Limiting beliefs and self-doubt are nasty lies that we tell ourselves and that plague us all at times. They are beliefs that can hold us back from accomplishing our life’s dreams and desires. They can zap the happiness and joy out of our lives. They can keep us from discovering our most unique and empowered self. They are lies that we have allowed to become internalized along the way and that has become truths. They are lies that we allowed becoming part of us, like an old ugly blanket that we think keeps us safe and comfortable but just really needs to be tossed out! It is important to have a strategy for kicking them to the curb! Read on to discover my 10-minute a day game-changing strategy for eliminating limiting beliefs and self-doubt from your life for good.

First, let’s get specific about what limiting beliefs and self-doubt look like. Here are just a few of the erroneous things we tell ourselves when we are suffering from limiting beliefs and self-doubt.

“I am not good enough. It is too hard for me. That is for other people, not me. I will fail. I am not smart enough. People don’t like me. I am unlovable. I always make the wrong decision. I won’t be able to figure it out. I will let people down. I won’t be able to finish it. I am not capable. Bad things just happen to me. People will ridicule me.” Feelings of self-doubt make us feel powerless, uninspired, pessimistic, unable to stand up for ourselves, unworthy, have anxiety, feel sad, feel manipulated. Feel frustrated and so much more.

If you struggle with these and other negative thoughts and beliefs it can be difficult to know how to get out of your present mind-set and it can actually become such a normal outlook that you are not aware of the damage it does to your life. I have some specific strategies for overcoming them and kicking them to the curb for good!

First, is a daily exercise that I have my clients do that is a game-changer. It involves spending just 10 minutes a day and it will remarkably change your perspective! You will start by making two specific lists and adding to them every day for a week.

Your first list will be all of your accomplishments. Take just 5 minutes to list as many of your accomplishments that you can think of, big and small. Here is an example of what you might have on your list:

My Accomplishments 

My children. My beautiful home. My career. My friends and loved ones. I am a fabulous cook. I am a great decorator. I am a gifted artist. I am a good gardener. I have worked hard at a healthy lifestyle. My college degrees. My marriage. My weight loss or weight gain. I am great with money. I save and invest. I overcame debt, and on and on…

Your second list will be of all of the things you like about yourself: Here are a few to get you started.

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What I like about myself

My sense of humor. My intellect. My hair, My figure. My smile. My loyalty to friends and loved ones. My fierce instinct and my ability to follow it. My patience. My unique personality. My good fashion sense. My discipline. My sweet disposition, and on and on…

So, every day for a week you will take just 5 minutes to add to each of your lists,10 minutes total. This helps you to DIG DEEP into what you have accomplished in your life and what you like about yourself.

As you reflect for a few minutes each day, your self-worth will begin to grow and you will feel a shift in your perspective and start to see more of what makes you amazing and unique!

By the end of the week, you will begin to feel more confident and assertive, and optimistic about your life. You will find yourself motivated and empowered to do the things that are important to you and stand up for yourself more readily. You will find it easier to make decisions. You will find yourself feeling greater self-love and the dreams and desires that you have been keeping on the back burner will start to come to the forefront and seem attainable!

Bonus exercise: Write down five of your accomplishments and five of the things you like about yourself on sticky notes and put them around your house where you will see them every day!

Overcoming self-doubt is just one of the areas I help women to conquer. If you struggle with that or challenges such as negative self-talk, finding your personal power, or overcoming fears, I invite you to reach out to me at visionpowercoaching@gmail.com to learn how to work with me to realize your dreams and desires.

I also invite you to check out my uplifting and inspiring private women’s community on Facebook called The Secrets To Navigating Life’s Challenges.

about

Kimberlee Edwards

Kim is a certified Women's Empowerment Coach. She founded Vision PowerCoaching because, while working her corporate job, she discovered that the extra chair in her office cubicle was often filled with someone who needed to talk about their life. She loved listening to them and found that she often had an intuition about how to help them.

She is passionate about guiding women through some of life's toughest challenges, relating to divorce, health and family. She helps them to stop feeling overwhelmed with negativity and create a plan to find their personal power, strength and confidence in painful and difficult situations.

Kim teaches women to feel empowered and to come out on the other side of their challenge with gratitude and clarity!

