Be a Rulebreaker

I went to a conference last week with about 200 other entrepreneurs.  It was 3 days of powerful aha moments and receiving the gift of inspiration from smart, creative people. 

The biggest gift I received, however, was the hardest to accept.  I got to come face-to-face with my own limiting beliefs.  At lunch and we were going around the table telling each other about our businesses.  After I gave my overview, one gal said, I’d pay you to …  and two others at the table agreed.  I said, but I don’t do that.  Then my little mini-me/angel who sits above my right shoulder whispered in my ear, “Did you just say that?   They’re giving you a gift, shut the hell up and listen.”  (Yes, my angel whispers to me like that, well, actually shouts at me like that.)

I sat back, opened my ears, and I now have a bunch of new ideas for my business as well as validation that multiple people would find them valuable.  A gift indeed.

Do you need my mini-me/angel to whisper the same thing in your ear? 

One of the best ways to spot your own limiting beliefs in action is to recognize when you’re in resistance mode, when you automatically deny, defer, decline or get defensive.  You can feel it in your body – that tightening in the tummy or jaw as the walls go up. 

If my tablemates had suggested an idea that I thought was not in line with where I wanted my business to go, I would have simply said something polite and we would have moved on.  But my immediate resistance was a huge wake-up call.  What was I resisting and why? 

It became clear that their ideas would push me outside my comfort zone and require me to step up a few notches to play much bigger.  I got scared and doubted myself.  That got me thinking.  What’s the different between a niche and a fence?  Had I put rules in place for my business that were keeping me from thinking and playing bigger? 

There’s nothing wrong with rules.  Look both ways before crossing the street, lock your door, double check your work, shred documents that contain your social security number, never run out of cat food.  There are lots of good rules that we abide by every day in our working and our non-working lives.  Rules are there to keep us safe, and that’s usually a good thing. 

But it isn’t always a good thing.  When you want to learn and grow, when you want to accomplish more so you can contribute more and get rewarded more for your efforts, some rules can keep you from achieving your goals.  As I said, rules are designed to keep you safe – to keep you inside your comfort zone. 

But guess what…everything you want is just outside your comfort zone.  To get what you want, you need to stretch, take a leap of faith, jump into uncharted waters.  If you start to feel resistance or get defensive, that’s a hint that you’re confronting a rule or limiting belief that you’ve put in place to keep you safe.

I have one friend who, for years, wanted to get married and have a family, but she had a rule that she didn’t date younger men.  Once she decided to drop that rule, it turns out she knew a wonderful man who was 4 years younger.  They’ve been married for over 10 years and have 3 beautiful children.

It’s easy to spot resistance at work.  Have you ever said, or heard someone say, “We can’t do that.  We’ve always done things this way.”  The way things have always been done is designed to produce predictable, safe results.  That’s not a bad thing unless you’re in a changing market, facing stiff competition or need to grow, evolve and improve. 

The biggest gift I received last week wasn’t all the new ideas, although those were yummy.  The biggest gift was shining a light on my own limiting beliefs and rules.  Now that I see them, I can start breaking them.

To get to your next level, what rules do you need to start breaking?