Those Big Bad Negative Beliefs that Kick My Ass
When I initially decided to practice radical forgiveness for 30 days I assumed I’d be doing one worksheet a day … or nearly so.
Instead I’ve found myself working on the same worksheet and on the same situation over the last 9 days.
The good news is that because most issues boiled down to a limited number of negative beliefs, by addressing one situation, I’m addressing a lot of others and I imagine it will be easier to go through some of the steps in the future as I get more familiar with the structure.
As I’ve been processing this stuff, I realized I have a few beliefs that kick my ass on a regular basis. Kind of like my “Book of Doom” because none of the situations in which these beliefs hold true have happy endings.
The biggies are:
- I will never be compensated for my gifts and talents because there are so few people in this world that can remotely get the value, I’ll probably die before anything I do is appreciated on a wider scale.
- There is only one way to succeed in this world .. at least in the small business/entrepreneur world and that is to “hustle your ass off nonstop”
- A teeny tiny number of people have been successful without hustling their asses off. They just happened to do something that although not obviously marketable attracted a cult following. And btw I’m not one of those people because if I were I wouldn’t have struggled with the first two.
I know I’m not the only person who struggles with these particular issues but I’ve yet to meet anyone who has struggled and found a way to stop struggling.
The other day my husband asked me “Do you have any kind of plan?” It’s a fair question and all I could think was “I WISH!”
Because I really don’t have a plan. I used to make shit tons of plans and have SMART goals and I hit a lot of those goals. But looking back, very few of my achievements merited the energy it took to get there because I don’t think the logical, systematic way I went after my goals fit my personality or style.
As I contemplated my lack of plans and seeming inability to sell I rephrased the issues so I might consider them in a more expansive way. I wrote:
- What’s wrong with being unable to make a decision?
- What’s wrong with drifting?
- What’s wrong with not wanting to have to grind away doing research and asking hundreds of questions to find the right job?
- What’s wrong with not wanting to pick up the phone?
- What’s wrong with not implementing some guru’s process if the process just doesn’t appeal to me in a visceral way?
Of course there are voice inside of me that are very good at answering these questions and telling me exactly what’s wrong.
My friend Lynn asked me, “what if you reworded your questions to ‘what’s right'”?
So reworded the questions are:
- What’s right with being unable to make a decision?
- What’s right with drifting?
- What’s right with not wanting to have to grind away doing research and asking hundreds of questions to find the right job?
- What’s right with not wanting to pick up the phone?
- What’s right with not implementing some guru’s process if the process just doesn’t appeal to me in a visceral
- What’s right with wanting to do what I love, make a difference, and get paid?
Whoa! This just blows my little mind!
This is a situation where I’m just going to allow myself to “live in the question” and see what floats up for me. And have some fun with the questions and maybe just come up with the silliest answers possible.
I’m learning the best way to handle big, badass beliefs is instead of challenging them to a wrestling match which I’m bound to lose, I’ll invite them out for a cup of coffee and some conversation.
Who knows what Captain Gladiator might have to share?