Feeling loved, receiving love is one of our most basic keys to happiness. It is one of the things we spend our lives searching for, sometimes in all the wrong places. I was recently reminded of how important our specific Love Language is in helping to draw love to us. The concept of Love Languages was first presented more than 30 years ago by Gary Chapman in his book The Five Love Languages. The principle is that there are five unique ways in which we express love, receive love, and feel love. The five love languages are: Words of Affirmation, Receiving Gifts, Quality Time, Acts of Service, and
Physical Touch.

It is crucial to know your own love language and that of the important people in your life, to be able to more effectively show love and receive love in your life. Knowing not just the love language of your significant other, but your children, your closest friends, and family. For those of you who didn’t study Love Languages back in the day or need a refresher, here is a quick overview of the five love languages and their characteristics:

– Words of Affirmation
Verbal compliments and words of praise. Negative words are especially hurtful

– Quality Time
Giving a loved one your undivided and focused attention. Lack of attention is very difficult

– Receiving Gifts
Gift giving is a sign of love and affection. You remember who gave you what and when. You display and take care of gifts. Not receiving a thoughtful gift is very especially hurtful

– Acts of Service
Feeling loved when someone does something to lighten your responsibility load. Doing especially loathsome chores for your loved ones as an expression of love.

– Physical Touch
Feeling especially loved through physical touch. Thoughtful rituals of kissing and hugging and holding hands with loved ones.

It’s fantastic when the significant people in your life know your love language and use it to express love to you, but that doesn’t always happen. In fact, I’m willing to bet, unless your significant person possesses your same love language, it rarely happens. Most of us have a hard time expressing love in a language other than our own. You will most likely show love to people using your own love language.

Due to that fact, you may be loved by your significant people but not really feel it deeply because it’s not expressed in your love language. That’s right. Say, you are a Words of Affirmation person but your partner is an Acts of Service person. You may have your laundry done for you and your garbage is taken out each week, but you may not feel truly deeply loved. Some relationships go years this way. It is tragic to think that the people you love are not feeling that love. But there is hope, read on!

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There are ways to draw love to you through love languages. Here is how it works:

First, discover what love languages your significant people are by a quick study of the Love Languages below. Then watch for them to express love to you in their love languages. When you can learn to spot all the ways in which your person is showing you love, you can begin to feel loved on a whole new level.

Look for the love expressed in other people’s love languages

– Words of Affirmation
They give you cards, leave notes, send texts, encouraging words and compliments

– Physical Touch
They give you hugs and kisses. Hold hands, make thoughtful intimacy a priority

– Receiving Gifts
They make a point of giving you thoughtful gifts. They make small gestures that you notice matter a lot to them.

– Quality Time
They plan times to spend together, big and small, from taking walks or weekends away.

– Acts of Service
They do chores for you and make a point of trying to alleviate your workload. They make your meals.

You will find your perspective shifting immensely toward greater and deeper love when you are able to train yourself to see love coming your way in other love languages. It really is a whole new level of feeling loved by your significant people.

You may be asking yourself “but will I ever receive love expressed in MY love language”? Yes, there are also things you can do to draw love to you in your love language. Read on…

Just as you trained yourself to begin to notice when your significant people show you love in their love language, you can train yourself to spot love coming your way in your own love language. Here’s what you do: When you do see it, even in the briefest way, make a big deal of it! Express how much it makes your day, how deeply loved you feel! I’ll bet you’ll start to see it happen more often. It’s a double whammy of love!

As a certified women's empowerment coach, I have changed the outcome for countless motivated, dynamic women in empowering them to get out of their own way and conquer life's hurdles relating to relationships and personal development.

If you are more than ready to get out of your own way and make things happen, let’s start where you are and change the ending!

Click the link below to schedule a short free clarity call with me. I will help you to see a clear path forward and stop feeling overwhelmed and get ready to take your life back!

Vision Power Coaching Discovery Call 2020

about

Kimberlee Edwards

Kim is a certified Women's Empowerment Coach. She founded Vision PowerCoaching because, while working her corporate job, she discovered that the extra chair in her office cubicle was often filled with someone who needed to talk about their life. She loved listening to them and found that she often had an intuition about how to help them.

