Bottom Line Up Front: The beliefs running your life—both personal and professional—aren't necessarily yours. They're inherited programming from family, mentors, and early experiences that may be limiting your potential in all areas. Leaders who audit and upgrade their belief systems gain access to breakthrough thinking and authentic success while those operating on inherited beliefs remain trapped in limitation patterns that affect everything from relationships to strategic decisions.

We all have beliefs. We believe we're attractive, strong, healthy, successful, intelligent, aging well, corny, superior…. or not. Our beliefs about ourselves are nearly endless.

Yet here's the thing about beliefs. Many of your beliefs are not really yours.

Say what? That's right. Our beliefs were programmed into us by instincts, by others and by life experiences. Which is why we need to weed through what's really true for us, and what's not even helpful. Then discard everything that doesn't serve us.

Programmed Beliefs

From the day we're born, we are programmed. Our mind is designed to learn, to be programmed, in so many diverse ways.

Others program a majority of our fundamental beliefs. Before we are 7 years old, we believe everything that is said and that we experience is true. During these years, we form the foundation of our beliefs for life.

You see, we don't have what's known as a "critical faculty," so we can't tell for ourselves what's true and what's not. Darned near everything we are told, or that we experience, is taken as truth and we create a belief. Others have such deep influence on who we are and what we believe we can and can't do or be.

Our parents and siblings program our beliefs about family, life, food, playtime, what we should love, what we should hate…. Your father failed at his dream of being an Olympic marathoner so, even though you're a better runner, you believe you can't do it either. You don't even try.

Our teachers and peers program our beliefs about the world, right and wrong, behaviors and perceptions. Your third grade teacher who you adored drilled into your head that good little girls always do exactly as they are told, and only as they are told. So you always try to please, keep your opinions and ideas to yourself. You basically stop thinking for yourself.

Business Extension: This same programming happens in our professional lives. Early bosses, mentors, and industry culture program beliefs about what's possible in business, leadership, and strategic thinking. During my 30+ years of strategic consulting, I've seen how inherited business beliefs can limit breakthrough thinking just as much as personal inherited beliefs limit life possibilities.

The television we watched, the computer and phone we use, books we read, games we played and virtually everything we experienced as children imprints on our beliefs. Have you ever wondered why you automatically choose a brand of dish soap, cleaning supplies, motor oil or other products? Ask yourself, did your parents use those brands?

These foundational beliefs create personal mindware programs, or apps, that guide us to select our reality. Together, they form a cycle of self-fulfilling prophecies that may or may not represent the truth, or our full potential.

A Personal Example

I was brought up in a small and very conservative midwestern town. Things like telling the truth and keeping commitments no matter what were ingrained in me from the moment I was born.

I was an extremely bright child in a very small town. Plus my folks were in their 40s when I was born as an only child, so they had a bit more than some other parents. My beloved mother didn't want a spoiled brat only child on her hands. So, my mom taught me a well meaning and very simple truth.

God gave me more than my fair share of talent and gifts. That meant I had to give back to others constantly so that God would continue to love me.

Fast forward to me at fifty five years old. I looked around my life and realized I wasn't really living my life. I was living the life I had to live as I cared for other folks in my life whom I'd collected along the way. Folks who I was giving, giving and giving to as part of what I believed was a normal life.

I didn't have any boundaries about what I really wanted – beyond my horses and dogs. Most of my personal life was driven by that simple belief my Mom programmed into my mind. I didn't even know it.

Business Impact: This same inherited belief affected my business relationships. I gave away strategic advice for free, overdelivered on consulting contracts, and attracted clients who wanted to use my expertise without fair compensation. I was applying the same "give constantly to be worthy" programming in professional contexts, which nearly destroyed my business sustainability.

I gave to conmen, users, frauds, people who only wanted to use me for the moment, old friends who disappeared, new friends who disappeared. I gave to the whole darned world. Whoever was in need, I gave and gave and gave. I didn't think about the impacts on me.

I saved lives. I brought a dear friend into my home with a death sentence and cared for him for three years until he rose from the dead. He's a walking miracle, yet I still wondered subconsciously if God loved me.

One of the best mindshifts I've personally experienced was the day I recognized that twisted belief and released it.

Yes, it's good to give to others. I believe that. But not at the expense of my own truth and well being. I realize now that I've sublimated my dreams and desires to care for the seemingly endless stream of broken winged birds, and cons, that appeared in my life.

When I upgraded that childhood mindware program – the broken winged birds stopped showing up in my life. The birds whom I was taking care of suddenly decided to spread their own wings too. It was magic.

Professional Transformation: The same shift happened in business. When I upgraded my "give constantly to be worthy" programming, exploitative clients disappeared and high-value strategic partnerships appeared. Clients who respected boundaries and paid fairly started seeking me out. My business relationships became mutually beneficial rather than one-sided giving.

Mind magic.

Inherited Beliefs in Professional Life

While my personal transformation was profound, I've also helped executives identify inherited business beliefs that limit their professional potential:

The "Play It Safe" Executive: A brilliant strategist inherited the belief from early mentors that "good leaders never take unnecessary risks." This caused him to avoid innovation opportunities and deliver incremental strategies. After recognizing this wasn't his authentic belief, he began pursuing calculated risks that led to breakthrough market positioning.

The "Work Harder" Pattern: A successful entrepreneur inherited the belief that "success requires constant sacrifice" from workaholic parents. She was burning out while building her company. When she recognized this programming and shifted to "sustainable effort creates lasting results," she built systems that allowed growth without personal destruction.

The "Industry Limitations" Mindset: A technology leader inherited beliefs about "how our industry works" that prevented breakthrough thinking. When she recognized these were inherited assumptions rather than universal truths, she led innovations that revolutionized traditional approaches.

The Bottom Line

Was my shift purely coincidence?

Some would say that. I don't.

I changed my belief, upgraded my mindware/beliefs and as a result, my reality shifted to match my new beliefs and attention. It really does happen.

Every day, I find simple beliefs that impact my life—both personal and professional. As I shift those beliefs to focus on what I really want, my life shifts to deliver just that.

You can do the same.

Questions for Reflection:

Which beliefs about yourself, relationships, money, success, or possibilities did you inherit from others?
What family patterns are you unconsciously repeating in your personal or professional life?
Which "truths" about what's possible are you accepting without question?
What would you pursue if you weren't limited by inherited beliefs about what you "can" or "should" do?

Your Choice: Will you continue living according to other people's beliefs about what's possible for your life and career, or will you consciously choose beliefs that align with your authentic potential?

The most fulfilled people I know—both personally and professionally—regularly question inherited programming and consciously install beliefs that support their genuine dreams and capabilities.

Ready to discover which inherited beliefs might be limiting your authentic potential? Your greatest breakthroughs may be hiding behind the "truths" you've never questioned.

Image courtesy of svevav