In my last post, I wrote about setting goals for the new year (click hear to read). In this one, I am going to share a secret that helps me do that. In my next post, I’ll share another secret.

Normally goal setting starts with dreaming of all the things you might want to accomplish. You brainstorm a million ideas, then select the best ones.

But I didn’t start there – I started in a place I had no desire to go.

I began with evaluating my limits … to be more precise, my limiting beliefs. And that’s very different from my limits.

I’m limited by a lot of things. I could blame my parents that I’m not six feet tall or have the mind of a rocket scientist. But that’s just genetics. I can’t do anything about that.

Everyone has limits.

But limiting beliefs, that’s a different matter. They are not really limits; they’re just a bar we set for ourselves that we don’t think we can get over.

The problem with those limiting beliefs is that we live up to them all the time … or should I say, we live under them every time.

What’s worse is they aren’t necessarily true; we just believe them to be true (limiting beliefs like, “I can’t do that”, “I’m a failure”, “No one cares”).

When it comes to goal setting, they keep us from accomplishing the goals we want to reach.

In the past, my limiting beliefs have been the mastermind behind me sabotaging my own goals.

They come from stories I’ve created based on my past experiences. Still, I believe the stories and live them out time and time again.

These limiting beliefs are ingrained in us and you can only change them by replacing them with new stories – a new story that overwrites the old one.

That’s not easy to do.

But this week as I was listing my limiting beliefs, I found a key to begin the process of overwriting those limiting beliefs.

It starts with a truth. Then you have to trust the truth enough to experience that truth in your life and thus write a new story.

It sounds simple but it takes some work.

For me, two truths from the Bible that I read right after I wrote my limiting beliefs will help me write some new stories.

1 John 5:14-15 says, “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have what we asked of him.” (NIV84)

We can ask God to help us overcome our limiting beliefs. He will hear us and answer.

Then Ephesians 3:20 says “Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,”(NIV84)

Now that’s powerful! Whatever you believe about yourself – whatever I have come to believe about myself – God is at work within us and can do more than we can even imagine.

The first step is to believe these truths, and then go out and experience the reality of them. If you do, you’ll replace that old story, with a new one.

Here’s the thing: If you want to grow deeper with God, if you want to see God work in your life, then address those limiting beliefs by believing and experiencing these truths from God’s words. Then write a new story through experience.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Do you have limiting beliefs that hold you back from all God wants for you? Leave your comment below.