As a Life and NLP Coach, talk of beliefs comes up a lot. And the more I talk to friends and clients, and learn about their differing beliefs and where they come from, it gets clearer that they’re simply based on the information they’ve been told and taken in around them along their path.

In fact, it became really apparent recently when I was having a conversation with a friend about the struggle between being a multi-passionate entrepreneur (enjoying a variety of roles to create income) but also having the want to sometimes just feel focussed on one thing at a time.

We talked about the joys of being multi-passionate, about the benefits of being totally creative with big ideas and the love of pursuing pleasure from a variety of paths and places. And we also talked about the ‘negatives’ of being such a way, like the tendency for mess (hello, desk, under all those papers,), an unfocussed attention on one thing at a time – and a friend said: “Well, what is it they say, jack of all trades, master of none?!”

Yep. That’s what they say.

And that’s what I want to talk about – those little phrases, quotes, suggestions we pick up along the way, that someone, somewhere, uttered once upon a time.

When we hear them so often, we start to believe them. We take them as given. As rules for life. But we don’t even question where they came from or if they’re actually true.

‘And how does that phrase make you feel?’ I asked.

‘It makes me feel like I should just focus on one thing and be an expert in that’, she said.

‘And is that what you want to do?’ I asked.

‘No, I like being good at a bit of everything.’

‘Perfect, so choose another phrase that makes you feel good about who you are and what you enjoy.’ I suggested.

Like, multi-passionate = multi-skilled, for example.

‘And then believe that instead.’

Because the thing is, we get to choose what we believe.

And quite simply, if something we believe doesn’t make us feel good, we have to question the truth behind it, because there’s literally no point in us believing it anymore. (Especially because our beliefs are learnt, and everything we believe is simply based on the meaning and perceptions we’ve created – but that’s for another post.)

Tweetable: If you believe something that makes you feel like crap, it isn’t true.

Of course it isn’t always quite as easy to change what we believe – sometimes it’s stronger than a phrase that they said, and it’s in fact something we’ve been told repeatedly and has been ingrained in us from being a child.

‘Money doesn’t grow on trees’ or ‘be happy with what you’ve got’, for example – they probably sound familiar? They might appear flippant phrases, but, when you think about the stories you tell yourself and the beliefs that hold you back from doing more, from being more, from achieving more, from asking for more, there’s often a very simple explanation as to why you believe that, and a very simply way you don’t have to believe it anymore.

And it’s becoming aware of that, that’s the game-changer.

Once you realise that you get to choose what to believe, your whole world begins to shift. And that’s when you can start deciding what you’d rather believe instead, and how the hell you can do that.

And it’s THE most life-changing work to do.

If you’re ready to uncover and remove the limiting beliefs and stories that are getting in your way, my free email course: Live Life On Purpose, Not Auto-Pilot is the perfect kickstarter. 

Sophie French