Unlock Your Potential: Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs for Success

0:07Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never miss another podcast episode. And if you love this podcast, please give us a rating and review however you listen to us. The more positive ratings and reviews we get, the more that this platform show this podcast to people who have never listened to it before. Today, we're going to talk about how your limitations, your self-limiting beliefs are fully 100 % optional. And if you want to create the life that you want and unlock the potential that you have deep inside of you, you're really going to have to overcome these self-limiting beliefs.

0:42And I want to tell you a story that kind of shows the self-limiting beliefs that we as humans impose on ourselves. Maybe you've heard of it before, maybe you haven't, but there's a story about the four-minute mile. And the four-minute mile, just to give you an idea, before 1954, it was thought that running a mile in under four minutes was beyond human capabilities. Like doctors actually came out and said that it was physically impossible for a human to run in less than four minutes, an entire mile. They thought that the human heart would explode. That was actually what they said. It would explode.

1:15It was beyond the capacity of the human body to do that. But in 1954, a guy named Roger Bannister, who was a medical student, ran the four minute mile in three minutes and 59.4 seconds, just under four minutes. Everybody thought that it was impossible until Roger Bannister ended up breaking the four-minute mile. He showed that it was possible. And then here's what's really crazy about it. Once he showed that it was possible, other people who were runners stopped limiting themselves. They realized that it was this mythical barrier and it was self-imposed limitations. And then here's what's crazy about it.

1:53after he broke the four-minute mile. No human in the history of humans had ever ran under four minutes for a mile. And then 46 days after he broke the record, a runner named John Landy broke his record. And within two years of the four-minute mile, over 300 people ran a mile in under two minutes. Now, does that mean that the human heart expanded and that once Roger Bannister did it. Everybody changed and humans evolved very quickly over the next 46 days in the next two years. No, they had the ability all of the time to do it, but it was a common belief that it was not possible that held them back.

2:38So when you think about that, I want you to think about how many four minute miles do you have in your life? How many things do you think are fully impossible right now? And you're holding yourself back from doing them simply because you've never done it before or you've never seen somebody do it before. And so you're sitting there saying, yeah, it's not possible. There's no way I can do it. Oh, I can't become wealthy because I come from a poor family or I can't have a loving marriage because I never saw a loving marriage as a kid. Or, you know, I can't be a great business owner because I've had failed businesses in the past.

3:15Our lives, my life, your life. if you look through our entire lives, my 37 years is just littered with self-imposed limiting beliefs. The same goes for you as well. Think about how many times you haven't done something or you haven't put a hundred percent into your, with a hundred percent of your mental capacity and physical capacity to do something simply because you thought, you know what, I probably can't do it. And you have that self-limiting belief and you didn't put everything into it. You know, if you look at so many times throughout human history, we've had self-limiting beliefs until somebody stepped up and said, I'm going to think differently.

3:55Like people thought that human flight was impossible. They used to look at birds and be like, man, it would be amazing if humans could fly. And they thought it was impossible until the Wright brothers proved them wrong. People thought that putting a man in space was impossible. And then the Russians put a man in space in 1961. 1961. People said that landing on the moon was impossible until 1969 when Neil Armstrong proved them wrong. And, you know, there's obviously a lot of people that are saying, oh, that was a fluke. That was real. That was not real. Who knows what it actually was or was not.

4:26But it seems like the Americans were going to be going back to the moon again, and we'll see if it is actually real. But you're telling me if it is true, and it did really happen, that in 1969, we successfully shot a rocket ship to a rock that's 238 ,900 miles away, and it's orbiting the earth at 2 ,288 miles an hour, and then got them to take off from that rock and land back on earth safely. And you can't accomplish your dreams. You can't create the life that you want to. You can't create this business. You can't become a successful musician or painter. You're telling me that 1969, they had less technology than you have sitting in your pocket right now on your phone.

5:11And they were able to shoot somebody to the moon and bring them back and you can't figure out a way to create your dreams?

5:23Now, what do all of those things from the four minute mile to the Wright brothers, to the Russians in space, to Neil Armstrong have in common, they were impossible. and impossible is just a figment of the human imagination. They were impossible until it was done. And so I want you to think of your life. I want you to see where these things are littered all over the place. What's holding you back from creating the life that you want to? Where are you telling yourself that it's not possible for you to do it? Oh, other people might be able to do it, but you just don't know me, Rob. You don't know where I come from.

