One of the subjects that most fascinates me is the unconscious mind and how it affects our emotions, decisions and our lives. Something I learned recently (which was a bit surprising) is that ALL learned behavior change happens unconsciously. This means that even when we make conscious changes in our behavior, it’s only because we are aware of a change that happened on an unconscious level.

So when we make decisions, there are both conscious and unconscious factors that our brain uses in our decision making strategy. Which leads to the question, are you really in charge of your business if you aren’t even aware of some of the factors that affect your brain when you make business decisions?
I read an unbelievably great quote recently on the subject from Milton Erickson. He’s talking about his patients in this quote - yet the lesson behind what he says is applicable to anyone who wants to make a change:

“Patients are patients because they are out of rapport with their own unconscious… Patients are people who have had too much programming - so much outside programming that they have lost touch with their own Inner Selves.”

-Milton Erickson, 1976

So what does this all have to do with being self employed? Well, if you are like most people on the planet, you might have some areas of inner conflict, or some walls that you simply can’t seem to break down in order to take your business to the next level. There are a ton of reasons as to why this can be, and simplistically we can boil it down to negative emotions and limiting decisions and beliefs.

Do you have any limiting beliefs? Beliefs about what you can do with your business? Beliefs about how much money you can make? Beliefs about how much you can accomplish in a day? Beliefs about how long it will take to be a success? Beliefs about whether you are worthy? Beliefs about whether you are enough to handle it all?

The big question is, are they really YOUR beliefs? Or did you learn them from others, adopting them as your own without even realizing the consequences of the decision you had just made?

Perhaps you made these decisions for what seemed to be good reasons - yet you find today that the decisions aren’t serving your highest good - they are in fact limiting you. Or you might not even be aware of them - yet they are guiding your actions and you are at the effect rather than the cause.

So what limiting decisions have you made in your life? And where would your business and life be today if you could remove them?

Tags: Self Help, Limting Decisions, Business Decisions, Self Employment, Home Business, Work at Home, Unconscious, Beliefs, Self Improvement, NLP Coach, Business Turn Around,

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 18th, 2006 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Productivity, Overcoming Obstacles. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.