Financial Freedom Fighting
Making friends with your Limiting beliefs!
Let us tell you a little secret… Pam and I are constantly
afraid! We are constantly thinking we can’t do that. We are constantly thinking
we aren’t good enough. We are constantly thinking we don’t know how….
We’ve recently been talking about limiting beliefs and how
they can prevent action towards your ultimate goal… Financial Freedom. When Pam
and I discuss people on this journey we often refer to them (and us) as
Financial Freedom Fighters. The fight
refers to the battle we have with our limiting beliefs. Like any fight this can
be draining and the counter-productive, however, it can also be channelled to
make you stronger and help you achieve.
Today we are going to tell you a little more about our fight
with limiting beliefs and how we cope with the inner thoughts that have
potential to hold us back. First a little reminder of the top ten beliefs that
can get in the way of taking action!
- I’m too old
- I’m not smart enough
- I’m not educated enough
- I’m afraid of trying and failing
- You need money to make money
- I've already tried everything
- It's selfish of me to want more
- I don’t feel that I really deserve it
- I don't have the willpower
- All the good ones are taken
Pam and I started our Fight for Financial Freedom in 2013.
Pam was a stay at home mum with four almost grown-up kids and I was struggling
with debt and trying to keep my interior design business afloat since the Credit
Crunch. We both felt we were under achieving and we both had a desire to change
our situation. A passion or property seemed to hold the answers ….. however, this notion brought with it our first
limiting belief… ‘I’m not educated enough’.
This one was actually true! We had rightly identified that
neither of us knew enough about property investing to do it well. We didn’t let
that stop us though, instead we found an expert. Our expert is Gill Fielding
and luckily for us we both saw her speaking about property and discovered she
had a course. Thankfully we listened to the ‘I’m not educated enough’ message
in our heads and independently we signed up. This one decision changed our
lives in so many positive ways but there was still the rocky road of limiting
beliefs to travel.
The first huge benefit was that Pam and I met whilst doing
this course and became firm friends and property pals.
When we started out we both experienced huge trepidation.
The risks felt huge and we were suddenly dealing with an avalanche of limiting
beliefs! We were afraid of failing and thought you needed loads of money to get
into property. In particular I was scared of the maths and Pam was worried that
she wasn’t creative enough. Our confidence was also low in general; Pam had
been a stay at home mum for 20 years so she was feeling very rusty about re-joining
a work environment and my business and income had taken a hammering due to the
credit crunch, so I was dealing with feelings of failure. In addition, we had
both spent a chunk of money to do the course and were pressurising ourselves.
Panic was building and our will power was being tested.
For a while Pam and I were aware of each other but we didn’t
start working together for about 18 months. By this time, we thought we had
tried everything to get going and were getting frustrated that nothing seemed
to be happening, thoughts of failure were definitely beginning to ring true.
Then, one day Pam invited me to look at a property … she
said, ‘I need your brain Tania’… erm I’d never heard that before, nobody had
ever needed my cushion-stuffed, dyslexic brain! Anyway, I met up with her and
we had a fabulous time viewing a house, she talked about the numbers and I talked
about layout and décor. On my drive home I thought, ‘Wow, that was my best half
hour in property ever!’ We had both been taught about the concept of Joint
Venturing on our property course. When I got home I made a cup of tea (we are
in the UK after all) I pondered over the idea of asking Pam if she’d be
interested in JV’ing with me?... enter another avalanche of limiting beliefs,
just take your pick, my mind went into over drive…
Do you see a pattern here? Every time you do something new
there will be a limiting belief that
will try and pull you back! Luckily, I mentioned my thoughts to my husband and
with ease he told me to ask her… isn’t it funny how someone outside of our
internal dialogue, who can’t feel the physical tug of the limiting belief, can
help us be brave and take a leap of faith? The next second I was texting Pam,
‘I’m just wondering, would you like to JV with me?’ … moments later she texted
back ‘YES!’ and so our partnership begun.
From that day on we have been working together and can’t
quite believe what we have managed to create along the way. Very quickly we had
bought our first investment property together, working with other people we
gathered our know-how and their money to make it happen. Within 18 months we
had a £1.25million property portfolio and had started public speaking and created
a property networking group.
The limiting beliefs hounded us along the way. Of course
they did, we were doing something new! Thankfully, when one of us is down the
other is up and we battle through them together and with the help of our
families and friends. Talking of friends, the limiting beliefs are also
becoming our friends. You know the type, the ones that turn up uninvited and
give you hard to hear advice? Now, when we feel the tug of a limiting belief we
stop, listen for a while and then work out how we can prove it wrong!
We firmly believe you can take on your limiting beliefs,
challenge them and re-write the internal dialogue which is holding you back.
Making friends with your limiting beliefs can also help you find the solutions
to your problems and drive you forward to a new and brighter future.
Go get’em Financial Freedom Fighters!
Lots of love and support,
Tania & Pam
