Welcome to part 2 of this two-part series on shifting your beliefs. You’ll learn how to shift your beliefs and trade in those low vibe beliefs for new ones that are more empowering. This is an important process that will enable you to start living your big, beautiful life. In the first part of this series, episode 205, you learned how to uncover your core beliefs through the Belief Mapping process. In this episode you’ll learn how to shift your current beliefs to more powerful ones with a process called Belief Laddering. So, get out of your head, into your heart and let’s shift your beliefs.
INTRO:
Hey, it’s Julie and welcome to the Corporate Yogi podcast.
Welcome to this episode on Belief Laddering, a powerful new process to shift your beliefs.
This episode is part 2 of a 2 part series on belief shifting. In that first part of the series, we laid the foundation and you learned the process of Belief Mapping, to help you extract what your beliefs are. It’s an exciting process, that forces you to get really conscious and really honest with yourself. How did you get on with that process? Did you use the categories I suggested, or did you create your own? What beliefs did you extract? That episode is foundational to this episode today. So if you haven’t checked it out, then hit pause, and go back to listen to episode 205, to learn about belief mapping.
So today, you are about to learn the art of Belief Laddering. You see, our beliefs really are the defining factor of whether we can or we can’t do something. And here’s a dose of tough love, that you might not want to hear, but you need to hear. If there is an area of your life that isn’t thriving like you want it to be, there are likely some stagnant beliefs there, holding you back from getting what you want, or preventing you from being the fully expressed and aligned version of who you really are. So as much as we want to blame other people or external factors for our limitations, it’s often ourselves standing in our own way.
So last episode we put on the helmet and the safety equipment to mine away and dig deep to locate the beliefs that were living in your subconscious mind. Today, you’re going to practice alchemy, to transform the limiting beliefs into more empowering beliefs, that will make a big difference in your life.
You know how we say, you have to see it, to be it.
Well that’s exactly how your beliefs work, if you have a low vibration belief that prevents you from seeing the possibility of what you want for yourself, then you won’t ever bring it into fruition, it just won’t feel accessible to you.
So welcome to belief laddering, a powerful process to shift your beliefs into possibility that will give you what you truly want in life.
So here’s a look at what you’re going to learn today:
1) First, I’m going to explain what belief laddering is and how it works
2) In the 2nd segment I’ll walk you through the process
3) in the 3rd segment I’ll give you tips and examples for this process
4) in the 4th segment we’ll look at Examples of Belief Laddering
So get out of your head and into your heart and let’s dive right in shall we?
SEGMENT 1:
Let’s start by understanding what belief laddering is. It is a process where you take a belief that you’ve identified as unempowering, and holding you back in some way, and you shift it into a belief that is more empowering than what you currently believe today.
Belief laddering works because you’re challenging what you’ve always believed and quite simply, you’re making it conscious. You’re shining a floodlight right onto the limiting belief, and by doing this, you can’t help but shift it. Because here’s the problem with many of these limiting beliefs we establish early on in our formative years. Once we develop it, it gets cemented in our Operating System and has a protective casing around it. We don’t check in on it to question whether it’s still true, or evaluate whether it is serving us. We just store that belief away, and move on to collect other information to make up other beliefs in our life.
And because these beliefs were developed at such a young age, they feel like they’re as much a part of us as our DNA. BUT, and this is a big but, that is NOT true, your beliefs are not a static part of you that never changes. You can change any belief, whenever you want, and you start by making it conscious.
Most of us held a strong belief in Santa Claus, the tooth fairy, maybe even the easter bunny, and those were deeply entrenched beliefs, but as we got older and started to piece things together, we let go of those beliefs. Well, most of us did. You might be still holding onto Santa Claus, and hey – if that works for you….. go for it.
So instead of your beliefs being DNA, I really prefer the OS metaphor, where your beliefs function as part of your Operating System, and it’s there running in the background, but you can choose to upgrade it whenever you want, and trade in those old beliefs, for new, more empowering ones.
