Over the years of working with thousands of individuals, I've noticed there are a few primary beliefs, more prominent than others, which create the most havoc and often set people up to settle for less than they deserve or are capable of.

One way to understand how your belief system impacts you is to imagine yourself as a fruit tree. The roots of the tree represent your belief system. The trunk represents your thoughts. The branches of the tree are your emotions and the fruit represents your behaviors, actions, outcomes and results.

While the fruit, branches, and trunk of a tree are visible and obvious, the roots are hidden beneath the ground. Likewise, your behaviors, thoughts and feelings, might be apparent, while your belief system is concealed deep within you. And yet it is within your subterranean belief system where all results and outcomes - and lack thereof - begin.

The Roots of the Fruit

In order to produce healthy "fruits" in your life you must have healthy roots. Likewise, you must also identify any unhealthy and dysfunctional "roots". Think of this as digging out a bad root of a tree. It often takes a considerable amount of time and effort, and you may have to go through some "dirt" to get there. There are also times when this happens very quickly and spontaneously, effortlessly, due to a new perspective, or a sudden epiphany, which illuminates a previously hidden area (or root), so you immediately may see and change it.

However long this process takes, once you've eliminated the bad roots (faulty belief), you must then replace them with empowering beliefs!

Doing so will enable you to produce the healthiest fruit, and get the best results in your life.

Chances are these old self-limiting beliefs have been around for quite sometime, and you've, consciously and unconsciously, been reinforcing them over the years. Therefore, it's quite likely they may want to stick around.

Even though they're self-defeating, you may be used to having them around, and, weird as it may sound, you've probably become comfortable with them. So, you'll want to commit to a very conscious and consistent process of installing and instilling new empowering beliefs.

You'll never have prosperity with a funky, self-defeating belief system!

The Top Four Faulty Beliefs:

#1: The Big Performance

The first belief is centered on performing or how well you're doing. The underlying message is, "I'm not doing well enough", or worse yet, "I'm a failure". If you feel like everything you do isn't quite "good enough" or if you forbid yourself to feel good about yourself unless you are performing perfectly (which we all know is not possible), then you may have fallen prey to this belief.

#2: The Acceptance Act

Another common area of belief dysfunction is acceptance. The message is "they don't like me" or "they're going to leave me". If you're haunted by the idea that you must get other people to accept you, like you, or approve of you, then you may be under the spell of this belief. This is commonly referred to as the co-dependent belief. If you find yourself constantly people-pleasing, caretaking others, and/or rescuing them, there's a strong possibility you might be falling prey to this belief.

#3: The "I Can't Change"

The third primary belief that can undermine you is the belief about change. This belief will try to convince you that you can't change - that this is the way you've always been, or that you'll never be able to handle it (whatever "it" is...success, relationships, health, promotion, etc.). If you believe you're not able to change and who you are today is who you've always been, and who you'll always be, and you'll never be able to be any different, then this belief has you in its grasp.

#4: The Success Paradox

Believe it or not, many people, as counter-intuitive as it seems, struggle with the belief that they'll never be able to become successful. This belief sends messages such as, you'll just fail, so why try, or you can't handle that. The people afflicted by this belief feel like they won't be able to handle it - whatever "it" is. Then, they ask themselves, "Why go through all the heartache?", and they often quickly give up or don't even try to be more successful. The bottom line: These people just don't believe they deserve success.

Commit daily to work diligently on overcoming any of these beliefs you've identified as holding you back from your life of passion, power, purpose and prosperity.

Give yourself permission to be the true you.