Tag Archive for values

Are Your Self Limiting Beliefs Bringing You Down?

August 28, 2023 John Uncategorized No comments

It seems as though you’re going through life with the emergency brake on. Your efforts are cancelled out by limits of one sort or another.

Your beliefs could be the problem, and GenuLines has a closer look at how this is happening.

Are Your Self Limiting Beliefs Bringing You Down?

You’re not moving forward in life, why is that? The answer could be self-limiting beliefs.

Self-limiting beliefs relate to our abilities, skills, looks, motivation, and other personality traits.

Self-limiting beliefs are often self-identified. This means that they are beliefs that focus on oneself rather than the world in general.

But self-limiting beliefs may also be about other people or the world.

What Are Self-Limiting Beliefs?
Self-limiting beliefs include: I do/don’t I am/am not:

These beliefs define us by things we are or are not. “I am an accountant.”

These types of self-limiting beliefs may also connect to things you tell yourself you do or don’t deserve.

“I don’t deserve a raise because I’m a bad accountant.” Self-limiting beliefs come from the self-image.

Typical I can’t self-limiting beliefs are statements that begin with I can’t. “I can’t do this because… I can’t learn that because…”

Value Beliefs
Value beliefs usually come from norms laws cultural restraints and other conditions.

But, not all these are mandatory, and some are limiting. “I must clean my house every day until the floor shines.”

This is a very limiting value belief about cleanliness.

Others will/are: these are beliefs based on how other people perceive us or what they will do based on our actions. These are often guesses about other people’s behavior, and they are often wrong.

These self-limiting beliefs are wrong. We view people through our own mind rather than through their perception.

We don’t have accurate ideas of how other people think because we have not lived their experiences.

How Do Self Limiting Beliefs Affect Your Life?
We’ll refer to Psychology Today. We’re told that limiting decisions in our lives prevents us from becoming who we wish to become.

Self-limiting thoughts do this by affecting our decisions.

There have been several studies in this area over the years. They looked at what we perceive, our emotional state, and how we perform.

All showed ties to our self-belief system. Self-limiting beliefs turn into self-limiting actions.

Often people with self-limiting beliefs will not even attempt to test that limit. For example, people who think that they are not attractive will never attempt to ask for a date.

If you think you’re too old to get a new jobs you won’t try to find a more satisfying one.

You can see how self-limiting beliefs can bring you down without you even knowing. Self-limiting beliefs are controlling your decisions every day.

4-Steps To Eliminating Self Limiting Beliefs
The lucky thing about thoughts is that you are in complete control of them. Anytime you have a thought, whether it’s positive or negative, you can change it.

Psychology Today has a four-step process to end self-limiting beliefs. Let’s take a look:

1. Write the limiting belief down.
Find out how strong each belief is and what emotions they make you feel.

2. Acknowledge that they are beliefs and not truths.
Many people struggle with this step, but the reality is a belief and not a fact. Many self-limiting beliefs are limitations based on fictional ideas we have about ourselves.

When you realize that these are not real limits, you free yourself to act against them.

3. Try on a different belief.
This may take some practice, but over time you’ll be able to change your belief system. An example from Psychology Today was changing a self-limiting belief about handling money.

Instead of saying, “I am not good with money and that is why I have financial difficulties.” You would change that belief to “I am experienced with money because of my past. ”

“I’ve learned how to handle my finances.” These simple tweaks in your internal dialogue can help you change your actions.

4. Take different action.
The final step is to take action on your new belief as if it were true. If you’re trying on the belief that you are a successful artist, you may enter your first art show.

Scary? Sure.

But it’s also a big step in overcoming negative and self-limiting beliefs.

JohnK 8-28-2023
chiforyourself.com

Overheard: Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world.

~Arthur Schopenhauer

The Importance of Resilience: The Survival Skill

August 14, 2023 John Uncategorized No comments

A big part of any survival plan is resilience. It’s crucial to endure a situation until you can get the upper hand.

Let GenuLines help you in the process as we look at this quality called resilience.

The Importance of Resilience: The Survival Skill

Failure is always an option. In fact, failure is inevitable,

Every successful person has had their fair share of failure. It doesn’t matter how many times you fall, only that you get back up again.

The ability to recover after failing a task is resilience.