Sometimes the beliefs we hold serve as limitations, not only for us, but for society at large. A great example was the limitation on Olympic runners. For years it was believed that no one could ever run a mile in less than 4 minutes. It had never been done, and therefore no one thought it possible. Until British Olympian Roger Banister set out to break the record in 1954. And he managed to do it. He ran a mile in 3 minutes and 59.4 seconds, breaking the 4 minute barrier for the first time ever. And he not only managed to break the 4 minute mile threshold, he inspired many others after him to beat records too. And since then, runners have been breaking time limits, once Roger Banister proved that it was possible with his mindset.
OK, let’s recap:
Belief laddering works by identifying a belief that is unempowering, and holding you back in some way, and you replace it with a belief that is more empowering than what you’ve previously believed.
SEGMENT 2:
Let me walk you through the process of belief laddering.
Step 1 – you select a belief. After you’ve done the belief mapping exercise, review the strongest beliefs you’ve identified. You may even want to read them out loud, and identify one that you know is really holding you back. We call this belief your primary belief.
A hint here: you’ll want to pick a belief in the category of your life where you want the biggest shifts.
Let’s use money as an example. If out of all the areas of your life, money is the area where you want the biggest shifts, then comb through the beliefs you have mapped. Look for the belief that is unempowering, and likely responsible for you having a lack luster relationship with money.
If you’re still stuck in finding one, then check in with a trust friend, ideally someone who does have a great relationship with money, ask them to review your list of beliefs, and tell you which beliefs are limiting and likely holding you back. That that is step 1 – select the belief you want to ladder.
Step 2 – Explore the belief
This is where we take the belief and put it under a microscope to dissect it and see what’s really going on. We explore it deeply, pull it apart and understand how it came to be and what it’s made of.
When I do this process with clients, I have 2 full pages of questions to walk them through. I’m not going to go through them all here, but I will share 5 of the most important ones:
1. What is your earliest memory of this this?
2. How is it serving you?
3. How is it holding you back?
4. Has this belief turned into a pattern or ongoing theme in your life?
5. How motivated are you to shift this belief?
Those are a few sample questions from the process I want to share with you. They’re meant to really force you to really dissect the belief.
Pro Tip: For the last question, #5 – How motivated are you to shift this belief, if your response to this isn’t really strong, like a 8,9 or 10 out of 10. Then I would stop the process right here. It shows you’re not really ready or motivated to do the work to shift this belief. So that is step 2 – explore the belief
Step 3 – Plot the belief on the ladder
Now ask yourself honestly, how empowering is this belief, on a scale of 1 – 10.
A 10 would be really empowering, a 1 would be not so empowering. This requires you to be honest with yourself. How empowering is this belief?
Tip: Your answer is likely going to be low on the empowering scale, like under 6. That’s why we’ve selected this belief to ladder. If it ranks high on empowering, like a 8, 9 or 10, then you might want to pause and restart the process.
Another tip: some people find it really helpful to create a visual here, and actually draw out a ladder with 10 different rungs, so you can use a piece of paper, draw a ladder on the far left side, taking up most of the height of the paper, and number the rungs 1 to 10, from bottom to top. Then write in this belief that you plotted next to the appropriate rung.
That is step 3 – plot the belief on the ladder
Step 4 – Plot your aspirational belief
Pick a belief that would be a 10 on the ladder and write it on the top rung. This is not, I repeat, this is not a belief that you need to fully believe today. It’s something we’re working towards believing. A simple way to do this is write out the opposite of what the belief is today.
If you started with “I never have enough money”
A 10 belief would be I always have too much money
It should be something that leaves you breathless, might even feel jarring in your body a little bit. It’s a big deal.
This is your 10 belief, but this is NOT the belief I want you to walk away with today. It is your aspirational belief.
So Step 4 is plot your 10 belief
And lastly, Step 5 – Select your new belief
You write in other ladder beliefs between your Primary belief and your 10 beliefs. This will take a lot of introspection and honestly. What are the other beliefs you could hold? Then when you feel like you’ve brainstormed all the beliefs that will come out of you, I want you to review them all and select one that you really feel like you can believe. That becomes your new belief.
