Is Conditioning Holding You Back?
We make few decisions in life intentionally and objectively. Our conditioning creates our reality - and our identity.
Conditioning is the set of beliefs and behaviors we adopted in order to belong and feel safe in the world, and now never examine. It’s the expectations, constraints and well-traveled paths that our family, community, culture and society at large impose on us from the moment we’re born, without us consciously questioning them.
Conditioning runs so deep that even our ability to detect color is based on it! People whose language has different words for variations of the same color can distinguish between those variations faster than people whose language doesn’t have that richness
As part of our conditioning we adopt beliefs that in many cases limit our growth, such as:
Beliefs about ourselves and our abilities:
I am / I am not (a perfectionist, a people person, sensitive)
I’m good / not good at (sports, remembering things, drawing)
I’m too [something] to [do something] (I’m too old to change careers, I’m too out of shape to run a marathon)
Beliefs about groups of people: [Group of people] have / don’t have [characteristic / behavior]
Women aren’t good at math
All artists starve
Good guys finish last
Beliefs about money:
You have to work hard to make money
I can’t make money in a career I would actually want
Money is a root of all evil
These beliefs can hold us back from daring to try things: We can’t change ourselves if we believe we can’t change or that making the change is unsafe.
For me, a deeply ingrained limiting belief was that all artists starve. It’s not that once I examined this belief I realized that all artists make millions, but I did find many examples of artists who make a very good living, especially now that they’re no longer as dependent on gatekeepers as artists used to be when I was growing up and first adopted this belief. I also saw many artists who struggle because they’re clueless about business and technology, two areas I happen to know a thing or two about. If I’m more savvy than the average artist in those areas, does that mean I can manage not to starve?
It’s often a vicious cycle where we seek confirmation for our beliefs in order to avoid taking risks or being accountable. If a 50 year old walks into a job interview thinking they’re at a disadvantage vs. younger people they’ll not perform as well as they could, likely confirming their belief. They also absolve themselves of responsibility for the failure and for finding areas they could improve on for the next interview, again increasing the chances they won’t do well and reaffirm their belief.
An even more insidious issue is that the supposedly positive beliefs we have about ourselves can also hold us back. If you’re proud of your high standards as a perfectionist, does that mean you subconsciously avoid trying new things because you don’t want to risk doing anything less than perfectly? Or are you banging your head against the same wall repeatedly because you want a perfect record and refuse to admit that it’s time to move on?
Identifying as many limiting beliefs as possible and getting them out in the open can help us examine not only if they’re true, but also whether they serve us.
Where are you limiting yourself from growing?
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