Final thought on Limiting beliefs

The presumption is that at all times and under all circumstances, is that you are good enough, worthy enough, and lovable enough. 

And that you are exactly the right kind of person, in the right place, at the right time. Otherwise, you wouldn't have been instilled with such dreams or accomplished so much in the first place. 

Impostor Syndrome and Limiting Beliefs

I was listening to a radio podcast that talked about the imposter syndrome. For those of you who don’t know what this is, and for the record, I did not know what it was, or if I did know I had forgotten. This where a person feels like they don’t belong. Like their friends or colleagues are going to discover they are a fraud, and they don’t actually deserve the job and accomplishments. 

If you have had these feelings you are in good company. An estimated 70% of people experience these impostor feelings at some point in their lives, according to a review article published in the International Journal of Behavioral Science. Impostor syndrome affects all kinds of people from all parts of life: women, men, medical students, marketing managers, actors and executives.

Impostor syndrome—the idea that you’ve only succeeded due to luck, and not because of your talent or qualifications—was first identified in 1978 by psychologists who in their paper, theorized that women were uniquely affected by impostor syndrome.

Since then, research has shown that both men and women experience impostor feelings, one of the psychologists published a later paper acknowledging that impostor syndrome is not limited to women.

Part of the reason, I believe that a person may suffer from the Impostor syndrome is that hey may not always know what invisible, limiting beliefs they hold.

In believing limiting beliefs to be true, accurate and factually correct we stop interacting openly and freely with certain aspects of our lives. This can have very significant consequences without us even realizing it.

A belief is a personal acceptance that something exists or is true.  Beliefs don’t require evidence or proof, and they often rely on trust, faith and having confidence in something or somebody.

Truths on the other hand, conform to reality. Based on facts and evidence, they can be verified as real and certain. They cannot be argued with.

Some of the beliefs that we hold are purposeful and protect us from harm (for example, if we touch the cooker we will get burned).  These beliefs absolutely accord with the truth.

Limiting beliefs are constructed from our past experiences. Often shaped and formed at an early age, they are naive, misinformed, shrouded in inaccuracy and usually simply wrong.

Limiting beliefs aren’t truths, they are not the factual entity that we perceive them to be. Despite this, we treat them as sacrosanct and sacred. We accept them without question and don’t interfere with them.

We all have limiting beliefs; we hold them about ourselves, others, our relationships and the world in general. These beliefs guide us, we follow their rules and we don’t question their validity. We hold beliefs about what we are able to accomplish, about the rights and permissions that we have, about what we are allowed to do. Some examples of limiting beliefs include:

“I’m not good enough.”

“I don’t deserve X, Y or Z. I am not a nice person.”

“I am not attractive/ intelligent/ funny enough.”

“I will fail.”

“I can’t make a fuss.  I need to keep quiet.”

Once we understand that our limiting beliefs are not truths we can move to change them. To do that you need to know the kinds of empowering beliefs you'd like to possess. And so, one decision at a time, one day at a time, you can choose to behave according to your new beliefs. And, worlds will be born, you shall be transformed, and the cows will come home, to use a farming metaphor from my youth.

Humour time

I was eating breakfast with my 10-year-old Granddaughter and I asked her,

What day is tomorrow?"

Without skipping a beat, she said,

"It's Presidents Day! “

She's smart, so I asked her "What does Presidents Day mean?"

I was waiting for something about Obama, Bush, or Clinton, etc. She replied, "Presidents Day is when the President steps out of the White House, and if he sees his shadow, we have another year of Bullshit."

You know, it hurts when hot coffee spurts out your nose.

Things I'm Super Good At

Running. Late, that is.

Forgetting someone's name two minutes after they tell me.

Making plans...then regretting making plans.

Thinking of a great comeback — an hour later.

Digging through the trash for the food box I just threw away, because I already forgot the directions.

Adding items to online carts & then deleting.

Eating other people's French fries on the way home from the drive-thru.