5:57You don't know my family. You You don't know how hard my childhood was. You don't know the trauma that I've been through. And you just basically fight for your own limitations. So many of us fight harder for our limiting beliefs than we do for the dreams that we actually have and want to create for our lives. What limits are you placing on yourself that are completely 100 % false, but you're believing them as if they're 100 % true, as if they're written into the fabric of the universe? You know, is it the fear of failure that's holding you back? Is it the fear of success? Is it the fear of uncertainty?

6:34Oh, I don't know what's going to be happening in the future. I don't know. If I become successful, will everybody that I love abandon me? If I become successful, will I lose all of it? Is it the fear of making a mistake? Is it the fear of being judged by somebody else and that's why you're not doing it? Is it the fear of disappointing someone? Is it the fear of disappointing yourself? self? Is it the fear of putting so much effort towards something and then it not coming to fruition the way that you actually want it to? Are you making all of these things up in your head? You are. Are you taking the safe route?

7:05Are you playing small because you don't want to be seen? Are your dreams so big and so amazing that it paralyzes you thinking of all the stuff that you must do to get there? Because if you look at all of the fears that you have, none of those fears actually exist. And I've kind of, I don't want to say I've become an expert on fears, but I've become pretty damn expert, have developed an expertise around fears because I had to research the hell of it for my book. And my entire first chapter of my book, Level Up, is entirely on fear. And I had to research fear over and over and over again. And what I found is that when you look at fear, there's two different types of fears.

7:42One type of fear is a primal fear. And that primal fear means that physical pain or death could be attached to it. So it is primal fear. It is primal. We do not want to die. We do not want to cease living. But if you look at the fear of disappointing other people, the fear of failure, the fear of success, uncertainty, making mistakes, those are intellectual fears. Those are not primal fears. And so what we're doing is those intellectual fears that we're bringing up and we're making up inside of our own head, they don't actually truly exist. They do not exist in reality right now. So we're making the boogeyman and then fighting the boogeyman all day long and using all of our energy to fight the boogeyman, aka our fears, versus using our energy to create the life that we want.

8:24We're making up our fears and then having those fears and limiting beliefs control our entire life. Are you saying that you don't have enough money, that you don't have enough time, that you're too lazy, that you don't have a car, that your parents weren't good role models for you? I understand. You might have had a hard life. I get it. There's many people in this world who have had very, very hard lives. And that might be something that's held you back. But it's not your fault that you had a hard childhood, but it is your responsibility to use the cards that you were dealt to the best of your ability.

9:01So are you making up your limitations? Are you making up excuses? Are you making them up and then actually thinking that they're true? Because in my opinion, the human body, the human mind, we have near unlimited ability, but we restrict our potential so much because of the limitations that we put on ourselves, excuses that we make up as to why we're not living our dreams, why we can't reach our dreams. We're powerful beyond measure, incredibly powerful. I did math on this because I was just curious how much potential energy is inside of the human body. And so your body has about 40 to 50 trillion cells.

9:41And each cell has about 1.4 volts of energy in it. Now, if you do the math of about 50 trillion times 1.4, that means that potential energy that exists inside of your human body, you have about 70 trillion volts of energy inside of your body because that's 50 trillion times 1.4 volts. You have about 70 trillion volts of energy inside of your body. And then I measured it because I was like, how powerful is that? Like, is it very powerful? I don't, is that how much is inside of like my lights at my house? I don't know how much it is. So I was like, what's something that's really powerful and electric?

10:19Oh, a lightning bolt. The highest ever recorded lightning bolt was 300 million volts. And so if you take 70 trillion, which is a potential energy inside of all of our cells added together, 70 trillion divided by 300 million. That means that the potential energy inside of your human body is about 233 ,333 times more powerful than a lightning bolt. So you're telling me that you have potential energy inside of your body that's 233 ,000 times more powerful than a lightning bolt, but you're sitting there and you're saying to yourself, oh, I can't do it because I'm afraid of failure. Oh, I can't do it because I'm afraid of what Nancy in HR is going to say to me.

11:02You're holding yourself back. You are this incredibly powerful being that has almost near unlimited potential, but you're creating this little teeny tiny box and you're putting yourself inside the box and living in it. The way I like to think of it is you're basically like as powerful as the genie in Aladdin. You're this big, huge, powerful being, but you're putting yourself inside of this lamp and you're saying, this is where I am. This is where I deserve to be. This is all that I believe in myself. And this infinitely powerful being is just stuck in this little teeny tiny lamp. You have to realize you must understand that you are powerful beyond measure.