Tip: it’s likely only going to move up the ladder a couple rungs, I really want you to pick something that is more believable that where you are today. If you jumped from a 2 belief to an 8, I would be really suspicious of any jump this big. I would be curious to see if your ego was involved. Bigger jump is not better. This is about picking a new belief, more positive than you believed in yesterday. This is a process. As as a sidenote, I think this is where a lot of people go wrong when they work with mantras, they pick statements that are too outrageous and that they aren’t able to actually believe at all, they might want them to be true, but they’re not actually true. In this instance, bigger isn’t better, we want slow incremental change.
So let’s recap all the steps in the laddering process:
Step 1 – Select a belief
Step 2 – Explore the belief
Step 3 – Plot the belief on the ladder
Step 4 – Plot your aspirational belief
Step 5 – Select your new belief
SEGMENT 3:
There’s a few different mistakes people make with this process, here’s a few of the common ones, so you can avoid them
Tip 1 – Don’t “Jump the ladder”
Avoid the temptation to fast track your way through this process to pick a belief that is a 10 on the scale, this is not the place to be an overachiever and try to sound impressive. This technique is a process for a lot of your deeply engrained or deep stuck beliefs, it might take a couple times through to really shift things to a place where you want them to be. We never want to just just flip your current belief into the opposite of what it is and then try to believe it.
If you hold a belief that you never have enough money – and you put this on the ladder at a 3.
And you try to replace it with your 10 belief of I always have too much money, that won’t likely land true for you. As part of the process I do want you to plot the 10 belief, because this is stretching your mind to possibility, it’s a stretch belief. But I don’t want you to pick that belief today, because you likely don’t believe it. I’d prefer you to find truth in an aspect of money and then turn that into a new belief. You could pick, “I always have the money I need”. And that is more powerful than I never have enough money. Even picking I usually have enough money is better. Find the nugget of truth and turn it into a positive belief that inspires you.
Tip 2 – Change the game
Let’s say you have a childhood wound from never being picked for a sports team at school, and you carry this shame and embarrassment of what that felt like for years. I have lots of clients who carry this trauma in their life, what a horrible feeling. From that experience you might have developed a belief that, “I am never chosen” and that has carried through in your career, in your relationships in your personal life, and likely had a huge impact on you. So if that belief was a 1 on the ladder for you, if we took it to the opposite to determine your 10 belief, this might look like, I am always chosen first. That sounds great, right? It might sound impressive, BUT, the truth is you likely don’t actually believe that and saying you believe that now. What we are looking for is something more empowering though, and an example of changing the game would be, “Now I get to choose”.
See how that ends up being more powerful? Often these beliefs are formed when we’re really young, and in situations where we don’t feel very powerful, and so we’re forming beliefs for situations that might not even be relevant for us as fully grown adults. But that feeling and belief are so strongly tied together, we hold onto it, and then subconsciously create situations to play out that scenario and prove that belief to be true. Sounds intense, doesn’t it. That’s because it is, and for most of us, these patterns are happening all the time, subconsciously, without us even knowing it.
Here’s another example of Change the game
Let’s say that as a child you went through many situations where there wasn’t an adult figure to stand up for you or protect you. You might have developed the belief, I never have anyone protect me. If you flipped that to make your 10 belief, it might look like, “ I always have someone protect me”
That seems more powerful, but it might not feel true. Because this belief is rooted in a childhood experience where you felt unprotected, you might want to change the game and say, “I’m strong enough to protect myself” or “I don’t need protecting.” So that is tip 2 – Change the game, where we change the context of the belief to better reflect where we are in life today.
So those are 2 tips to help you with Belief Laddering:
Don’t Jump the ladder
And 2: change the game
SEGMENT 4:
Now I want to share a couple of examples of belief laddering, so you can see this process in action.
Let’s start with the belief:
I can’t make good money doing what I love, OMG this has to be one of the most common beliefs I see with clients.
Next step, we explore this belief, we recognize that it came from childhood and watching our dad playing in a band on evenings and weekends. He had a day job at a factory and made good money at it, but he hated that job and complained about it all the time. He would curse and swear when he got home from his shift and then he would just drink to numb himself.
