevant to achieving our goals and make no meaningful progress.

6) “I NEED TO BE PERFECT”

• Holds us back because we spend too much time in preparation and not execution. We avoid anything we can’t do perfectly which stops our progress. We pick flaws in other people’s work to distract from our imperfections, often alienating the people we need to succeed.

7) “I DON’T HAVE THE CAPACITY”

• We perceive our capacities as limited e.g. time, money, mental capacity. We become dependent on external resources, believing only when we have all the e.g. expert advice, courses, technology, money etc. can we change our circumstances. FOMO on great resources causes over-excitement, over-commitment, overwhelm and then confusion, indecisiveness (“too many options”), under involvement and sudden boredom.

While these are just some of the most common limiting beliefs (taken from William Whiteclouds' "Natural Success"), they show how our inner reality can keep us chained to our current circumstances, and prevent us from taking positive action towards the life we want.

YOUR CURRENT INTERNAL REALITY

Before we explore your current internal reality, I want to make something very clear. You do not need to change or have the perfect internal reality BEFORE you can start to live life on your terms. You do not need to get rid of all your limiting beliefs and fears BEFORE working on and achieving your goals. The truth is your beliefs and fears will, whether you like it or not, pop up along the way. It’s about noticing them and choosing to take action anyway. (Content for another newsletter).

So now is the time to be brutally honest with yourself. As with previous editions, please respect yourself and your future enough to grab a notebook and pen to answer the following questions. They are designed to help you become aware of how your inner reality is holding you back from living life on your terms. We can’t achieve our goals if we don't face and overcome what's standing in our way.

EXERCISE

Using the list above as a guide, what limiting beliefs do you have about yourself, people and the world?

 1) How have they helped you until now? Even negative beliefs benefit us (often protect us/keep us safe) in some way.

 2) How have they held you back until now? What have they stopped you from doing? What have they led you to avoid, neglect, ignore or focus on instead? 

3) How have they affected your behaviour towards others and yourself? Your communication with others and yourself?

4) How have they stopped you from living life on your terms?

5) What positive beliefs do you have that can help you create the life you want?

6) What resources are available to you to help you work on creating a more helpful and supportive inner reality (and a better relationship with yourself) so you can create the life you want?

Don’t worry about the “how” of managing your limiting beliefs. Right now we’re simply bringing awareness to what's holding you back internally. So you can begin to understand why, to some extent, you don't have what you want externally.

 Which of the limiting beliefs resonate most with you?

 Thoughts?

Stay tuned for part 2 where we'll be looking at what's holding you back in your external reality. Until next time!

Zeta x

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Zeta Yarwood is recognised as a leading international Executive Career Coach and Life Coach, helping individuals across the world to achieve success in all areas of their lives. With a degree in Psychology and over 10 years of experience in coaching, management and recruitment – working for multinational companies and award-winning recruitment firms – Zeta is an expert in unlocking human potential. Passionate about helping people discover their strengths, talents and motivation, Zeta lives to inspire others to dream big and create the life and career they really want.

For further information on coaching and general career/life inspiration, please visit www.zetayarwood.com or follow on:

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