Building Resilience by Challenging Your Limiting Beliefs - pt 4 - ep 160

Speaker 1: 0:02

You're listening to the VED staff podcast, the place where veterinary professionals go to get their head screwed on straight so they can get excited about going to work on Monday mornings and living their best lives. I'm your show host, julie South. This is episode 160, today Limiting Beliefs. What are they and how can you flush them down the drain? Today we continue with part four, on developing one of your secret superpowers your resilience quotient Resilience fortitude. Think of it as a muscle, the one that lets you flex, bend and bounce forward no matter what life and or work throws at you when you have those pear shaped events going on in your life. It's the nitty gritty grace, under pressure, that in a strength that keeps you steady when the going gets rough and tough, that steadfast spirit that surfaces amid strife, have you ever wondered what makes some people bounce forward from setbacks stronger than ever before? Or how about? Have you ever felt like you're just one stressor away from burning out or melting down? What, if there's a skill that you can learn to prevent this? There is, and it's resilience, and it can be both learned and strengthened. So today we're going to look at the role that personal beliefs and limiting beliefs play as a key component to you having a high resilience quotient to help you become more resiliently intelligent and make sure that you stay right to the end, please, because we're going to share another super easy tool, and it's around limiting beliefs and flushing them down the drain, so that you can add it to your resiliency quotient toolbox and you can start using it straight away. It'll make the world of difference in your life, I promise. The Vet Staff podcast is proudly powered by VetClinicJobscom, the new and innovative global job board reimagining veterinary recruitment, connecting veterinary professionals with clinics that shine online. Vetclinicjobscom is your go to resource for finding the perfect career opportunities and helping VetClinic's power up their employer branding game. Visit VetClinicJobscom today to find Vet clinics that shine online, so veterinary professionals can find them. Vetclinicjobscom.

Speaker 1: 3:06

What are personal beliefs or personal values, and why are they part of resilience? Firstly, personal beliefs are what you think and feel about things like religion, politics, what's right and wrong and who you are. They come from your own life experiences where you grew up, who you grew up with and how you grew up, as well as how you see the world. These beliefs are what govern the way you think, act and make choices. We've all got our own set of beliefs, our own moral compass. Although they can be really strong, they can also change over time and through external influences. We only have to think back to those crazy times of the early stages of the pandemic and the rabbit holes that some people went down and then, when they came back up again, we didn't recognise them as being the people we knew, because they'd been exposed to different ideas that totally reshaped what they believed to be true. So leopards can change their spots, given the right circumstances.

Speaker 1: 4:24

Our beliefs come from many places. They start forming when we're kids. They take into account what our family, our community and our schools also taught us. Then, as we grow up, our own experiences and the people we meet shape what we believe to Because we want to fit in. Our friends play a huge part, a huge influential role in our beliefs and our value systems, because we want to fit in and because we want to be accepted. The society we live in affects our beliefs as well. Again, as was evidenced during the pandemic the things that we see on TV, in the news and on social media, what we hear on the radio they can change how we think. As an aside, I actually think it will be really interesting in about five or ten years time being a social scientist and be able to see the changes for better or worse that the pandemic has made on societies in New Zealand and worldwide, because there'll be blips and stats and science results that will be able to trace back to the pandemic.

Speaker 1: 5:44

But I got off topic there Beliefs, values and resiliency. It's important to know how to take into account that someone's our own beliefs can change over time as we learn new things and meet new people. Our beliefs can shift and even our values can shift. They're not fixed in concrete. They can and do change as we go through life. So how do personal beliefs impact someone's resiliency? How do they impact your? How does what you believe impact your ability to be resilient or not?

Speaker 1: 6:22

If you listened to last week's episode, you'll have heard me talk about the importance for being realistically optimistic. Realistic optimism and self-efficacy are both personal beliefs. If you don't have them as part of your belief system, or strong shades of those beliefs, then you're not going to be as resilient as someone who does. It's helpful, therefore, if you know what your core values and your personal beliefs are, when you know where your true north is pointed, that you can then decide whether that's the direction you want to head in, for example, optimism versus pessimism or not. If you don't like that general direction, then you're able to take some corrective steering measures.

Speaker 1: 7:12

But how do you know what direction you might be heading and whether you need to readjust the course? Well, firstly, you need to know what your core values and your beliefs are. If you don't know what yours are or maybe you've got a kind of an inkling but you've never spent any time, you've never sat down and looked at them in black and white on a piece of paper If that's you to help, we've created a list of values and beliefs for you to play with. They're broken down under different top-level headings for you, so, for example, you can look at your personal values, workplace and professional ones, relationships, financial and spiritual. You can get a handle on where you're at. I'll put the link in the show notes page of where you're listening to this episode now and it will take you to where you can download these as a PDF. Otherwise, send me an email, julie, at vetstaffconz. Put the podcast values in the subject line, please, and I'll send them out to you.

