Stop Limiting Yourself

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I am your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. I put out episodes four times a week specifically designed to have you learn yourself, who you are, who you've become, so that you can grow, so that you can improve, and so that you can make your life better. So if that's what you want, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. Today, I am going to teach you how to stop limiting yourself. how to see all of the unconscious programmings and conditionings that you have that are limiting you from being the ultimate being that you could possibly be.

0:47I'm going to talk about how we unconsciously hold ourselves back and how it's important for you to really understand that if you don't start to see the ways you hold yourself back, if you don't start to see through your programmings, your conditionings, and you're not aware of it, you won't be able to work past it. And therefore you won't get anything more than what you currently are. And so I got this from really, it's really interesting. I got this from this idea for this episode because I saw a picture. It was a picture of this big horse and, you know, big, beautiful, strong horse, right? Like when you see them, they're just like so muscular.

1:23They can break through anything that we can, it seems like. Like there's so much more powerful than we are. And it was tied to a plastic chair, like just a normal plastic lawn chair. and the horse wasn't going anywhere because it was tied to this chair. And it thought, well, I can't move this chair because of programmings and conditionings that it has of its past. And I remember it reminds me of this story that I heard years ago about an elephant, right? And there's a man that's walking by and he sees all these huge, massive elephants with these tiny little ropes tied to a small tree. And so these elephants are huge, thousands of pounds.

1:59They could easily break these tiny little ropes. They could easily break these tiny little trees, but they weren't like they were staying in place. They could be free if they wanted to be, but they weren't. And so he was really confused how these giant animals are being held in place by such a small rope in such a small tree. And he went up to the to the guy who was the trainer and he's like, I don't understand why they're not breaking free. And he said, well, when they were tiny little elephants, they use the exact same ropes, tied them to the exact same tree. and they were conditioned to believe that they cannot break away.

2:33And so they never actually needed to put a bigger rope on them. And they're never aware of how much larger and more powerful they actually are. And so they never tried to break free. And then one day they realized that they were powerless and they gave up for the rest of their lives. Now, obviously that's a sad story of how humans can break an animal, but we have all been broken by other people. We have all been broken by society in some ways, by other people around us, by ourselves. And what I mean by broken is we never tried to break free. You know, the same way that an elephant is so much larger and more powerful, they never try to break free.

3:13You are so much more powerful than you could possibly comprehend, but you just keep doing the same shit you've been doing forever because that's just as good as you think that you are. you know and and i'm i'm really curious why do i share the story of the elephant is because at one point in time the elephant just gave up it wasn't a conscious decision it just gave up well this is what i got this is how life is i'm curious for you was there one day consciously or unconsciously was there a moment or was there an event when you just gave up and you're just like all right this is who I am. All right.

3:51This is what I can do. This is what I can't do. And now, unless you make a change that you're just going to be there until you die. You know, how many of us are holding ourselves back because of something that we failed at in the past, something that somebody told us in the past, something that we noticed within ourselves of the past? How many of us that are out there just listening to what other people tell us? How many of us are holding ourselves back because of where we came from, because of your gender, because of your skin color, because of what part of town you're from, because of what socioeconomic background you come from.

4:27So many people hold themselves back simply because of what they identify as. You know, how many people out there are holding themselves back because there was a belief that was programmed into you at a young age? How many people are holding themselves back because of what a parent or a teacher or a family member or a friend told us when we were really young and impressionable. And we just took what they said and we just put it as absolute truth. Now, it's bad enough that we hold ourselves back because of limiting beliefs, but it's even worse when you realize that you're holding yourself back because of somebody else's belief that was given to you.

5:11That's where it really starts to get crazy is you realize, is, man, I've been putting myself in this box and I've just been sitting in this box and saying, I'm going to be no greater than this. When in reality, I built the box. I got someone else's reflection of me. I built the box and now I sit in it. And so the example I always give is like, you're this incredible, massively powerful being beyond what you could possibly comprehend. And over years and years, you've built yourself into this little teeny tiny six inch by six inch box. It's got, you know, four walls. It's got a top and a bottom.

