Last month's article focused on the ways to tune into your inner voice, and to use its guidance to select and implement a vision that compelling to you. This month, we'll explore the obstacles to hearing your inner voice - and ways to overcome these roadblocks.

Any thought or belief that stops you from entertaining possibilities or multiple perspectives is limiting. These limitations pose internal barriers to allowing your vision to emerge. At one time or another, we all make up rules about what we are allowed to have or desire.

Since vision is based on knowing what you truly desire, it's helpful to examine the thoughts and beliefs that hold you back from what you want. Freeing yourself from internal barriers releases you to identify, build and actualize a vision based on your deepest desires and wildest dreams.

Here, how to approach two obstacles to listening to your inner voice.

1. Recognize your saboteur.

   Each of us has our very own special saboteur. The saboteur is the voice in your head that says, You are not good enough or Who do you think you are? or If you take this new job, everyone will find out what a fraud you are. The saboteur mistakenly believes that it is protecting you when it stops you from making changes or taking a risk. We hear the saboteur's voice any time we judge ourselves or assume that someone else is judging us. It's important to remember that you are not your saboteur.

   Benefits: Learn to distinguish between your voice and the saboteur's messages. Become aware of the saboteur's ability to drive your choices and decisions. When you do these two things it allows you to choose freely based on your intuition and your true desires.

   New Focus: Simply notice the negative voices playing in your head. Notice the times when they crop up. Recognize that the voices aren't you and they aren't true. Observe what they say without engaging in a conversation with them. When you learn to separate your inner voice from that of the saboteur, you begin to change your life.

2. Uncover your limiting beliefs.

   We each carry a set of beliefs that we live by. Certain beliefs you hold consciously, while others are mainly unconscious. Beliefs develop out of past experiences and our interpretations of those experiences. Growing up, we also develop beliefs when we internalize the messages we receive from social conditioning. Since many beliefs are based on past experiences, they may limit us in the present. For example, a pertinent belief at age ten will most likely be limiting to you at age thirty. Some of the conscious and unconscious beliefs that you develop limit your ability to grow and move forward in your life. For example: One of your goals as a successful entrepreneur is to make a certain income. You discover that you have a belief - a limiting one - that it's wrong to make a lot of money. Until you begin to alter your beliefs about money, it will be difficult for you to listen to your inner voice and its messages to you about financial abundance.

   Benefits: Learning to notice a limiting belief allows you to become conscious of it, and then change it. Releasing a belief that limits you puts you back in the driver's seat of your life. You, rather than an old belief, make the choices that are right for you and allow you to fulfill your potential.

   Ways to spot a limiting belief:

   1. You tell yourself that you only have one or two choices in a situation or "no choice" at all.

   2. Your saboteur expresses its opinion, generally based on a limiting belief.

   3. A decision may appear to be black and white to you, or an either/or situation.

   4. You have decided that "this is the way the world is."

   5. You make a decision based on fear.

   6. You feel constricted and notice that you lack clarity about a specific situation.

   New Focus: Look at some of your beliefs more closely. How does a particular belief allow you to attract what you really want in life? How does it prevent you from identifying your vision and attaining your goals? When you reach an obstacle in your path, make sure that it's not an old belief in your way.

Most of the obstacles we encounter are inside of us, based in fear or what someone else thinks we should do. Break some of your own rules. Go after what you want, and bring that bold, beautiful vision to life.

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Claudette Rowley, Coach and Author
Helps entrepreneurs harness their potential & soar to new heights Co-author ~ A Guide To Getting It: A Clear, Compelling Vision
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