Speaker 1: 8:21

Okay, julie, you might be thinking so what does knowing my personal values do and help me making and help to make me more resilient. Where's the connection? That's a great question and I'm so pleased you asked. You've probably heard the saying if you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there. Having a strong set of values, regardless of what they are, is like having the compass that guides you on your journey in life. We all have our own set of values, even gang members. It's just that theirs are probably, most likely definitely less honourable than the rest of societies, but it's their set of values that guide them to do what they do, the things that they do. That's why, obviously, it's important to have a set of honourable values that enable you to live your best life.

Speaker 1: 9:29

Knowing what your own values are is really important for being and staying strong and able to bounce forward when life's pear-shaped events knock our legs out from under us and we find ourselves sitting on our bum's on our asses wondering how we're going to get back up again. Here's why they make. They help you make good choices when things get hard. Knowing what you value helps you make the best decisions Sometimes when you're at a crossroads. Should I do this or should I do that. Knowing what's important to you helps you make those A-B decisions. They also give you a reason to keep going, even when you're in the thick of a pear-shaped events and things are tough. Knowing why you're doing what you're doing is critical. For example, if being the best parent you can be for your kids is a value you have high on your list, then you'll have a reason, a higher reason than yourself, to help you keep going. Sometimes it's because it's easy to fall into overwhelm.

Speaker 1: 10:45

Knowing your values helps you focus on what's really important to you. They help you choose to narrow down your focus and therefore, to help keep life a little less overwhelming for you. They enable you to stay true to yourself, which is ultimately let's face it less stressful. Who wants to be torn up inside? When you know what your North Star looks like and where it is, you have less stress in your life. When you know your values, you feel more sure about who you are, which helps get you through hard pear-shaped events and hard pear-shaped times. Understanding and appreciating what you value is like having a personal guidebook and or a roadmap for when life gets tricky. You know at your deepest level what's important to you and therefore why you do the things you do, which includes digging deep, it includes getting back up again, and it includes dusting yourself off and taking the next step in the direction you know that you need to go Now that you can hopefully see why it's important that you have a clearer idea of what you stand for in life.

Speaker 1: 12:12

Let's quickly have a look at your limiting beliefs, of how your limiting beliefs can get in the way of building a more resilient and a more powerful you, how they get in the way of you living your best life. Limiting beliefs, we all have them. Yes, even psychopaths, believe it or not. Some people let their limiting beliefs rule their lives, though, while others can recognize them for what they are. When their chitter-chatter happens inside their heads, they're able to change the dial and to challenge the internal self-talk radio station. That goes on, while others have very few limiting beliefs.

Speaker 1: 12:58

Limiting beliefs are the stories that we tell ourselves and the ones that we believe to be true when they're not about how we are and what we're capable of. For example, you might hear yourself say something like I'm not cut out for this, or I don't fit in, or I'll never be good enough, or I'm a follower, I'm not a leader. When we allow our limiting self-beliefs to take over to guide our lives, our actions and our thoughts, our ability to grow, our resiliency muscle is impaired. Here's how your self-confidence and self-efficacy is eroded. You don't start to doubt yourself. You already doubt yourself, whereas to be resilient, you need to have a realistic, optimistic self-belief pattern going on. Your ability to see the big picture is compromised. You can only see what you can't do, not what you can. It means that your limiting self-beliefs do nothing but narrow your thinking, which means that, because of your narrowed thinking, you're more likely to bury your head in the sand avoid than take action.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Having resilience is about accepting and even embracing challenges head on. You can't think like an ostrich and have a high resilience equation at the same time. The two don't go together. Limiting self-beliefs are thoughts that are negative and pessimistic. Think about your favorite pet, or maybe even your spouse or your kids. Who would you rather have operate on them in an emergency situation? A team that totally believes in their capabilities or a team that's conflicted and constricted by limited beliefs? A team that focuses on what they can't do rather than what they can do? Knowing your values, I know which one I'd rather have. Knowing your values helps you kick negative beliefs down the drain, exactly where they belong.

