While I’m hanging out with my folks celebrating my birthday, I’m sharing one of my favorite blogs that you may have missed.

One of the things that holds us back from creating the body and life of our dreams is accepting those limiting beliefs that we have picked up from others as truth. How likely are you to achieve something if you don’t even believe it’s possible?

If you’re feeling stuck regarding releasing weight, it can be helpful to look at the beliefs you’re holding and examine if they’re accurate or not.

For instance, how many of you have ever heard “You have to clean your plate because there are starving children somewhere in the world?”

Just about everyone, right? This is how our parents or grandparents often got us to eat—and to eat things we didn’t want to eat. Do you think that’s a limiting belief?

How true is it that your cleaning your plate is going to benefit any of those starving children?

Logically, it makes no sense that my overeating will help anyone else. In fact, this belief can actually be harmful. Cleaning your plate teaches you to disregard your body’s guidance that it’s had enough, and eating too much food is at the heart of being overweight, which has serious health consequences.

At the core of this belief is often a concern about wasting food. But the truth is extra food in your body is just as wasteful as putting it in the trash. You can either waste it, or you waist it.

A lot of times, seeing the flaws in your thinking is enough to help you move beyond it. But changing a long-standing belief can also impact underlying values.

For instance, it may be hard for you to let go of this belief because one of your values is helping others in need. What would be a more constructive action than cleaning your plate? Perhaps donating to charities that feed the poor?

Maybe your value around this belief is being sustainable. A more direct way to address that value might be to start a composting system, or to recycle.

Resistance to changing this belief could also be fear—perhaps fear that there’s not enough so you have to eat more than you need. What are some ways that you can focus on the abundance that you do have in your life?

If you want to create the life of your dreams, it’s worth looking at the inaccurate thinking and limiting beliefs you have going on.

How willing are you to let go of beliefs that don’t serve you? How does this enable you to create new thoughts and beliefs that do?

Together we can do it!