The importance of challenging your beliefs

Ever noticed how often you make up “truths” about yourself that you believe without question? Perhaps some of them may be true, like the fact that you’re a person who thinks chocolate and strawberries should never cross paths (just me?) or that you’re an early bird rather than a night owl.

And then there are those beliefs that may or may not, in fact, be based in reality.

For years I told myself that my best writing was done in the morning. That my words could only flow from 8am to 12noon and after that I was utterly useless in the writing department.

And because of that belief I’d wake to a wave of anxiety, thinking I had to hit the pages hard before time ran out. There was also constant conflict because some mornings I wanted to work out, meditate or talk to clients and felt like I couldn’t as I’d be squandering my “creative window”.

My creativity became precious, a finite resource I only had access to for 4 specific hours in the day and if I missed that window OR didn’t take full advantage of it, I was f*cked.

Without realizing it, the constraints I’d created around my creativity actually slowed my writing process as I’d end up spending a good hour wading through the anxiety fostered by my self-imposed creative window.

And then, about 9 months ago, I had a thought.

What if it didn’t have to be this way?

What if my creativity isn’t special or precious or something that needs to be carefully safe-guarded?

What if I could write any time?

Sure my words come quicker in the morning but that doesn’t mean I’m physically incapable of writing in the evening.

What if I just did it? What if I just put my ass in the seat and made it happen, creative timing be damned?

So for the last few months, I’ve been doing just that. Writing anytime, anywhere and you know what, it’s pretty much the same.

And what I’ve realized in shifting this single belief is how often I’ve let all kinds of regimented beliefs box me in and keep me from what I want.

We all have locked-in ideas about our work, our food, our exercise, our relationships and how everything should be. We hold tight to these beliefs and forget, every once in a while, to question them.

Beliefs, like an unventilated bedroom, grow stale and need airing to make sure they’re still working for us.

We must check in and get present to how they make us feel.

My creative window belief brought on daily anxiety and it took me almost a decade to question it because I had blindly decided that was the way it had to be.

Let’s have you not suffer for as long, shall we?

Today I want you to question a restrictive belief that, up until now, you’ve taken as fact.

Perhaps you believe a “real” work out means sweating like a beast for 60 minutes or that quality time with your loved ones must last an entire afternoon.

Maybe you think you can only eat dessert on weekends or get work done when no one else is in the office.

Now ask, “What if it doesn’t have to be this way?”

What if any type of body movement is a workout and quality time could be a 20 minute car ride to the market?

What if you can have dessert on a Thursday and get work done no matter where you are?

In asking this question, what possibilities open up that weren’t there before?

How does it feel to know it could be a different way?

Anytime we lock ourselves into how things are supposed to be we stop ourselves from all they could be.

So tell me, what regimented, boxed in belief would you like to question today?

All my love,

Jamie