Speaker 1: 15:17

The good news is that it is possible for us to get over ourselves and our own limiting beliefs. Don't believe me? Well, there's a stack of research to back it up. I'll put links from the University of Plymouth on functional imagery training, fit. Fit, which is how behavioral change can happen, using mental imagery to motivate that change. As you probably know from personal experience, I can personally relate the hardest thing about changing our lifestyles is staying motivated. If you stop to think about it and I hope you do. In a way, resiliency is a style of life, a lifestyle In short. Fit.

Speaker 1: 16:05

Functional Imagery Training is a method developed from 20 years ago. It's got 20 years of research backing it up. It's been designed by researchers at the University of Plymouth and the University of the Queensland University of Technology. It shows how the pictures we imagine in our minds have a stronger emotional impact than other kinds of thinking, for example. This is why intense cravings, like those for drugs, are so powerful. On the flip side of that, though, because it works for cravings, that means it can also help us work smarter and reach our goals, even when the going gets tough. Fit Functional Imagery Training combines talking therapy with special exercises that involve imagery pictures. When we do this, it helps to boost our drive and our belief in our ability to do things that will help us achieve what we want. Notice, I said achieve achievers, the operative word here so it'll help us achieve what we want rather than just dream up things of what we want. I actually discovered I was using FIT myself without even realizing it To me, it just made sense. It's what I've pretty much been doing for most of my life, with varying degrees of success because of varying degrees of application. And here's an example of what I'm talking about from me.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Back in August 2021, when Hamilton joined Auckland in being locked down because of COVID, I started what is, as at recording this episode, 813, 813 consecutive days of walking. I'm asked but even in the rain yes, even in the rain I still walk. How have I achieved that? Even in the rain? The first day I went out in the rain, I knew it was raining even before I opened the curtains, because it's a first thing in the day thing, even before I opened the curtains or I looked outside Because I could hear it on the roof, it was absolutely chucking it down. So what I did was I quickly imagined myself walking in that rain that I could hear.

Speaker 1: 18:25

I imagined putting on my really heavy oil skin coat because I knew that it would keep me dry. In my mind's eye I also imagined putting on my peaked cap, a ball cap, because I knew it would help me keep my. It would help keep my glasses dry and they wouldn't start fogging up until I stopped when I got home. So I'm putting on. In my mind's eye I'm putting on my oil skin. My oil skin is heavy. I can feel it. In my mind's eye I imagined feeling the rain on my coat and on my hat. I could hear it, so I could feel it.

Speaker 1: 19:05

I knew that my feet were going to get wet, so I fast forwarded getting back home and taking my shoes and socks off, how I would have to peel them off because they'd stick to my feet, because they would be so wet. With that, I imagined hanging up my dripping coat, my soaking wet coat, where I would hang that up so that it didn't flood the floor. This is all fast forwarding, all imagining in my mind's eye. I thought about the hot shower I'd need when I got home how crazy people might think I was walking in such crazy raining conditions. I thought about the coffee I was going to reward myself with. When I got back, I pictured the rain dripping off the sleeves of my coat, but my hands would be dry because I'd be pulling misleads for so long I'd be pulling, pulling my hands back up inside the sleeves.

Speaker 1: 20:03

I pictured all of that in the positive, that I was doing it, that I could do it, I had done it, I was able to do it, that I was out there doing and feeling all of those things and I'd make it home alive and the sense of personal achievement I'd feel because I'd done it. That's fit. That's what I do to keep me motivated every single morning, sometimes when it feels like the damn rain won't ever ease up and I have to dig a bit deeper into my resilience bucket to lace up and go for my warning morning walk, and when that happens, I find myself now out of habit, mentally imagining what I've just described to you being out in the rain but most of me staying dry, peeling off my socks. When I get back home, hanging up my dripping coat, feeling the rain on my hat, sitting down with my cup of coffee on my return, my reward, and going through my attitude of gratitude routine that I do each morning. Now that thinking has just become a habit and because it's the habit, because I've done it so often, it strengthens my resilience when it comes to walking in the rain.

Speaker 1: 21:26

I promised you a tool to add to your resiliency toolbox. The first is to help you identify what your own personal values are, because if you want to sharpen up your tools today's and those of the last two weeks then you need to get clear on what your personal values are, so that when you're true north, you need to know where your true north is, because knowing that will help you navigate those rough seas. There's walking in the rain, whatever it is, a little bit more easily. The links to download those are on the show notes of this page of where you're listening to this episode. The other tool is to help you identify and then challenge your own limiting beliefs, your limiting self-beliefs. Here's what you need to do sit down in a quiet space where you know you will be uninterrupted, get yourself a sheet of paper or open up a new word document.