Why is resilience important? Well, there are several reasons:

● Protection from overwhelming experience
Without resilience, every obstacle that you face can be daunting. Developing mechanisms for handling these difficult experiences makes them a little less scary.

● Handling stress
Stress isn’t all bad. It pushes us to act and make decisions in life.

Instead of stress being something to hold you back, you can use it to draw motivation and push you forward.

● Mental wellbeing
If you’re resilient you won’t let failure get you down. Repeated failure at a task can be draining.

Resilience gives you the mental toughness needed to maintain a strong psychological balance.

● Realistic mindset
Without resilience, we tend to have a different world view. One that doesn’t seem so intimidating.

Resilience can help you see the world for how it is. An often unnerving, threatening, and even terrifying place.

But it’s okay for the world to be a scary place. As long as you have the psychological capacity to handle it. you don’t have to bend reality to feel more comfortable.

● Make the best of a bad situation
Failure is not the end; it’s an opportunity. Failure teaches us to learn from our mistakes. We can use that knowledge to move forward more in a more efficient way.

If we don’t learn from our mistakes we can never improve and do better the next time.

● Improve the way you value yourself
Being able to bounce back from a bad situation can help improve your self-worth. You won’t see yourself as someone ill equipped to handle bad situations.

Resilience can make you feel strong powerful and worthy.

Relying on yourself isn’t always easy. But to do it time and time again proves that you don’t always need someone else to do something for you.

In turn, you’ll see yourself as someone who can succeed regardless of the challenge.

Remember, resilience is a skill that you can cultivate and grow with training.

Next time you find it difficult to pull yourself up from failure, do it anyway.

See how being resilient can change your entire mindset.

JohnK 8-14-2023
chiforyourself.com

Overheard: It’s not the strongest of a species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most resilient and responsive to change”

~Charles Darwin

Live Your Best Life: Focus On What Matters Most

August 22, 2022 John Uncategorized No comments

You’re living a pretty good life. But there’s room for improvement.

Ratchet things up a bit with this GenuLines look at where you’re putting your focus.

Live Your Best Life: Focus On What Matters Most

Have you ever noticed how fast our days seem to race by? We wake up, bombarded with an insane amount of things we have to get done.

Then, before you know it, the day’s done. Having the world at your fingertips doesn’t help to slow things down.

It only adds to the chaos.

Today, I want to focus on what matters most in our lives. That could mean different things for different people.

Still, each one of us has certain things we value more than others.

So, read ahead to find out how you can live your best life by focusing more on the things that matter.

The Most Important Things in Life

Having status and designer shoes are great and everything. But having them won’t make you any happier or healthier than the average person.

Another thing we tend to obsess over is what we don’t have. Sometimes, it becomes our driving force that can lead to negative habits and behavior.

Let me ask you this: do you want to live your best life today and every day? This is what you can do:

Identify What Matters the Most to You

First, take a step back and look at your life from a different vantage point. Next, try to dissect each aspect of your life.

Which areas should you pay more attention to? Which should you cut back on?

To lead a balanced, well-fulfilled life, consider having one, or all, of the following. You might even add a couple of our own to the list.

A healthy body and mind

Family and friends

Money in the bank

The drive to always learn new things

A place to call home

Realistic goals and a purpose in life

So recognize that what matters most in life has nothing to do with material possessions. Better to appreciate what you have.

Reconnecting with these things can lead to a better, happier, fuller life. It can also boost creativity and lower stress.

It also gives you control over your happiness. This is much better than allowing external factors to affect your inner peace.

Listen and Pay Attention

While it’s important to listen to those close to you in life, it’s much more than that. It’s also about listening to yourself and paying attention to your likes and dislikes.

This is a measure of your true worth and how much you love yourself.

Self-love requires practice, but it gets easier with time. When you’re at peace with yourself, you love others in a healthy, mature way.

The takeaway: Show yourself the same kindness and compassion you show others. When you look in the mirror, focus on the good rather than the bad.

Treat yourself to nice things and be happy with who you are.

Be in the Present

Too often, we find ourselves regretting the past or worrying about the future. But, what matters the most is the moment we’re living right here and now.

Connecting with the world around you makes you appreciate what you have. The more you’re in tune with your ‘present,’ the more you’ll realize how precious life can be.

As Earl Nightingale said: “Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Think how very precious the time is you have to spend, whether it’s at work or with your family. Every minute should be enjoyed and savored.”

