Self Limiting Beliefs – Bananas!
Self limiting beliefs are the scourge of the modern world. I must admit that this isn’t the sort of thing I normally write about but a book I’m reading made me think about it. It is a big part of the education provided by The Six Figure Mentors after all. A lot of their members are better qualified than I am to discuss it – they include a number of life coaches and personal development experts – but here’s my tuppence.
The book I mentioned isn’t in any way about self or personal development as such. It’s actually a very good thriller called I am Pilgrim(check it out – I can’t out it down) and the part that made me think about self limiting beliefs is just one anecdote in one of the early chapters.
So the main character in the book – an ex secret agent, covert operative and assassin finds himself talking to a Buddhist monk during his travels. Guessing that our man carries a lot of dark baggage he asks him if knows how some tribal people catch monkeys.
You may have heard this before but here it is anyway.
Catchee Monkee
The tribe people tie a sealed clay pot to a tree. The make a hole in the pot just big enough for a monkeys hand to fit and put a banana in the pot. Then they go home. A monkey comes along, reaches in and grabs the fruit. But now he can’t get his hand back out. He just wont let go of the prize though so the tribesmen come back later and it’s lights out for the monkey.
Maybe this isn’t technically a self limiting belief on the monkey’s part – more of a learned behaviour and an inability to see the bigger picture. It’s a good message though – All we need to do to get our freedom is to let go – as the monk tells our hero.
Self Limiting Beliefs – The Monkey Trap
We used to be monkeys and we still retain part of that monkey brain, the part that tells us that the bird in the hand – the banana in the pot – is what we should be holding on to. In our sophisticated, evolved world the banana is the job, the keep up with joneses, the play it safe option. Now that, in this day age really is a self limiting belief – it’s bananas!
These self limiting beliefs are due in part to our outmoded system of education. That system is no longer fit for purpose in a changing world. You might say It’s served us well for a very long time by providing a pattern for us to follow: school, college, university, job. But many of the jobs at the end of that long pattern just aren’t there any more and many more will go over the coming years.
Shedding The Self Limiting Beliefs
There are plenty of statistics to back this up. There are more “olderpreneurs”, “mompreneurs”, “soulpreneurs” and school leavers jumping into self -employment now than ever before. That’s largely to do with the march of progress making self-employment and business start-ups so much more accessible to so called ordinary people (hate that term) than ever before.
Forget all that baggage that used be associated with running an online business – things have come a long way. It’s more about getting the education that empowers you to function and thrive in the digital world. It’s about recognising and dropping the self limiting beliefs that the monkey brain is clinging to – like a banana in a pot.
Not everyone wants to run a home business, give up the job or to become an entrepreneur. learning digital skills provides many more options than that. They can help you get a better job, grow an existing business or to pass on those skills to a globalised world that desperately needs them.
Organisations like the SFM, DEA and their strategic partners Grovo are leading the way in providing digital education. As I said at the top, helping their students to get rid of self limiting beliefs plays a key part in all this. To find out more about them click on the image below and get their introductory free training videos. Let go of the banana – get your paw out of the pot!
