this subject. Everyone is different, but you may have limiting thoughts
such as:- I don’t know how to do this.
- I am afraid that I may fail.
- People will think that I am crazy for trying.
- I may succeed and not be satisfied.
- My mother will worry about me.
- I may be injured.
- It will take too long.
- I have had big dreams before and failed.
- I sure don’t understand math.
- I’m afraid I’ll become one of those arrogant overachievers.
The nos would easily win an election given the number of them
compared to your lonely goal on the diagram. Not so obvious from
the diagram, there is another reason the nos would triumph: Your
mind will try to convince you its past experience proves your limit-
ing thoughts are “true.” There is no evidence showing you have
climbed Mount Everest yet.
From this example, we’ll take the limiting thought, “People will
think that I am crazy.” You “know” this is “true,” because several of
your friends mockingly questioned the sanity of such a dangerous
goal. At the most difficult parts of the climb, you may be the one
thinking that you are crazy for trying this. This limiting thought will
continue to nag at you until you find a way to accept it.
It’s possible that the worry about your friends’ opinion of your
sanity could distract your attention at precisely the moment requir-
ing the most concentration, causing your foot to slip, resulting in
an injury that scrubs your climb. This is one example of how we can
unintentionally sabotage our best intentions without realizing it. If
we focus on our old limiting beliefs, they will bring about more of
what we have been getting instead of what we want.
You probably haven’t attempted a climb of Mount Everest. You
probably have, however, unconsciously sabotaged your progress to-
ward some important goal because you were unaware of some limit-
ing thought about it. Setbacks you blamed on “bad luck” or
“circumstances” are often the acting out of limiting thoughts about
the goal that you did not recognize. Such thinking is living on the
effect side of the equation discussed previously.
How have we been conditioned to think about goals? Think back
to the goals you had in childhood. They probably had two very impor-
146 Your Mind Is Not a Democracy