Discovering your beliefs is a process of uncovering who you are. It can be painful to go through this process, but it is worth it in the end….if there ever is an end.

Your beliefs are often unconscious and they shape who you are, what you say, what you think and what you feel.

One of the best ways to start discovering your beliefs is to start looking at the way you talk to yourself. When you are faced with a challenge such as building a massage practice or finding your ideal job in massage therapy do little thoughts in your head keep saying.. I can’t do this, I don’t know what I am doing, you’re too old to be doing this, why should I even bother trying or other things like that? When you say things like this it is just really reflecting your fears - and the best part is that your fears are most likely not true but you have created them to keep you safe at one time or another in your life. These fears come from early childhood where we learned about ourself from others around us (object relations theory).
There is also another voice in your head that says “I can’t wait to get up in the morning to do that or I am going to do that no matter what anyone says”.
You have a choice about what to say to yourself about whatever goal or step you are taking.

In general, many massage therapists struggle to make ends meet. What is that saying about what you believe? Life is hard and has to be that way. I don’t deserve to have the money I need to live and save.

The first step in changing your beliefs is to become aware of what you believe. That is 80% of changing. Once you become aware of them, you can start becoming aware of who is driving the car - the inner child that believes that they are worthless or the adult who is able to take responsibility for themselves. Just noticing how you think and talk to yourself is part of changing your beliefs.

What thoughts arise when you think about creating a marketing plan or setting up a website for yourself to build your practice?

Keep writing them down everyday even if you just keep coming up with the same ones until you lessen their control over you.

What are your beliefs that are holding you back?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 1st, 2006 at 8:42 pm and is filed under Peer Supervision, The Wealthy Massage Therapist. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.