“Your Age” and Limiting Beliefs 🤰🏻
Seven weeks ago I received some really surprising news.
Seven weeks ago I received some really surprising news. As I reflected on why this news was so surprising, I realized I had some big limiting beliefs that have prevented me from seeing potential opportunities and possibilities for my life.
A limiting belief is a generalization, stereotype, or idea that you learned and accepted about yourself, about the world, or about other people that limits you in some way.
For most of my life I have accepted many cultural ideas about “your age.” When I was younger, I was told I was unusually successful and ambitious for someone “your age.” I was also told that doors of opportunity would be open to me at “your age” that won’t be open later in life.
As I got older, I completely bought the cultural idea that I had to be married and have kids by a certain age. I started to panic as I reached my mid-30s because the cultural narrative was that at “your age” it will be difficult to find any quality eligible men and get married.
This belief made me so unhappy that I finally hired a coach to help me. It was through coaching that I recognized how damaging this limiting belief about “your age” had become in my life, among other limiting beliefs about myself, men and relationships. I decided to start enjoying the journey and not limit my opportunities based on these limiting beliefs I’d held. The cultural “norm” didn’t need to be my reality; I could create my own definition of a fulfilling life.
Within two years of working with my coach, I decided to start online Spanish classes. Guess who my professor was? My now-husband, Victor. We went through the agonizing immigration process, and within two years he arrived in Texas from Venezuela (via Chile) and we were married, just as the COVID lockdowns began to shut down the world.
I now had another limiting belief to face: because of “your age” (over 35), your chances of having a family are very low. At this point, I was so happy to be with Victor that I let go of the idea of having children and focused on other priorities. But the limiting belief still nagged me in the back of my mind.
Seven weeks ago, I discovered I am pregnant with our first child, due this November.
It was shocking news because it defied my limiting belief. The limited scope of what I thought was possible for me was suddenly disproved. And the direction of my life is completely changing.
As I talked to my coach about this recently, it occurred to me that, again, I closed myself off to opportunities and new paths because I was so narrow in my scope of thinking. Thankfully, the universe decided to give me a powerful blessing; a blessing that brought to my conscious awareness so many limiting beliefs about myself.
As a fellow conscious leader, I encourage you to take inventory of your limiting beliefs.
Where have you embraced cultural “norms” or personal ideas that limit your possibilities?
Where have you limited yourself and your teams’ capacity?
What do you currently think is “impossible”?
Where are your blind spots? (You may need to work with a coach to identify them.)
Granted, there is sexism, racism, ageism and there are basic biological realities that we face in life. But they don’t have to become our reality; they don’t have to be our Truth. We can embrace new, empowering beliefs that propel us forward towards new possibilities.
The last seven weeks I have marveled at how quickly limiting beliefs can be disproved and new, exciting, unanticipated opportunities can replace them. I wish the same for you, as we all work on becoming truly conscious leaders.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
Contact her to develop your conscious leadership and transform your organization into the workplace of the future.
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