If you’ve been following me for a while, you know that I’m obsessed with Denise Duffield-Thomas and her book “Get Rich, Lucky Bitch.” Denise is a money mindset coach, author, and podcaster (and probably a million other things, I don’t know, she’s always doing SOMETHING amazing). She has taught me a lot, so I thought I would share one of my favorite quotes from her:
“You have to decide NOW that you are enough. You are smart enough, pretty enough, clever enough, ready enough. You can be richer starting today, if you’re brave enough to define exactly what you want.”
– Denise Duffield-Thomas
There’s so much juicy deliciousness in this one statement. I struggle with feeling enough almost every single day. I often feel like I haven’t done enough, that I don’t know enough to be teaching others, that I’m not attractive enough to be confident, that I’m not kind or giving enough to be considered a good person, that I’m not lucky or special enough to be successful.
Even though I know mentally that these things aren’t true, we all have these deep-rooted beliefs that we don’t even know are there until those really dark moments when we’re lying awake at night wondering why in the world we thought we could handle running a business. All the doubts creep in and every negative thing we’ve ever felt about ourself swirls around our brain. We look for evidence – all the times we’ve failed, every time someone has said something unsupportive, every memory of our childhood when we felt lonely or dumb or fat. And we pile it all up until we are absolutely convinced that we are not worthy of achieving our dreams.
And we think that’s the real us.
But it’s not! Beliefs are just thoughts we keep thinking. It’s not as easy as just saying something positive that we don’t really feel, it’s about doing things and putting ourselves in situations and keeping a list of evidence that we ARE enough, that we’re MORE than enough. And it’s about reviewing that evidence over and over and over. My business coach assigned me an exercise to keep an album in my phone and a Google Doc on my Drive where at least once a week I add to and review all the things that make me special, things I’ve accomplished, special relationships I’ve had, things I’ve grown in my garden or baked from scratch for friends, testimonials from clients, website stats – whatever it is that’s given me a moment of pride throughout the week.
It’s a truly amazing exercise, and one of the most powerful things that has actually helped me switch my mindset so that when I’m thinking those positive thoughts or reciting those mantras, I actually believe them. And that’s what moves the needle.
What beliefs do you think are holding you back?