She is passionate about guiding women through some of life's toughest challenges, relating to divorce, health and family. She helps them to stop feeling overwhelmed with negativity and create a plan to find their personal power, strength and confidence in painful and difficult situations.

Kim teaches women to feel empowered and to come out on the other side of their challenge with gratitude and clarity!

What influences us to make decisions? For a lot of us, the feeling of fear can be a
strong motivating factor. Fears can rule our lives if we let them. All of our decisions can
be made in trying to avoid the things and feelings we fear. We can find ourselves
operating from a fear-based mindset without even knowing it.

Here are some clues to help us understand when we are allowing fear to run our life:

•  We have a long list of things we “can’t do”. We have had this list for years. These
  are things we “can’t do” because we have fears surrounding them. It could be an
  irrational fear such as “I can’t dance or sing in public for fear of being
  embarrassed” What is on your “can’t do” list?
• When we think of doing something new, we spend a lot of time imagining what
  could go wrong. We get a feeling of satisfaction when we convince ourselves that
  the new thing just isn’t safe, or practical to do. When we see someone close to
  us doing something new, we jump right away to warn them of all the pitfalls. We
  feel a sense of being protective in letting them know what could go wrong. Do
  you find yourself having that “protective” instinct?
• We have been putting off dreams and goals that we feel very passionately about
  for “practical reasons”. We talk ourselves out of dreams and goals because we
  keep coming up with “good reasons” to not follow through with them. We let our
  minds work overtime in thinking of negative roadblocks. What negative
  roadblocks have you put in the way of your dreams?
• We have cultivated a long list of practical reasons why we shouldn’t do new or
  unusual things. This can become somewhat of a systemic response to all new
  things or ideas. It can become a routine way of thinking. It can become a cultural
  response if we are not careful. Do you find yourself having this type of knee jerk
  reaction to new things?

What are some of the things that we hold ourselves back from? Starting a business that
you are passionate about. Quitting a job that you hate or doesn’t serve us anymore.
Leaving a relationship that is detrimental to us, whether romantic or platonic. Entering
into a new relationship. Going back to school. Writing a book. Buying or selling a house.
Contemplating retirement. Starting a family.

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What excuses do we tell ourselves? The business could fail. I won’t be able to find
another job. If I leave the relationship, I will be alone for the rest of my life. A new
relationship could just fail again. Going back to school could be too hard or too
expensive or I might not use the degree anyway. People could make fun of what I write
about. I may choose the wrong house and have regrets. If I retire I may not have
enough money or my health may fail. If I start a family I may miss my freedom. You see,
the excuses we can tell ourselves go on and on.

So, how do we break this cycle of letting fears hold us back from what we are
passionate about? Here are some tips:

• Recognize – Practice recognizing the excuses we make to ourselves as
  fear-based: “It’s not practical. It’s not smart, It’s not the right time. I could get my
  heart broken. I could be taken advantage of. I’ve seen other people fail at it.”
  Each time you find yourself thinking “safe, practical, and smart,” ask yourself is
  this warranted, or am I feeding into my own fears?
• Replace – Practice replacing your fear-based excuse with positive outcome
  thoughts such as, “I can overcome any obstacles that come up because I have
  perseverance. Timing is never perfect. I have the passion to make this happen,
  Other people’s situations are not mine. I can only fail if I give up and I will not
  give up. I deserve to be happy!”
• Reclaim the outcome – Practice visualizing the positive outcomes: “I will be wildly
  successful, I will meet some amazing people who will enrich my life. I will have
  some fantastic experiences. I will be happier and more fulfilled than I ever have
  been!”

Keeping your mind free of fear-based thinking is all about mindset. It takes revamping
your habitual negative thinking to become a possibility thinker. Set out to work on
freeing yourself from this negative thinking by using the three R principles on a daily
basis. Practice recognizing your fear-based thoughts as they pop into your mind and
replacing them with new positive outcome thoughts and then reclaiming the outcome
with visualizing the new outcome in new and exciting possibilities. Practice seeing the
possibilities instead of the pitfalls.

One of my favorite quotes about overcoming fears:

“What if I fall? Oh but darling, what if you fly?”

about

Kimberlee Edwards

Kim is a certified Women's Empowerment Coach. She founded Vision PowerCoaching because, while working her corporate job, she discovered that the extra chair in her office cubicle was often filled with someone who needed to talk about their life. She loved listening to them and found that she often had an intuition about how to help them.