5:47And you're thinking, this is what I am in same way that the elephant ever tries to break free. You never tried to break free either. You're just like, here's the box. Here's where I fit. I am. I am this person. I am from here. These are my beliefs. This is what I've been told. This is how good I am. This is how good I am not. And then instead of being this infinitely creative, powerful being, you're like the genie that's inside of the lamp and you can't figure out how to get yourself out of the lamp and most of the times people don't even know that they're in the lamp so it's like the genie could could let himself out of the lamp anytime he wants to but somebody else has to let him out you could let yourself out of this little teeny tiny box that you put yourself into based off of your beliefs based off your conditionings based off of your programmings based off of your fears based off of everything that you've been taught.

6:38But if you don't let yourself free, you're going to just stay in that and you will only become the greatest version of your limited self. You'll only become the greatest version of the person that fits inside of the box, not the greatest version of the infinite being that you actually are. And so we've got to start to notice our conditionings and notice our programmings and notice who we are and who we're actually not in testing the validity of all of these thoughts and these beliefs and these spheres and these programs and these conditionings and testing them to see if any of them are actually true or if it's just a bunch of bullshit that we just accidentally started believing one day when we were younger.

7:11You know, it's like a goldfish. Like I used to work when I was my first like real job as I was a bird and fish specialist at PetSmart. That was my title. And I worked there for two years. And when you look at a goldfish, we used to have these tanks, these huge tanks with thousands of goldfish in them. And it was so limited as far as how much space they had. And so they would be like an inch to two inches, is it? And they would never grow past that because they were just so crammed in and they had small tanks that they were in. But, you know, they were one to two inches and they couldn't grow past that based off of their, you know, the tanks that they were in.

7:47But when you look at a goldfish that's out in the wild, goldfish, I had to Google this and actually find out facts on this of how big goldfish can get. goldfish can grow up to 14 inches in the wild 14 inches and in the tanks they're an inch to two inch which means they can grow at least seven times larger but they don't because of the size of the tank that they're in same way that you can't grow any bigger because of the size of the tank that you're in the size of the box that you're placing yourself into oh i'm a guy this is all i can do oh i'm a woman oh i can also do oh this is my uh my my race this is all i can do Oh, this is the part of town I grew up.

8:25This is all I can do. Oh, I grew up without a father. This is all I can do. And we start to basically build our own tank and shrink ourselves. And we can't get anywhere past that. We have to be like the goldfish that's in the wild. They get to 14 inches versus the one that's in the tank. They could get to one to two inches. You know, how many of us are restricted by our own minds? How many of us are held back by the people that we surround ourselves with? you know if if the people around you are thinking small and they're not thinking big i recommend you find new people to surround yourself with you know when you look at the the average you're the average of the five people which you spend the most time with there's studies that have been done in this now and find that you're usually going to make about the same amount of money as everyone that you spend time with you're usually going to be about the same amount of weight as the people that you spend the most time with so if you look at the people that you're surrounding yourself with and they're just there because they've been there for 5, 10, 15, 20 years but they're not you look if you look at someone that you're spending a lot of time with and you don't want their life I recommend that you probably switch some people that you spend the most time with and start getting people that make you think bigger that that make you think better about yourself that motivate you they want better for you that that challenge you to be better because when you're around those people you start to become better in the the walls that you have unconsciously built yourself into start to break down.

9:48And conditionings are within all of us. I don't think it's possible for a human to go through life at all without having any conditionings or any programmings. Many things that you've done in your time of being alive, things that you've heard. I mean, we have millions and millions of moments in our lives that create us into who we are. And so it's like a couple of examples of way you can be conditioned. I've heard many stories of people like even, for instance, my wife says she's terrible at math. And she remembers when she was younger, and she got bad math grades. And you know, she, you know, the teacher would say, Oh, yeah, like, she's really good at English, but matches isn't a strong suit.

