Had you met me a few years ago, you probably would have looked at me and thought “Yeah, Michael’s got it all together. He seems to be doing very well for himself”.

You would have been wrong. What I let the outside world see was a very different picture than what was going on behind the curtain.

I was the CEO of my own startup company, but I was bankrupt. I was barely able to pay myself anything and even had to go on unemployment when I couldn’t pay myself at all. My relationships, if you could call them that, were a shamble.  I was dating around and trying to find my perfect match, but was ultimately and repetitively wandering into dead-end alleys.

My passion for my company had waned, and it was difficult to get motivated enough to even leave my home. I seriously believe that were I not responsible for getting my son to school in the mornings, I would have become a total recluse. Online grocery shopping was even beginning to look like a solid option.

In a nutshell, I was floundering. I’d lost my purpose.

And the really sad part of this, at least to me, was that I had all of the tools at my disposal to turn my life around. I’d studied with some of the top people in the self-improvement industry. Tony Robbins – I’d read his books, devoured his tapes (do they even make those anymore?), and even attended a live event. David Deida – same thing. Gay and Katie Hendricks – been there, done that. And the list goes on.

So, what was happening here?!? I had the information at my fingertips. I knew everything that I needed to do. I knew WHAT to do. I knew HOW to do it. I certainly knew WHY I should do it.

But… I did nothing.

Until, I started to examine just that.  WHY was I doing nothing? WHAT was stopping me? WHERE did all of that training and knowledge go?

I got extremely curious about what was going on underneath these upper layers, the layers where I knew things. What was I missing? What DIDN’T I know?

As I looked more closely, one of the first things I realized was that I wasn’t alone. There were a ton of other people out there (just like me) that struggled with some form of self-sabotage or another. I call it that because, if you know what needs to be done and you know how to do it, but you DON’T; the only person stopping you is YOU.

I also realized that it could appear in many different forms: the inability to lose weight and keep it off, the inability to quit smoking, a lack of productivity in your job, a nasty habit of procrastination, getting into similarly bad relationships over and over again. And the list goes on.

However, once I removed the visible problem, the one happening on the surface, I was able to clearly see the underlying problem – the real culprit. It also became plainly evident that the problem was the SAME one for everyone, no matter how it manifested itself outwardly. The same insidious villain was lurking behind everyone’s curtain in one form or another.

That evil of all evils is a BELIEF SYSTEM. Not just any belief system, but the false one. Or even the false ONES.

Tell me this:

Do you have a relationship problem?  Do you always find yourself repeating the same bad relationship mistakes over and over again, where the only thing that seems to change is who you’re partnered with?

Are you overweight, and you’ve tried so many different ways to lose it that it seems you’ve become a bit of an expert on every fad diet out there?

Are you part of a sales team, and you find it hard to hit your quotas or ever win that bonus incentive you see your counterparts taking home year after year?

Are you such a procrastinator that no matter how many times you’ve made resolutions or even gotten help with your issue, you still put off the inevitable?

If I didn’t describe your issue in that little bit there, please fill in your own blank.  What is it that’s holding YOU back?

Now, we can sit here and look at these problems and think, “Wow! None of these has a single thing to do with any of the others.  Each problem is absolutely unique”.  I mean you can be the perfect weight, have a great relationship, and still be at the bottom of your sales team.  These problems, part of an ongoing list, all seem to be mutually exclusive.

Every last person has EXACTLY the same problem. It may not look like it on the surface, but the underlying issue is essentially the same for everyone. You included. The problem is with your core belief system.

These belief systems will be different. Sure. A person with relationship problems may have a belief system that says they are “unlovable”, while a person with the weight problem may have a belief system that says they are “all alone”.  If you always come in last in the selling world, you may have a belief system that says “you don’t deserve it”, while the procrastinator in you might play the belief system that says you are “lazy”.  All of these have a common thread in that they are all belief systems and they are all FALSE.

But a belief system is a belief system, nonetheless.  And breaking one down, no matter what it may be, can be accomplished by the same practices.

I’m not saying it is an easy task. Far from it! What I AM saying is that it is a noble task. A worthwhile task. And indeed, an absolutely necessary task for anyone that wants to take their life to the next level and live with limitless possibility.

Learn more about dismantling your belief systems in my upcoming blogs. Sign up for my email list or pre-order my eBook, The Art of Forgetting, due out in December.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1414037888605{margin-bottom: -1px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_facebook type=”standard”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_googleplus annotation=”inline”][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=”.vc_custom_1414037896570{margin-bottom: -1px !important;}”][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_tweetmeme type=”horizontal”][/vc_column][vc_column width=”1/2″][vc_pinterest][/vc_column][/vc_row]