She is passionate about guiding women through some of life's toughest challenges, relating to divorce, health and family. She helps them to stop feeling overwhelmed with negativity and create a plan to find their personal power, strength and confidence in painful and difficult situations.

Kim teaches women to feel empowered and to come out on the other side of their challenge with gratitude and clarity!

Words have power; they direct our actions and our life. The self-talk we use formulates ideas and beliefs that are in harmony with the words we are using. Beliefs have an impact on the actions we take. When we use negative self-talk, it not only affects who we are on the inside but it can affect our whole world. It is extremely important to move forward using positive self-talk. 

As women, it is important for us to change our inner critical voice regarding who we are and what we can do. This can shift our life in a more positive direction. Changing our internal dialog can literally change our life. We must use empowering words that will help us succeed. Negative self-talk will push against what we want to achieve in our life. By changing the way we speak to ourselves we can change the way we think, feel, and achieve. This also will have a huge impact on what we attract to our life.  

It is important that we not speak against what we want to see happen in our life. We must utter loving words to ourselves. When we do, we are empowered from within. At times, we may not be surrounded by people who will speak positive things to us, but we always have the opportunity and power to speak positively to ourselves. When we use our loving voice we are simply fostering positive energy instead of negative energy. 

Many women, unfortunately, do not foster positive energy towards themselves and end up simply making themselves feel worse. Try this, think of all the positive loving words you can say to yourself. “You are beautiful, smart, unique, kind, diligent, loving, and funny”. You will find by uttering these empowering words to yourself every day, you will feel victorious, more often than not.

It is very important to encourage yourself to use positive self-talk whenever you can. A simple way to do this is to consciously swap out an optimistic phrase when notice yourself using negative self-talk. Use words that begin with “I am”, “I can”, and “I will.” Instead of using words like “I am not”, “I can’t” and “I never will.” As you can see there is a big difference in using negative self-talk versus positive self-talk. Positive self-talk will help to release your inner power and full potential, and negative self-talk will keep you stuck. 

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When you use positive self-talk you help to paint a positive picture of yourself, your life, and your future. This can help to bring you closer to the things you want to achieve in your life, and it can also make you feel optimistic and hopeful while you are working towards your goals and dreams. You should only be using self-talk that will help you be the best that you can be, launch you into your destiny, encourage your ambitions, uplift your self-esteem, and strengthen your sense of self.

Many times we have enough people speaking negatively to us, that we don’t need to do it ourselves. Often we will get very angry or upset when someone else speaks negative things to us, but we will do it to ourselves without thinking twice. Negativity should never be tolerated regardless of where it is coming from.

As women, we must say things that give our dreams life, not kill them. We should only say things that are going to help us step into the greatness of who we were created to be. Using positive self-talk can be a very empowering thing and it can help to unleash a level of confidence that nobody can tear down. When a woman feels good about herself she may be able to achieve greater things than she has ever imagined.

When you realize that negative self-talk does not support you being the best that you can be, you can then work to develop a plan to replace any negative self-talk with positive talk. This can result in an improvement in your life both inside and out.

I encourage you to consciously think about how you speak to yourself and to pay attention to any words that will work against what you want to achieve in your life. Problems, challenges, and struggles will happen, but  I encourage you to stay positive until you see positive results.

As a certified Women’s Empowerment Coach this is exactly what I help women become aware of. I help them recognize their negative self-talk and eradicate it and replace it with empowering thoughts and words. Many women have been speaking negatively to themselves for so long that they may not even recognize that it is negative self-talk. As a supportive person in your life, I bring it to your attention so it does not continue and hinder you from moving forward to an empowered, productive life.

There is so much power in loving self-talk. If this is something you struggle with, I can help. I invite you to click the link below to jump on a free call with me. Let’s talk about the life you’ve been longing to live! visionpowercoaching/discovery-call

I would also like to invite you to take a look at my inspiring and uplifting women’s community on Facebook. Click the link, see you there! The Secrets to Navigating Life’s Challenges

about

Kimberlee Edwards

Kim is a certified Women's Empowerment Coach. She founded Vision PowerCoaching because, while working her corporate job, she discovered that the extra chair in her office cubicle was often filled with someone who needed to talk about their life. She loved listening to them and found that she often had an intuition about how to help them.