10:28And so she heard that when she was young and impressionable. And now she hates math. It's not that she can't learn math. It's not that she can't get better at it. She's got a programming of she is not good at math. And there's so many kids that have the same thing where it's like, maybe you go into class and you hear from other kids that you're stupid because you failed to test, or maybe you have a terrible teacher and they say something and an off-putting comment about your, you know, how smart you are, how smart you're not. And then you start to think, well, I'm just stupid. And then you think that and you build yourself into this box of stupid and you won't do anything outside of that box.

11:01Oh, I'm just stupid. I'm not gonna be able to, I'm not, I'm not good at this. I'm not good at reading. So whatever it is, we can improve at all of those things. We can improve at anything that we really want to. It'll take time. It'll take attention. But we definitely want to be aware of when we've taken other people's conditionings and words and placed them upon ourselves to put ourselves into this little tiny box. You know, I've also heard stories too, specifically about a person that I've worked with and their son loved soccer. He was like obsessed with soccer, but he was told by his coach when he was like seven years old that he wasn't fast enough to play competitively.

11:36And he was, his enthusiasm for soccer just plummeted because he thought, I'm not fast enough. I'll never be fast enough. And he believed that he wasn't athletic and he just stopped participating in all sports together, just gave them up. How sad is that? That a seven-year-old was told he wasn't fast enough and he just gave up sports altogether, something that he loved. And so think about how that happens to us many times over in our lifetime. There's also many times that I hear men and women, that come in and they say like, oh yeah, when I was younger, I remember my mom or I remember my aunt saying something like, you shouldn't eat that, you'll get fat.

12:17Or I can't believe that you're eating that, you're already fat. Somebody tells them that and that grows into, it gets into their brain and it festers and it becomes something over years and years. And they grow up with a poor body image and low self-esteem. And then because of that, they resent the way that they are. And sometimes as far as they push back to one side, they push back to the other side. And so they'll eat really healthy and then they'll just binge and they'll have unhealthy eating habits. And potentially some of them have disorders despite being healthy and wanting to be healthy.

12:54And it comes back from this thing of just like something that somebody said to them when they were younger. And it's like I've heard people too, like children who are just so creative and so artistic and they they they're like mom I want to be an artist when I grow up I want to be a dancer I want to be a musician and their parents like no that's not practical you have to do something practical you have to go into engineering something that you can see and you know how much money you're going to make you know what it's going to look like and then you know they're a teenager that's like so artistic and then they just abandon their art that they have their passion that they have for something believing that it's not like a legitimate career and they end up going into a career that doesn't fulfill them.

13:34And then they sit there and they're like, I don't know why I'm not fulfilled. And then they gave up, you know, art or music 30 years ago. And that was the thing that really made them feel alive. You know, there's also times when people are like, you know, they think that they're shy when they're younger and when they're younger. And then some, someone says to them, oh, you're too quiet. You know, so sometimes, sometimes parents will say, oh, you're too quiet. And sometimes parents will say you're too loud. You know, children are supposed to be seen, not heard. And so the children will grow up feeling really inadequate in social situations.

14:05And so what they'll try to do is try to be away from social situations completely because they just feel like, I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not good enough. And then they struggle with social anxiety and forming connections with people because they were either too loud as a child or they were too quiet as a child, but they weren't with their parents or their aunt or their uncle or an adult wanted them to be at a moment. And so all of these moments in our life build us into who we really are. and it's really important for us to start questioning all of those because we're these incredibly expansive powerful beings that we accidentally put ourselves into a box and say well this is who I am this is who I'm going to be forever I'm going to die shy or I'm going to die overweight I'm going to die and I'm not going to be smart I'm not going to be good at math I'm not going to be good at reading I'm not going to be good in sports whatever it might be and it's all of these programmings and conditionings that we have and that's the the thing that's really the the hardest about programming.