The takeaway: Being self-aware helps bring tranquility and happiness into your life. In turn, the happier and calmer you are, the more things you’ll find to be thankful for.

Find a Hobby

Hobbies are the things you do for fun in your free time. They can range from knitting to deep-sea diving to jumping from airplanes.

Your experiences in life are what make it worth living. They give it meaning and shape the way you see others around you.

Doing something you enjoy can be one of the very best stress reducers. You can also use it to push your boundaries a bit and step out of your comfort zone.

Sometimes, the idea of doing something new can be terrifying. If this happens to you, recognize your fear.

Then, tell yourself it’s okay to be nervous about something new.

The takeaway: Live your life. Be eager to try out new experiences. They’re what add fulfillment and richness to your life.

Practice Positive Habits

Identifying positive habits and carrying them out daily brings order to your life. Good habits also result in good physical and mental health.

Stay with routine. You can reduce distractions that stand in the way of your accomplishing things.

They also help steer you towards making better decisions.

Studies show that routines and good habits boost your life, health, and well-being. The trick is to be authentic to your values and beliefs.

Let’s be honest, that can be hard to do in this media-frenzy world we’re living in. Yet, having confidence in who you are can help shine the light on what matters most in your life.

The takeaway: Your words express your thoughts and, down the line, your actions. Those actions turn into habits, so make sure you stick to enforcing positive habits in your life.

Final Thoughts

These five things are some of the ways you can focus on what matters most in your life. At the end of the day, what it boils down to is that to live your best life, you have to focus on certain things over others.

Remember, what matters more to you may not be as important to others. So, stay true to your values and hold on to the things you treasure more in life.

JohnK 8-22-2022

chiforyourself.com

Overheard: “The best portion of a good man’s life is his little nameless, unencumbered acts of kindness and of love”

~Wordsworth

Article image by Aziz Acharki on Unsplash

What is Your Confidence Quotient?

April 25, 2022 John Uncategorized No comments

Is your confidence up to the task? It may be time to take stock of where you are on the confidence scale.

These questions from GenuLines are intended to help your sweet spot.

What is Your Confidence Quotient?

Yes you want to be confident. But not so confident that you come off as arrogant.

You want to project the confidence needed to succeed in life and reach the goals that you’ve set for yourself.

Read and answer the following questions (all yes or no) and then look back on your answers. You should have a pretty good idea if your confidence quotient is high or low – or in the middle.

This will show you areas you need to work on to raise it.

Do you feel guilty when you say “no?”

Saying “no” can be traumatic for you if you lack confidence in your decisions.

You may find yourself making up lies to get out of things rather than saying, “no.”

Do you compare yourself to others?

There’s always going to be someone smarter, richer and better looking than you. Until you become comfortable with yourself you’ll lack confidence to go farther in life.

Do you feel intimidated in most situations?

You’re likely to feel intimidated by others if you compare yourself to others. (see previous question) Don’t think of yourself as inferior to them.

Stop comparing yourself and enjoy the moment.

Do you stand up for your values and beliefs?

Let’s say you easily get swayed by others or stay silent in an uncomfortable situation. You could lack confidence.

Compromising your belief system can be a confidence killer.

Do you try hard to impress others?

When you’re confident, you don’t have to strive to impress. You’ll impress others with your mere presence.

Confidence exudes an image that means you don’t have to try to impress – it will become natural

Are you money sound?

Financial well-being can add to your confidence quotient. If you have trouble budgeting and spending you may need help from a pro.

A financial planner can give you more confidence in your financial future.

Do you hesitate to take the initiative on projects or ideas?

Building confidence helps you feel good about taking on challenges and new ideas. It’s okay to take a back seat to someone who knows more and whom you can learn from.

But put yourself out there by sometimes taking the initiative.

Do you feel confident about your future?

It’s important that you feel comfortable about the choices you’re making. This will go a long way toward impacting your future.

That future encompasses your health, family and job decisions that you’re making now. Be sure they’re based on facts.

Assess your confidence quotient and determine what you need to do to raise it.

Check your progress

Take action on your weak points. Later, when you feel you’ve made progress in the areas you needed to work on, answer the questions again.

And see how far you’ve progressed.

JohnK 4-25-2022

chiforyourself.com home

Overheard: “It is best to act with confidence, no matter how little right you have to it.”

