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Could these Success Blocks be holding you back?

The flawed foundation of success is a set of four hidden barriers based on fear and false belief.
The four success blocks all have something in common. Although they seem true and real they are based on beliefs about ourselves that are neither true nor real. The fact that we unconsciously take them as true and real is the barrier holding us back. We take them as true and real until we shine awareness on it. Then the barriers dissolve and we are free.


That moment is profound.
It feels wonderful.
You will remember it forever.
It’s the occasion of our ultimate liberation.

Although I have experienced that joyful moment and have witnessed it hundreds of times I am still deeply moved every time it occurs.

Could it be possible that you have at least one hidden block that is keeping you from being completely successful?
Let’s have a look….and please know you are not alone in this.
Even if you are already very successful you may have at least one block that holds you back. When you encounter the block your limitless potential problem is triggered. The form it takes depends on which false beliefs and fears you have picked up on early in your life.

Let’s see which ones may resonate with your experience.


Four fears and four related false beliefs hold the limitless potential problem in place. The fears are based on specific long ago situations you’ll probably recognize when I show them to you. The beliefs based on those fears are false and cause you to have a misunderstanding of who you actually are. These fears and false beliefs cause us to live our lives out of a success-limiting mantra that says something like this, “ I can not be successful, because….”, or in a relationship it could look like this, “ I can not get real love, because…”. In financial wealth your limiting outlook could be, “ I can not be wealthy, because…”
When you remove those limiting beliefs you feel a new freedom to invent a life based on your natural genius.

I now want to describe these limiting beliefs with the intention of assisting you in dissolving and dismantling them.

Hidden block #1. Feeling fundamentally flawed.


If you have a deep feeling that there is something bad, wrong, or broken about you, you will find yourself battling with that issue every time you break through to greater love or financial abundance. When you surpass your limitless potential thermostat setting a little voice admonishes you from deep within your mind. It says, “you shouldn’t be this happy, rich or creative, because you are fundamentally broken.” This thought creates cognitive dissonance, the mind rattle that occurs when you try to hold two opposing thoughts at the same time. Given that I am fundamentally bad, how can I possibly be this rich or happy? The cognitive dissonance must be dissolved in one of two ways. By returning to your previous thermostat setting or by letting go of the old limiting belief which allows you to stabilize at the new higher level. The best way is to shine the light of awareness on the thought that you are fundamentally flawed and label it as what it is, a success block.
It’s like a false code in your programming that causes you to slow down in your operating efficiency. It is a block because it blocks your success when you go to higher levels of love, abundance, health or creativity. It keeps pulling you back down to your previous level.

The other way to stop the cognitive dissonance is to pull back from your success and not challenge the false belief. This move brings you back down into a zone you are familiar with. The block wins and you lose.

Story about Kim. For as long as she can remember Kim’s dad had always looked at Kim with disdain. She couldn’t understand why and tried her whole life to change her dad’s attitude toward her. She wanted his approval so badly, but no matter what she did, the hurtful looks and painful feelings persisted. She thought there was something fundamentally wrong with her, otherwise he would love her.
What my client didn’t know is that she reminded her father of his ex-wife, Kim’s mother. The parents went through a bitter divorce when Kim was just an infant and the father could never forgive what Kim’s mother had done to him. Only later on she discovered that the misplaced looks of hate had nothing to do with her, but all to do with Kim’s mother. Kim had no idea of knowing that the negative emotions were directed primarily at her mom. She had no idea of knowing that she was completely innocent of the crime of which she had been convicted.

Hidden block #2: Disloyalty and Abandonment


This false belief may sound like this, “I can not expand to my full potential because it would cause me to end up all alone, be disloyal to my roots, and leave people behind.
2 questions if you have this barrier:
Did I break the family’s spoken or unspoken rules to get to where I am?
Even though I am successful, did I fail to meet the expectations my parents had of me?
If you answered yes to either of these questions you are likely to feel guilty later in life as you expand into more and more success. You might believe at a deep and unconscious level that celebrating your own success on your own terms has come at the cost of leaving behind your roots and leaving behind those who love you. The guilt you feel causes you to put on the brakes and holds you back from your success. It also keeps you from enjoying the success you already have. You experience celebrations of success with bouts of self punishment.
A great example of this is of people who go into a career that their parents expect them to be in but is against their liking. They are miserable every day of their life and therefore causing a lot of up and down success. However, the minute they are ready to face their parents and tell them how they really feel about their career and change course is when success comes more effortlessly and life becomes joyful.

Hidden block #3: More success brings a bigger burden


An old belief that you are a burden can hold you back from expanding to your full capacity of success and enjoyment. If this belief has a grip on you, it may sound like this, “I shouldn’t earn more money, because it might create more problems which will cause a bigger burden.”
At the moment of your conception you have received mixed messages, that you are both a burden and a celebration. Your parents may have considered you a burden, because you were unexpected and they were not prepared for the financial stretch, but your grandparents were overwhelmed with delight, because they couldn’t wait to have a grandchild.
If this applies to you, it will cause you to repeat this pattern often in your adult life. You might experience a big positive breakthrough in your career and immediately start feeling you are a burden on the world. The world picks up on that and presents immediate proof that you are indeed a burden.
What is fascinating about this success block is that we are convincing ourselves of being a burden, even though we are innocent of the original imagined crime, because we all know that we are all worthy to be alive for the simple fact that we were born. Most of the guilt we feel is for crimes we have not committed. The minute we can remove the guilt that our parents and siblings have convicted us of we are liberated from the main issues that triggered this success block.