14:58And why I harp on it so much in these episodes is because it is probably one of the most important journeys that you're going to go on is understanding the patterns and programmings and conditionings that you have from childhood and starting to unravel all of them and find that all of them, you're not going to find one of them that's true. Majority of them are just complete BS. And that's the thing about the programmings is that they're hard to recognize unless you're looking for them because they go pretty much unnoticeable. They're They're subconscious. They are subconscious means under the conscious mind.

15:31And it goes so, so deep. Like I'm constantly working on myself and I'm still finding shit all of the time. I'm still finding programs. I'm still finding conditionings. But what I do is once I'm aware of one, and the first thing is, and you've heard me say this on the podcast before, is you need awareness before anything else. Because when you're not aware of something, you can't change it. But when you are aware of something, then you can change that thing. And so it's to become aware of like, why do I think this thing? Why do I believe this? Is this something that was told to me when I was younger?

16:03You know, I was having a conversation with my mom, and you've heard me talk about this with cussing. I was having a conversation with her last week, and I had heard this phrase that I thought was really interesting. And it was to question any belief that comes in a package. And so it means like, it doesn't mean you have to change your beliefs. It means just question them, just test them for a little while. Right. Question any belief that comes in a package. And so that could be like a specific religion. That could be a specific package as far as like, hey, this is what if this is our family and this is what we believe in.

16:34So it could be a religion. It could be a, oh, you're a Democrat. Oh, you're a Republican. Oh, you're this political party or you're not. And to test it, test and just just question your beliefs. There's no problem in questioning your beliefs and just seeing if they are truly yours, but question them if they come in a package. and so I said to my mom like we were having the conversation of cussing because I love to cuss and when she was younger she was told by her mother that unintelligent people cuss and I was like that's not true and you and I both know it's not true in fact there's studies that have been found that some of the most intelligent people cuss and so that's that was something that was given to her by somebody else and so it's about finding our programming so if like if my mom goes out and she is triggered by somebody saying a cuss word, well, then she needs to take a step back and be like, hold on, let me become aware.

17:23Why am I feeling this way? Is this my belief? Is it my belief that people who cuss are actually dumb? Is it my belief that there's something wrong with them? Or is that something that was told to me? Right? So the first thing is to become aware of it. And the second part of it is to question the validity of it, right? In cognitive behavioral therapy, they say, question the validity of your thoughts. Question the validity of your thoughts. Are your thoughts, your beliefs, your fears, your limiting beliefs actually valid? And if they're not, what is the truth? Because when you're searching for the truth, you'll find the majority of stuff that holds us back, that makes us in this box, puts ourselves in the box, the things that we believe in, our fears, our self-limiting beliefs, it's pretty much all false.

18:10It's crazy. So we need to become aware of our programmings. We need to become aware of them. And then we need to test them as much as we possibly can. Because ultimately what we're working towards is freedom. And if you have other people's beliefs, other people's programmings, other people's fears, other people's self-limiting aspects that we've unconsciously taken on, those are not ours. And so we need to become free of those things. And ultimately freedom is the main thing. Freedom from our conditionings and our programmings are the main thing that we should be trying to work towards is your own mental liberation.

18:46So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram stories. Tag me at Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you love this podcast, you're probably also going to love something I have that's coming out called Mindset Mentor Plus. It is going to be a way to take these podcast episodes and integrate them into your life with worksheets, with journal prompts, with assignments. And every single episode is going to come with detailed worksheets to help you work through them in your life. There's also gonna be exclusive Q &A sessions with me. There's gonna be a ton of other bonuses.

19:17There's gonna be an entire community of people who will also listen to the podcast that you can connect with. And when we announce it, the first people who are able to sign up are going to get a discount. There's gonna be people on the waitlist. And so if you want to join the waitlist to be the first to learn about it, go to mindsetwaitlist.com. once again mindsetwaitlist.com and we will email you before it's announced on social media before it's announced the podcast so that you can join and get a discount so with that i'm gonna leave you the same way i leave you every single episode make it your mission make somebody else's day better i appreciate you and i hope that you have an amazing day