Speaker 1: 22:28

Then I want you to list every single one of your limiting beliefs, those thoughts that you know hold you back. For example, they might sound something like I'm not good enough, I'll never fit in, I never have enough money, I'm not brainy enough. People in my family always struggle to lose weight. I'm an anxious person. Life's hard. I'm too old, too young, too big, too small, too black, too white, too pessimistic. Whatever that might be for you, a leopard never changes his spots. I'm too depressed, too analytical, too introverted, too extroverted, whatever. And here's one I just heard this weekend you can never have what you want in life. Whoa, then, by the way, that wasn't mine, somebody else's.

Speaker 1: 23:22

Then, with each of your limiting belief statements, ask yourself what if I'm wrong about this statement? Ponder that possibility. What if this thing you've always believed about yourself is false? What might your life look like? What if I'm wrong? Ask yourself that question against every single one of those limiting beliefs and then note down what. What thoughts come back, what responses. What if I'm wrong? What if this isn't so for me? Then I want you to ask yourself and you're not going to like hearing this how is this self belief serving you?

Speaker 1: 24:12

Because, believe it or not, we can only hold on to have in our lives those limited self beliefs, those limiting self beliefs, because they serve us in some way. How scary is that? Holding on to our limiting self beliefs allows us to stay stuck in some way. If you truly want to live your best life, then you'll need to be totally honest with yourself and then you'll need to get over yourself big time. Limiting beliefs help us hold on to the icky stuff like our self righteousness or being a victim or being the martyr, or to have people feel sorry for us, to pity us, for us, to get a tension of some kind. In some way, our limiting beliefs enable us to feel special, but special in a way that does not serve us.

Speaker 1: 25:17

I can't start a new business because I'm too old, says who. What do you get out of holding on to that thought? I can't lose weight because I'm big boned. How does that serve you? What are you getting out of staying stuck in that way because you believe you're big boned? How do you know you're big boned? I could never join a fitness step class because I'm too uncoordinated. How does that keep you stuck? What are you getting out of holding on to your uncoordination or your lack of fitness? Maybe you've been told that you're the brains and the family and your brother or sister is the beauty. How does that serve you? Then I want you to ask yourself who told you that was true about you? Who said you're not all or any of those things on your list? Who told you this was so? Maybe it was a parent, a teacher, a jealous sibling, perhaps a grandparent, a so-called friend. Next, ask yourself Is the veterinary professional that you are for the evidence of this, the scientific evidence you want to make 100% certain, beyond any reasonable doubt, and certainty, that what you are basing that lie on is fact? Air quotes is fact. On what evidence? Not your emotional reactions.

Speaker 1: 27:00

Now, with all of these limiting self-beliefs being challenged, come up with a list, debunking and alternative statements that are true for you, for each of those limiting beliefs. Make them outrageous. Have some fun coming up with statements that are diametrically opposed to what you've been telling yourself, so that you can start getting out of your own way for a change and you can start living your best life and you can start being more resilient. Then, simple but not easy then, or whenever you hear yourself tell yourself one of those limiting beliefs, counter it with one of the empowering statements that are true that support, encourage and empower you instead. Sometimes you'll catch yourself straight up. Other times, a whole internal self-recriminating lecture takes place At some point. Stop yourself, doesn't matter where you are, just as long as you do stop it. You'll get better at recognizing your own self-limiting beliefs once you've spent time identifying them first.

Speaker 1: 28:19

I hope you found this helpful. If you did, can I ask you to do me a favor, please? Please, help me spread the VET staff podcast word by telling your friends and your colleagues about the show and hitting that follow button wherever you're listening to this right now. It means that you'll automatically receive next week's episode direct to your audio feed and it means that you won't miss out. If you'd really like to help me smile on the inside, then I'd love to know what you found particularly helpful. You can send me an email, julie, at vetsstaffconz. Thank you, I look forward to spending another half an hour or so with you next week when we'll be looking at imposter syndrome.

Speaker 1: 29:05

We're going to cover some really interesting things like how to build confidence with competence and the role feedback plays in self assurance, all of which will help you grow your resilience quotient. This is Julie South, inviting you to go out there and be the most fantabulous and resilient version of you you can be. The VET staff podcast is proudly powered by vetclinicjobscom, the new and innovative global job board, reimagining veterinary recruitment, vets and veterinary professionals with clinics that shine online. Vetclinicjobscom is your go to resource for finding the perfect career opportunities and helping vet clinics power up their employer branding game. Visit vetclinicjobscom today to find vet clinics that shine online so veterinary professionals can find them. Vet CLINICJOBSCOM.