Hidden block #4: The crime of outshining


“I must not expand to my full success because if I did I would outshine him/her and make him/her look or feel bad.”
This success block is very common among gifted and talented children. They get a lot of their parents’ attention, but they often also get a strong subliminal message along with it, which is, don’t shine too much or you make the others feel bad or look bad. The gifted child is often convicted of stealing attention from other members of the family. One conscious solution these children devise is that they turn down their light, so that the others dont feel threatened by it. How often have we been told as a child to be humble, or children are seen and not heard.
The alternate solution is to continue to shine brightly but turn down their volume of enjoyment of it. If they can appear to be suffering they can get empathy and sympathy from others instead of jealousy.
People who experience this success block will often sabotage their big triumphs and wins by either getting sick, causing trouble, or other negative manifestations.

Reframing – How to set yourself up for Success

Do you ever find yourself dreading something because you just know how it’s going to turn out? And then, sure enough, you do the thing and it is almost as bad as you think it will be, or worse.
It is natural for us to plan emotionally for something, and sometimes that looks like starting with the negative. For example, you might say to yourself “Ugh! I have to go to work and it’s going to be so busy and I’m never going to get anything done.” 

These statements set the tone, and create a template for our subconscious minds to work from. Almost like a to-do list, everything you do from that point forward will be experienced through the filter of how you decided it will be. Minor inconveniences are more taxing, you may be less tolerant, more tired, more grumpy.

Our minds are goal-oriented, and we will always find what we go looking for. Managing our experiences can start with managing how you think of them, and it can be as easy as changing your focus.

If you are already deciding that something is going to be unpleasant, you can respond to your self-talk with positive reframing using hypnotic language tools that are more effective and don’t feel like you are just trying to fool yourself. 

First of all, we never deny reality. But we can be more choosy about which reality we focus on.

For example, you may be tired and telling yourself that today is going to be long and difficult because you feel tired. That is one potential outcome, and if you go on with that expectation, you are likely to have that experience.

Alternately, you can shift your focus to what is positive about the day. Maybe the sun is out, or you are looking forward to seeing someone at work. Perhaps the coffee or tea tastes extra good this morning. And you may simply realize that you do not have the ability to see into the future.

When you are focusing on negatives, begin actively looking for a few things that are positive. This will bring your focus away from those negatives and change the direction of your whole day.

What Went Well? Why?

Another powerful reframing tool is to ask yourself what went well in a situation, and why it went well. This will help you to recognize the positive impacts of an experience, boosting your confidence and self-esteem. From that place of confidence it is easier to keep things in perspective.

You can also use this technique before something happens. Ask yourself What is going to go well, and why? Yes, you are still speculating, but by focusing on the positive you aren’t setting yourself up for failure.

You have the ability to define your experiences using simple hypnotic strategies. Use these for yourself and notice what changes in your life!

Overwhelm is real

OVERWHELM is real!I see too many of my clients guilty of this when I first meet them.

They say yes to everything during periods when they have so much energy and so much excitement for what they’re doing. Then, as the tasks build up and they’re juggling work and all of their side projects, their kids, home and family commitments, anxiety sets in as they worry they’re going to drop the ball on something.

Exhaustion follows quickly behind.

Everything starts to feel like too much.

We need to get better at saying NO. There is nothing wrong with saying no, you won’t be judged for it.

Some excellent coping strategies:

🔷“Don’t set yourself on fire to keep others warm” – be true to yourself and recognize you have intrinsic value separate to your service to others.

🔷 If you are in a position to do so, delegate. You don’t have to be the person to do it all. Delegation can look different than you think it does – if you have writing assignments, consider ghost writers. If you have a hectic schedule, consider hiring a virtual assistant (yes, really). Get somebody to help you with mundane household chores.

🔷 Commit to good habits. That means setting an alarm and forcing yourself to take a break or work out, even for just ten minutes in your day.

🔷 Build in some slack to your schedule. Add 15 minutes to the time you estimate a task will take. Block out a part of your day so it can’t be filled.

🔷 When you say no, don’t apologize for it – own it. ( You get better the more you do it.)

🔷 When overwhelm hits, tell someone. Let them in so that you don’t feel like you’re dealing with everything on your own.

Recognize this is a journey and you won’t solve it all at once.Be kind to yourself along that journey.

The Power of your Thoughts

When you understand the power of your thought life, you truly begin to get a glimpse of how important it is to take responsibility for what you are thinking. Thinking is a powerful creative force, both a blessing and a curse, and should not be taken lightly.

~Dr. Caroline Leaf