Googling my ailments. Then panicking.

Forgetting about the laundry — until I'm in bed.

Calculating how much sleep I'll get if I can just "fall asleep right now".

Mumbling the name part during a rendition of "Happy Birthday"

Lowering the music on your car stereo so I can see better

Searching for my phone while holding it in my hand.

Looking for my glasses which are sitting on my head.

Seeing an outrageous price on something at a store and pretending I am still considering it.

Secretly diagnosing everybody in the waiting room at my doctor's office

Ignoring an email for weeks, then writing back and saying, "Somehow this ended up in my spam folder".

Pretending I am in a movie while listening to music on headphones and walking down the street.

Being extra chatty with airport security for good travel karma.

Offering some truly transparent fake laughter, because I have no idea what was just said, but everyone is laughing.

Bringing a book to the beach and not actually reading it.

Overthinking eye contact.

Carrying way too much from your car so I can "make it in one trip".

Finally, taking out my phone to check the time, then getting distracted by it and totally forgetting what time it is

The last wave of Boomers turns 56, what happened to Freedom 55?

The oldest of my generation, the Boomers, will turn 75 in 2021. The youngest will be 57. The Boomers made marks on society as we grew, due to the force of numbers. We fought for peace while waging war, we used illegal drugs while fighting the war on drugs, we lined up for cheap gas while creating environmental awareness of how bad oil is on the environment. 

We believe in the sanctuary of marriage yet lead the generations in our level of divorce. Our generation invented the personal computer, the internet fought the culture wars and the war on terror. There are so many of us that some say that we are that is responsible for the best in our society, while others hold us responsible for the worst of the human condition as we live it today. We are getting old. And as always because of sheer numbers, the media and the pundits are making our ageing all about us. 

We are living inconveniently long lives. Over the course of the next three decades, the number of people aged 85 and older will more than triple. Yet the generation before us, the silent generation has more people living past 100 than ever before, but the total number of that generation is small so this outstanding achievement is ignored or downplayed. Why? Because this generation is a small cohort and therefore whatever they do, it does not make an impact on society and our thinking about ageing.

Since the boomers were identified by demographers’ people have known that we would have an impact on ageing. Yet policymakers seem to be surprised that there is an upcoming crisis because the rapidity of ageing is the real issue for policymakers. It is difficult to blame policymakers because they work at the whim of their political masters who, if they have a vision, hold it just long enough to win the next election.

I've heard this claim before that my generation hasn't saved enough for retirement and this is our fault. Those who say we are to blame, forget that since 1945 there have been 12 recessions that have taken a toll on our ability to save. For example, the recession from 1973-1975 saw a quadrupling of oil prices by OPEC, coupled with the 1973–1974 stock market crash which led to a stagflation recession in the United States and Canada. 

We make easy scapegoats for the politicians and others who look for someone to blame for the upcoming crises. The critics complain that we will have to rely on younger generations to help us and this means more taxes, more welfare and more stress for the younger generations. The critics decry the boomers because we were also the first generation to stop having enough children to replace ourselves, meaning there are fewer young people available to look after the old. Yet we, as a generation are doing whatever it takes to help our children, either by taking on student debt, helping to finance homes or by looking after our grandchildren so their parents can work.

The reality is that there is a paradigm shift in society and every generation is having fewer children than the generation before. The policymakers are only concerned about making the policies that get the politicians elected. This isn’t some abstract policy challenge. This is about us, caring for our parents or our spouse. This is us, worried about our children’s future. This is about everyone getting older every day and realizing that we are on our own. 

Unless governments, families and individuals act now to bend the curve on the cost of ageing, many of us will not enjoy our later years. For a few years, seniors living in poverty was a declining trend in both the USA and Canda, however, in about 2008 this trend shifted and now more seniors are living in poverty. The future will not be pretty. As one of the older boomers, I wonder what life in Canada will look like, for my younger brothers, cousins and family.