She is passionate about guiding women through some of life's toughest challenges, relating to divorce, health and family. She helps them to stop feeling overwhelmed with negativity and create a plan to find their personal power, strength and confidence in painful and difficult situations.

Kim teaches women to feel empowered and to come out on the other side of their challenge with gratitude and clarity!

Sometimes in life, without realizing it, we fall into the trap of thinking we have no options, no choices in a situation. We feel like something has happened to us and we have no power over it. We feel that we are a victim of its circumstances. We believe that we have no choice but to be negatively affected by it. We are convinced that we are doomed to let it overpower us forever.  

Yes, there are times when unexpected, horrendous things do happen to us. It may have truly been through no fault of our own. We could not have seen it coming. We did not do anything to cause it. It may have happened to us as a child, or we were in a circumstance, at the time that we could not remove ourselves from. Tragically, most women have found themselves in these situations. Traumatic events can take a lifetime to overcome. Operating from a place of choices, options, and power can help us heal more thoroughly.

How we choose to react to a situation is the most powerful tool we have. The outcome can be completely different if we choose to react with our power in mind. Notice I said choose. This is where we may again fall into the trap of thinking we have no choice about how we react to a horrendous situation. Even if we reacted negatively, to begin with, we have the option of adjusting our reaction and thinking positively and powerfully, once we realize we are holding ourselves back.

It is so important to know that we have personal power in any situation. Sometimes it takes searching for that power and enlisting the help of someone else to help us find it. Having no power at the time of the incident doesn’t mean that we have no choice about how we handle the outcome later. It doesn’t mean that we have no choice about how to react to it when we realize it doesn’t have to overpower us forever. It doesn’t mean that we have no way to find our power to move forward and to heal.

At times, it may seem like the options we have are slim or that we have to choose between the lesser of two evils, or that all the options we have stink. Yes, sometimes all the options seem not worth choosing and that can make us feel stuck and powerless. Often, we are just too close to the situation and it takes someone else to help us think outside of the box and see clearly. Having someone who can help us think of all the options is gold! In the end, after weighing all the options, it is our choice, and there is huge personal power in that!

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So, how do we know if we are stuck in this mode of not seeing our choices? It’s tricky because sometimes we have been operating this way our entire life and we are not aware of it. This kind of thinking can be generational. Something passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter, without knowing it. It can be very difficult to identify if this has been the case. 

Here are a few questions we can ask ourselves to “check-in” and see if we are stuck in no-option mode:

• Am I still blaming someone for a circumstance long after that situation has long passed? Am I describing the situation in a way that says I still blame someone for it? This can be difficult if a situation was caused by someone else and was not our fault. However, we should eventually be able to gain perspective and describe the situation differently, if we are open to our options for healing and recovering.
• Am I convinced that bad things just always happen to me? Am I expecting bad things to keep happening to me? This perspective can become debilitating because our thoughts are truly powerful. This is a tough perspective that takes some work to overcome and usually takes someone else to help us see it.
• Am I taking things personally all the time, considering people’s words and actions as a personal affront to me? Even taking people’s reactions as a personal attack on me? It is so important to learn that the way people react says everything about them and nothing about us.

I have touched on just a few aspects of no-options thinking. It is a deep topic and can take some real work to overcome. Getting help is key. As a certified women’s empowerment coach, I have the tools to help you overcome no-option thinking. Reach out to me at the link below to schedule a call with me. Let’s talk to see if we are a good fit for working together to banish this thinking for good and help you find your power! Vision Power Coaching Discovery Call.

about

Kimberlee Edwards

Kim is a certified Women's Empowerment Coach. She founded Vision PowerCoaching because, while working her corporate job, she discovered that the extra chair in her office cubicle was often filled with someone who needed to talk about their life. She loved listening to them and found that she often had an intuition about how to help them.

She is passionate about guiding women through some of life's toughest challenges, relating to divorce, health and family. She helps them to stop feeling overwhelmed with negativity and create a plan to find their personal power, strength and confidence in painful and difficult situations.

Kim teaches women to feel empowered and to come out on the other side of their challenge with gratitude and clarity!