11:37Here's what we must do in order to achieve our goals. We have to rise above our limitations. They're going to be there. You're going to feel fears. You're going to feel excuses. You're going to want to create excuses. You're going to feel your self-limiting beliefs. You have to learn to break past those. When we tell ourselves that it's impossible, we must immediately remind ourselves why it is possible and how it is going to happen, how we want it to happen and command it to happen the way that we want it to. It comes down to you and it always comes down to what's going on inside of your head.

12:05It all comes down to what you believe. That's why I believe your mindset is the most powerful thing that you have. And that's the thing that you should be working in day in and day out. It's the only thing that's holding you back. It's not the money. It's not the past. It's not your current situation. It's not your spouse. It's not your family. It's not where you live. It's not your skin color. It's not your sex. It's not the fact that you don't have a circle of influence that's powerful and helps you out? No, it's none of those. It's what's going on in your mind. You know, there's a study done with fleas years ago, and an average flea can jump up to 12 inches high.

12:40But when you put a flea inside of a jar, and you put the top on top of it, it'll jump, and it'll jump in because of the fact they can jump up to 12 inches, and it's a three inch jar, it'll hit itself, it'll hit itself, it'll hit itself, and then it learns that it can't jump any higher. And so it doesn't jump above three inches, because it doesn't want to injure itself from the top of the jar. And then so what they do is they take the flea out of the jar and the rest of its life, it continues to not jump higher than three inches. Here's the crazy part though. Then that flea will have offspring and that offspring will not jump higher than three inches.

13:11So it's also learned to your, your limitations are learned from other people, but also it's passed down to your children if you don't break through it. So you can say, I want to get better. I want to get better. But you've also got to realize your children, if you have them, they're around, they're viewing you, they're seeing it, and they're understanding and basically understanding and also integrating your limiting beliefs into them as well. It's you. It's always been you. You are the one that's holding yourself back. We need to be reprogramming our minds more than we need anything else. And what I really want to do is I want you to start to think about this.

13:45I want you to start to think about how you hold yourself back. And so I want you to do is if you have a pen and paper around you, go grab a pen and paper real quick. Pause me if you need to, go get it. And I want to leave you with a question. And I want you to journal through this question and actually start to think about it. What limitations are you placing on yourself? Write them all down. Write down all the limitations. The limitations of your mind. Write down all the fears. Write down all the limiting beliefs. All of the things that you believe are true. But a belief doesn't mean that it's actually true.

14:14It's just something that you're believing is true even when it's not. So what limitations are you putting on yourself? What are you placing on yourself? Write them all down. And then what I want you to ask yourself is another question to follow up with this. How are all of those limitations false? I want you to challenge your thoughts. One of the best parts about cognitive behavioral therapy is they teach you how to challenge every single thought to see if there's truth behind it. Because all too often, we're creating thoughts and we're creating limiting beliefs and fears that are not true, but we think that they are.

14:48And you want to start to challenge your thoughts and challenge your beliefs and challenge everything that comes into your mind so you can start to reprogram them. Write all of them down and look at all of them every day, every time you start to doubt yourself. And you'll say, oh, yeah, like I'm seeing this. And I remember this fear of failure coming up before. But if I can see on this piece of paper, I challenged that fear of failure. And I actually realized that, yeah, I do actually truly believe that failure is an aspect of success. It's two sides of the same coin. So therefore, I shouldn't be afraid of failure.

15:17If I want success, eventually I need to realize that I have to go through multiple layers of failure in order to achieve success. All right, I'm going to take some action. And when you start to challenge these thoughts, you actually start to reprogram yourself. If there's one thing that I don't want to be, it's realistic because when you're realistic, you're basically following the path of other mediocre people. You're not listening to this podcast because you want to be mediocre. You're listening to this podcast because you want to create something great from your life. And so what you have to do is understand that your limitations are optional.

15:48They are not real. And if you fully want to unlock your potential, you're going to have to learn to overcome your self-limiting beliefs to create the success, the happiness, the joy, the love, the peace, everything that you want in your life. Because ultimately, you create your reality from what's going on in your mind. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me in at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. Also, if you have any ideas for extra podcast episodes you want me to cover, send that to me in a DM on Instagram. I look through all my DMs.

16:21I always don't always get time to respond to everybody because I do get a lot of DMs but at least send me a message and maybe you'll hear me do one of the podcast episodes that you want me to do in the future. So once again, it's Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R and with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.