-Lillian Hellman

Find The Value In Criticism

February 11, 2020 John Uncategorized No comments

Where’s the value in criticism?

After all, taking criticism can put you in a funk.

Today GenuLines unpacks this thing called criticism and gives you some ways to put it on your side.

(click on the image below to listen to the article or scroll down to read)

Find The Value In Criticism

The concept of value is kind of unusual when you think about it. Most every person on earth has a different system when it comes to determining what’s important.

In general, the three things that we tend to value the most include our lives, our families and our jobs. And within each of those aspects, everyone will, again, have a very different value system.

And what is that system based on? What gives value to something?

(continue reading)

Often it’s determined by your upbringing, your experiences, and your education. This sets you apart from others.

And it touches off more than a few debates.

But who says those debates and differences have to be bad things?

You may meet someone who has the same values as you do, but there are still plenty of possible areas of disagreement. We all have different experiences and we all bring a different point of view to a relationship.

Value and Respect

Now let’s say that you have great respect for someone. Each of you has the same values in life.

You know their past. You could even say that you respect their opinion.

Now ask yourself if you would respect their criticism? Would you keep an open mind when it came to their critique of your work?

Is it only because you know them?

Why is it that we’ll value the criticism of a friend, but we’re quick to shy away from the criticism of a stranger? Don’t they hold the same value?

Could be it’s the mere fact that they don’t know us, they don’t know our experiences. But in reality, you don’t know their experiences or level of expertise either.

All too often we seem to equate the word value with respect. In some way, this seems to justify ignoring the opinions of someone we don’t know.

Or it could be that for personal reasons, we don’t care what their opinion is.

Does not knowing someone well mean we have to find no value or worth in their opinion? I mean, in the final analysis, criticism is an opinion.

What if we could find value in every opinion, of every criticism we ever received? Imagine how enriched our lives would be if we could put value to everyone’s opinion.

No matter who it’s coming from.

JohnK 2-11-2020

chiforyourself.com home

Overheard: “The trouble with most of us is that we’d rather be ruined by praise than saved by criticism.”

~Norman Vincent Peale

Article image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

How to Set Powerful Goals You Can Achieve

January 7, 2020 John Uncategorized No comments

Goals are a sort-of road map on your life’s journey. You want them to be satisfying, yes. But you don’t want them to be too challenging.

In this first of a two part post GenuLines offers a map to guide you on a comfortable and rewarding trip!

How to Set Powerful Goals You Can Achieve

Say you need a fresh start? O.K., you want to challenge yourself, but you don’t want to make things so tough that you fail.

First we’ll look inside, at the things that are important to you. And we’ll make sure that these goals are even doable.

Match Your Core Values

Start with four main areas in your life.

Family
Financial
Physical
Personal

The better you goal fits into one or more of these the more likely your goal is achievable.

If for some reason a goal doesn’t fit into one of your core values, it’s not likely you’ll experience much success.

Be 100 Percent in Control

Goals that rely on others are not necessarily wrong. But they can be harder to achieve.

A goal you control 100 percent is one that you can reach.

Make sure fear isn’t getting in your way. Be realistic about whether you do have control or not and give yourself more credit. And, don’t blame fate for your setbacks.

Don’t think you lack control over your financial future because “that’s just how it is,”

Be Able to Envision the Goal

If you can’t see the end result, it will be very difficult to move forward toward achieving the goal. If you need to draw a picture, make a vision board.

Or take a day off to fantasize about your big dreams. Imagine how it all fits together in the big picture of your life. You need to see the end to be able to achieve it.

Be Specific-Spell It Out

Every goal you set needs to be very exact in nature. If you want to be sure to reach the goal, you have to know when you’ve actually reached it. Instead of saying “I want to start a business,” state exactly what type of business you want to start.

Know who you want as your clients. Know all you can to make the goal more concrete.

JohnK 1-7-2020

chiforyourself.com home

Overheard: “If a man knows not to which port he sails, no wind is favorable.”

~Seneca the Younger

Chi For Yourself

Raising Consciousness..Living Genuinely!

Tag Archive for values

Are Your Self Limiting Beliefs Bringing You Down?

Are Your Self Limiting Beliefs Bringing You Down?

The Importance of Resilience: The Survival Skill

The Importance of Resilience: The Survival Skill