What Does Empowerment Look Like?

Empowerment looks different for every woman. It can be something that we are seemingly born with and have in abundance in our youth. Some of us were spunky, confident little girls who were on fire with courage, never questioning anything about   ourselves. We never had a thought about not being able to do anything we put our minds to. We took that empowerment with us as young women, jumping into college, careers, and relationships with gusto.

However, some of us were late bloomers. As girls, we were afraid of our own shadow and questioned everything. We watched other girls with awe of their ability to do whatever they desired and to know exactly what they wanted. We questioned our choices and waded slowly into life, questioning our majors, our chosen career, and struggling with relationships.

As young women, whether we had innate confidence or were building it, we had the freedom to put ourselves first, to feed our souls. We could invest in our self-development and spend time doing the things that empowered us, like education, art, writing, dance, fashion, sports, traveling, and a myriad of other pursuits that all helped us become our authentic selves.

Why Do We Disconnect From It?

Whether we were the girl born with power and confidence or the one who had to build it painstakingly over our lifetime, there are times that we find we have lost some of our courage, power, and gusto. Sometimes it’s just from getting older (let’s face it, our culture does nothing to empower the older woman) or relationships that have zapped our self-confidence or toxic work environments that have taken their toll. We get married, get absorbed in our careers, have
children, begin to care for aging parents. We find, without even meaning to, that we have made a lot of things a higher priority than nurturing our true, authentic soul!

It happens for a lot of reasons and it doesn’t happen all at once. After a while, we become disconnected from what used to feed our soul. Gradually letting go of what makes us feel empowered, we find that we no longer have the confidence and power we once had. Over time, life becomes more difficult and complicated because of it. We find we have trouble making decisions, and we become anxious about things that we used to be fearless about. We obsess about what other people might think about us. We find that we are in need of a good empowerment overhaul! Can you relate?

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How Do We Reconnect With Our Power?

How do we get it back? How do we get back the confidence and power and fearlessness? We get it back in very much the same way we found it originally, by spending time and focusing on being our true, authentic self. Nurturing our interests. Being true to ourselves. Standing up for ourselves. Taking the time to nurture our soul. That is where our power lies. It is in being our true, authentic, unique self. That is where our empowerment shines.

The components are unique to every woman and the transformation is different for every woman. We slowly start to reconnect with ourselves. We make deliberate decisions to spend time doing the things again that feed our soul. Sometimes that takes a long time just to remember what used to feed our soul. What we used to love to do that made us feel so alive and powerful, and finally, we start to put ourselves first again and be our happiest, most empowered self. Remember, it is only in taking care of ourselves, that we can best take care of others.

The Myth About Others Stealing Our Power

Empowerment is deep within us, whether we were born with an abundance or it grew in us over our lifetime, but here’s the deal, and this is the most important aspect of empowerment, no one can take it from us unless we let them. I know this is a tough one, but it is the truth, no one can take your power away without your permission. You have to give it to them.

So how do we let people steal our power? Usually, it happens slowly over many years. It may be a small act of disrespect that we let slip once and then over and over until it becomes commonplace and we don’t even see it as disrespect anymore. Or It may come in the form of always agreeing with people, even though we vehemently disagree, just to keep the peace. It seems simple but it comes with a huge price tag, our self-worth! These are just a couple ways that we don’t stay authentic and we give our power away. The transformation back to the confident, fearless, empowered you is what I work to help my clients uncover.

If this resonates with you and you are ready to get back to your true, authentic self, reach out to
me, I have coaching programs Quick Start to Intensive.

Email me. Schedule a discovery call with me where we can talk about what that transformation looks like for you.

about

Kimberlee Edwards

Kim is a certified Women's Empowerment Coach. She founded Vision PowerCoaching because, while working her corporate job, she discovered that the extra chair in her office cubicle was often filled with someone who needed to talk about their life. She loved listening to them and found that she often had an intuition about how to help them.

She is passionate about guiding women through some of life's toughest challenges, relating to divorce, health and family. She helps them to stop feeling overwhelmed with negativity and create a plan to find their personal power, strength and confidence in painful and difficult situations.

Kim teaches women to feel empowered and to come out on the other side of their challenge with gratitude and clarity!