10. “Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” ~ Theodore Roosevelt
Internalised parental voice
When we are young, our beliefs are based on our family’s beliefs, typically our parents, grandparents’ and our siblings’ beliefs. Children tend to absorb everything indiscriminately - the good and bad, helpful and unhelpful, healthy and unhealthy - and they don’t tend to doubt their family’s life experiences or challenge their knowledge. Even when the belief is factually untrue, young people tend to believe it if the parents repeat it enough times. Children internalise the parental voice and it can eventually become their own self-talk.
Our minds are powerful. We must nourish it with the right language.
The good thing is that as adults, it’s never too late to learn to re-parent ourselves and tend to our inner children. Our parents did the best they could with the tools they had at the time. And maybe that was adequate or inadequate for you as a child. Maybe they ‘failed’ as parents to do the bare minimum. Even then, as adults we have the power to undo and re-do, and we can re-parent better because we have an awareness of what works for us and what doesn’t.
If your mind says “You can’t do that!”, train it to add “yet” at the end because there is always a possibility you can learn to do it in the future.
If it’s a skill, we can learn it and improve in it.
Giving up seems like the natural thing to do when you start learning something and you are not improving at a rate you’d like to. However, this only reduces your self-belief. If you really want to improve, keep practising. If you learn how to improve in that skill from someone who has mastered it, it’s a matter of time before you will notice your progress. Having a mentor or a coach here is very helpful for this reason.
These were the ways I used to limit myself and not reach anywhere near my potential: I wrongly believed I wasn’t good enough. I wrongly believed I was too weak to go to the gym and lift weights. I wrongly believed I reached my limit in my work and couldn’t grow any further. I wrongly believed I couldn’t possibly write publicly.
When I believed I couldn't, I was right. I couldn’t because I had already made up my mind that I couldn't, which meant I didn’t put the effort in or ask for help or find ways to make it work. Equally, when I believe I can, I’m also right. I can because I will put in the effort to make it work, and I am more likely to look for creative ways and ask for help to make it work.
In recent years, I’ve been able to turn these beliefs around, for example, from “I can’t go to the gym” to now being able to confidently go because I believe I can handle myself there. At first I had to ‘borrow’ my coach’s belief in me, and then slowly over time, I proved to myself I can do hard things, by following through on the promises I made.
When we follow through on an action step even though it’s hard, our belief in ourselves grows. That’s because we spend a moment out of our comfort zone (it feels intensely uncomfortable) and in the growth zone. The energising and rewarding feeling we get after doing the hard thing is what makes us want to tackle the next hard thing, and so the process continues.
When the belief is there, you can tap into more of your potential, so you’re more inclined to take the right action steps towards your goal and you achieve more of the desired results. When you achieve more, your belief in yourself increases, you will then tap into even more potential, which means you’ll take more action steps and achieve more as a result. It’s a virtuous cycle.
Every time you take an action step towards your goal, you are voting for the person you wish to become. Every time you take an action step even though you don’t feel like it, you’re building a consistent practice and your self-belief will grow stronger.
How to build a strong belief in yourself:
Notice and acknowledge what you say to yourself. Is it positive, negative or neutral? How often are they positive or negative?
Decide to commit to re-parenting yourself. It is time to take responsibility for your adult self. No more giving your power away.
Re-parenting starts with finding an internal voice that is less harsh, more nurturing, gentle and encouraging. This is called the Nurturing Parent.
Close your eyes and visualise that your 7 year old self is standing in front of you. How would you talk to them? Find the right tone of voice that lands well with the younger self.
Tell them how much you love and believe in them, how capable they are, that you will always be there for them, no matter how they feel, no matter what happens.
Allow the younger self to speak to you. Give them space and listen intently. This voice might be very quiet at first, wait patiently and they will tell you what you need to know.
Now come out of the visualisation and look at your life with your adult eyes. Can you see that what you believed as a child or young person was not necessarily true or based on facts, but rather someone’s opinion of you? Can you also see that this belief has limited your accomplishments and hindered your progress? Set the limiting beliefs aside. Start afresh. It’s helpful to have someone that believes in you, to ‘borrow’ their belief until your belief in yourself becomes strong enough.
Keep going! Remember to look back at Day 1, track the progress you have made, and celebrate your effort and your accomplishments.
So over to you now:
What limiting beliefs do you want to set aside?
Will you build your self-belief so that you can tap into more of your potential?
Will you experiment with taking action steps towards your goals, believing in your capabilities? I’d love to know how it goes.
Until then, take good care of yourself and your loved ones,
Ikuko 💌
This was an amazing post Ikukoo 💛💛 Loved the audio and hearing your calming voice, well doneee ✨✨👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