The impact on you, is that by watching him as a child, you developed a belief that you’re not supposed to love your job, and many years later you are replicating his pattern, and you have a full time corporate job, but you don’t love it, so you’re constantly doing projects on the side that align with your passion.
The impact on you is, you’re not doing what you love.
To plot this belief, I can’t make good money doing what I love, we put it on the ladder at a 2, bc it doesn’t feel very empowering and we feel really burned out.
The 10 belief would be, I make great money doing what I love.
Then we brainstorm a bunch of other beliefs and plot them on the ladder.
On reflection and zooming out to friends who do make great money and are doing what they love, you realize it is possible. And although you might not be doing it today, you can look around and see that others have done it.
The belief you choose is, “I know it is possible to make good money and do what I love”, and that goes on the ladder at a 5.
So going forward, if you ever feel like that low vibe belief is popping in your head, or you see a message in a movie, or a show, or you see someone else convincing themselves it is true, you quickly shift gears and state your new belief, I know it is possible to make good money and do what I love.
And just like that, you’re reprogramming your OS, and opening your mind to new possibilities. Because if you don’t believe that it is possible, then you won’t even bother going to look for ways to make it come true.
OK – I want to give you one more example of belief laddering
Let’s go with another area of resistance I see often…. Self-promotion
This is such a hot topic, that I recently did an entire episode just on this, #200 and it is on it’s way to being one of the most downloaded episodes.
Self-promotion is one of the toughest topics, most people I know struggle with it, myself included. And the biggest belief here is…. “My hard work will speak for itself”
Your earliest memory of this was watching your Mom entertain and throw these massive dinner parties, like completely over the top and invite all their couple friends and it always turned out to be quite an event. Behind the scenes, you would watch your Mom plan for weeks, prepare for days and prep and cook and clean, and make sure everything was perfect, being totally stressed out all week and snapping at you and your siblings. And the guests were always blown away by her hospitality and especially her cooking. And when they showered her with compliments, she would brush them all off to the side and say, Oh it was nothing, really.
You likely picked up many different messages from those childhood experiences
people pleasing, not having any needs, taking your loved ones for granted, never calling attention to yourself.
But the most powerful belief you developed was, My hard work will speak for itself.
This belief is not serving you at work bc you’re burning yourself out and overworking, and any time sometime tries to give you credit for your hard work, you brush it off and say it wasn’t really me.
It’s holding you back bc you’re amplified humility isn’t allowing you to project the needed confidence and leadership presence to get promoted, and you’ve been passed over for the team lead promotion 3 times in the last 6 years.
You know you deserve it and can do it, but why doesn’t anyone else see it?
If we plot, “My hard work will speak for itself” it feels like a 3 on the ladder. At least you’re working hard and making an effort
A 10 belief could look like:
“I love speaking up to promote myself”
As a 10 belief that might not feel 100% accurate today. So let’s see what is true here:
We realize that if we don’t tell people, how are they supposed to know.
We observe that other people promote work that they’ve done, and it actually seems really normal and aligned, AND if fact I even find it quite informative to get up to speed on what they’re doing.
And so we brainstorm different beliefs for the ladder such as,
“My self promotion is informative to others”
Or, “My self promotion is a natural part of my job”
Or, “people love to see me self promote”
We decide the truest one we feel today is, My self promotion is a natural part of my job”, and that feels like a 5 to us, and that is the new belief that we work with.
WRAP UP:
OK it’s time to start wrapping up this episode on Belief Laddering, and the end of this 2 part series on shifting your beliefs.
Thanks for tuning in today and I hope you use both these processes of Belief Mapping and now Belief Laddering. This is very, very powerful work. Ask any of my clients who have gone through this, it is deep, intense and life changing, once we realize that we are the ones who have created our own glass ceiling.
Please be generous and share this episode with someone who needs to hear it, I really want you to share the love.
And If you are curious about this process of shifting your beliefs, and you want me to personally walk you through the belief mapping and belief laddering then head over to my website and book a free consult with me, at thecorporateyogi.com
And remember that knowing and growing who you are, is the BEST business investment you can ever make.
Thanks for joining me today, have an amazing day and extraordinary week!
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