My Financial Awareness - What Holds Us Back

Lesson 4g: What Holds Us Back

Objective: See how blame, beliefs and fear hold us back

In the next few sections, we will discuss three key factors (beliefs, blame, and fear) that hold us back from having what we really want. Beliefs, blame, and fear are based on what we've learned from past events. In particular, beliefs are what we think based on what we've learned from past events (e.g., whether we are smart or good-looking based on comments from others). Blame is based on past hurts, in particular, our perceiving that someone has hurt us in the past. Lastly, fear is created from past events (e.g., fear of financial planning because of past poor investments). In the next few sections, we will talk about each in more detail and how to overcome them. As a summary:

Factor	How It Impacts Us	How to Change It
Beliefs	As we discussed in an earlier section, beliefs impact how we see the world around us. When two different people with different sets of beliefs see the same situation, one can see it as an opportunity while the other can see it as a failure. Our happiness is dependent on how we interpret the events around us based on our beliefs.	A belief can be changed by being open minded (open to a new interpretation).
Blame	We keep ourselves from moving forward by blaming others. When we blame others, we stay in the past and do not see how we can change the situation in the present.	Forgiveness (letting go of the situation in order to move forward).
Fear	Fear creates barriers which limit the possibilities in our lives. We use fear to stop others from hurting us. Yet, to get what you want, you sometimes need to move towards the fear instead of blocking it.	Face the fear, do not let fear immobilize you. Put thoughts into action.

The key is to remember that life happens in the present and not in the past. We can use the past as a guide if it has served us well, or we can make changes in the present in order to avoid reliving the past.