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Morty Lefkoe

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Are Negative Beliefs Keeping You From Financial Success?

Posted: 01/22/11 10:59 AM ET

A few months ago I asked people on our mailing list which beliefs they thought were keeping them from becoming wealthy. The top five were:

  • You have to work hard to make money.
  • I'm not deserving.
  • I'll never have enough money./There is never enough money.
  • Money is a struggle.
  • Life is difficult.

If you have any doubt about the impact of beliefs on your ability to earn and retain money, ask yourself this question: Imagine someone having these five beliefs. Then ask yourself: Do you think such a person is likely to be wealthy? ... Do you think Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, or any other really wealthy person has these beliefs?

Here's another way to demonstrate the power of beliefs to interfere with your ability to make money and accumulate wealth. Think back to the last book you read or the last workshop you took that told you exactly what you needed to do to make huge sums of money. You learned what actions you needed to take, didn't you? Now answer this question: Did you do what you learned to do... on a consistent basis? For most people the answer is "no."

Why People Don't Use the Expensive Courses They Buy

In fact, as amazing as it might seem, people who sell courses that promise to help you make money report that many of the thousand dollar-and-up courses that are purchased at workshops are never even opened when the buyers get them home. Moreover, the free e-mail support that accompanies many of these courses is rarely used.

The only way to make sense of these astonishing facts is to remember that knowing what to do is useless if you have beliefs in the way of acting on that knowledge.

  • If you believe you have to work hard to make money, it just might not be worth the effort.
  • If you believe you aren't a deserving person, you would likely sabotage any effort you make to become financially successful.
  • If you believe I'll never have enough money, then what's the point of trying?
  • If you believe money is a struggle, your life becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
  • And if you believe life is difficult, then you will create a life that is difficult in most respects, including a lack of money.

Anne Lieberman, ranked among the country's top 100 financial advisors just a few years ago, recently pointed out: "Many people do not have a workable relationship with money. When they don't, it shows up in one or more of three realms: earning, spending and saving/investing."

Wealth Can Elude You For Many Reasons

In other words, wealth can elude you because you don't ask for the money you deserve or do what you know you should do to earn it, because you spend money you don't have and get into debt unnecessarily, and/or because you don't save or invest wisely. Limiting beliefs can cause all three of these inappropriate behaviors.

Eliminating the relevant beliefs definitely will change your behavior and feelings. But having wealth involves much more than beliefs, although getting rid of crippling money beliefs is certainly a precondition.

In order to insure financial success, it would be useful to have, in additional to the absence of limiting money beliefs, a positive attitude about earning and having money, an effective strategy for getting it, and then the commitment to fully implement your strategy.

Morty Lefkoe is the creator of The Lefkoe Method, a system for permanently eliminating limiting beliefs. For more information go to http://recreateyourlife.com/free


Copyright © 2011 Morty Lefkoe

 

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A few months ago I asked people on our mailing list which beliefs they thought were keeping them from becoming wealthy. The top five were: You have to work hard to make money. I'm not deserving. I'...
A few months ago I asked people on our mailing list which beliefs they thought were keeping them from becoming wealthy. The top five were: You have to work hard to make money. I'm not deserving. I'...
 
 
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12:26 PM on 01/27/2011
No: money is.
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KathleenQYD
www.QuintessentialYouDesign.com
02:57 AM on 01/25/2011
The challenge with these limiting beliefs is that each person experiences them and names them differently. It is our experience that emerges our circumstances and conditions. No matter how hard we try if we are moving from a block that is a blind spot, this inner experience sources our outcome. If we do not distinguish and integrate this block, whatever we do, we will only be putting a temporary fix on top of an on-going experience emerging the same old result. The great news is that it is possible for us to explore and discover the elements that are part of our unique individual design.... and what makes us each perfectly who we are!
12:51 AM on 01/25/2011
Let's face it. There are people out there that prefer to be negative, and some would prefer to drag people into their personal hell to keep them company. It's always been easier to tear down than to build up. Negativity and fear always seem to go hand in hand. Negativity not only holds people back financially, but emotionally and socially too. I can't imagine anyone who actually wants to socially or emotionally be involved with a negative personality.
Personally, I had been more positive, until drawn into this negativity since W was in office, and it continued until I recently read a couple of books by Steve Siebold. (How Rich People Think, and 177 Mental Toughness Secrets of the World Class) These books helped me pull myself out of the morass of negativity, and help to understand the differences in thinking between middle class thinking, rich thinking, and world class thinking.

“Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
Albert Einstein

"The problem of winning the rat race is that you still have to race with rats."
Woody Allen
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10:52 AM on 01/23/2011
Sometimes I think all this Think Yourself Rich info is kinda a "chicken and egg" discussion. Do the rich think differently cos they have EVIDENCE that "this and that" belief is true FOR THEM? Or did they think that way before the money came in? AND did the belief make any difference at all-- other than it may be easier to keep going towards a goal when you believe the goal will show up/be there when you get there? Are there people who totally believe all this positive belief stuff and the goal never shows up-- or they achieve it and then it disappears--and why would that be? I think holding positive beliefs helps one to stay motivated and keep working towards one's goal-- but I don't think it is any guarantee of success.
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KarlaElisa
The atmosphere is Toxic
09:00 PM on 01/22/2011
What if your beliefs are that industrial society is the cause of the condition of the Earth?

What if your beliefs argue against it being 'normal' or even 'acceptable' to have to make money to exist? What if I don't WANT to be supported by society in any way but I can find my own shelter, food and care for myself? What if I only think land cannot be titled anymore than the air or the water running in a stream?

What if I believe we must dismantle the current system and return to the stone ages to save the planet from being poisoned and raped?

Money is the root of all evil. I can't imagine why I'd want to run this rat race to be financially successful. I submit it is this line of thinking that has us in the pickle we're in and has placed 80% of the worlds population at the mercy of the wealthy who clearly have no morals.
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french queen13
my beloved is mine and I am his
07:00 PM on 01/22/2011
Wealth can elude you when you're in a niche job that doesn't pay much and are in your late forties, so getting into work that would pay more is a non-starter, because job agencies want twenty-something graduates for everything from filing work up!
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sunnybunny
06:23 PM on 01/22/2011
I believe that at my current job, if I were to achieve the maximum level of success available it would be insignificant in relation to what I would have to put into it. Any good suggestions? (I know the obvious - get another job - but what? that is a question I don't have an answer to.)
Tara Hunkoff
I could have been Sheila Noyeau
12:20 AM on 01/23/2011
1) Ask three friends what your strongest three traits are. Do the same with your mother/father/siblings, if possible.
2) Ask yourself what comes naturally to you that others seem to have to work at.
3) Find out what jobs use the traits and talents identified in 1) and 2)
4) Identify which of those jobs interest you most
5) Ask three people who are happy and successful in those jobs what steps you should take to get into that kind of work.
6) Take the first steps toward your new job goal within 48 hours of talking to those people.
7) Ignore your well-meaning family and friends who think you have gone crazy.
7) Take the first steps toward
08:27 AM on 01/23/2011
We are in a economic climate which favors the employer. All the A-B-C, 1-2-3, pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstrap steps sound so inspiring until you run headlong into reality. What does it matter what interests you if there is 1) no market for the talents you figure out you have? 2) the market is saturated with 43,000 other people in front of you with more of a background than you have???
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spartanmom
My micro-bio is empty
05:54 PM on 01/22/2011
I sabotaged myself by not buying GE when it was trading at $28.

I knew buying it would be a good move, dollarwise but I just couldn't make myself do it.
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SShaw490
01:21 PM on 01/22/2011
I'm sorry, but I think financial success has kept more people from beliefs than vice-versa.
05:15 AM on 01/23/2011
LOL, though I think they have a belief that it is never enough..and they should pay less tax..
troof
Do a good thing
01:02 PM on 01/22/2011
Getting rich is alot easier without ethics. If you don't mind ripping people off, lying, stealing and cheating...giddyup!
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KarlaElisa
The atmosphere is Toxic
09:02 PM on 01/22/2011
Indeed it is! I dare say anyone with a vast wealth, no matter how their resume reads, has stomped on someone and something to get where they are. I reject this system.
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TucsonEd
12:40 PM on 01/22/2011
"you don't save or invest wisely"

My mom used a financial adviser and still lost ALL her money.

My sister has MANY emotional issues and suffers from low esteem yet she managed to work herself up to a high level management postion and retire with LOTS of money.

How do you explain these then?
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WoodsideCraig
Author of the blog "The Weiler Psi"
12:30 PM on 01/22/2011
I have done a great deal of inner exploration and I can trace my fears of success to being under constant physical attack by my older brother when I was very young. I learned to not stand out or do anything that might provoke him and this carried over into my professional life where it has held me back.

I can say from personal experience that it is very hard to overcome fears that get wired in early childhood, but it can be done.