We all face challenges in our life. But when that challenge overwhelms us, and seems too huge to even contemplate facing, we often use our subconscious beliefs to create excuses that allow us to avoid dealing with it. In fact, these excuses can become so entrenched we eventually arrive at the place where we don’t even recognise that we are using them. We continue on through life ruled by our excuses and avoidance behaviours unaware of just how they are limiting us.
This checklist is a Self Audit For Your Life that will indicate where you may be using limiting beliefs to avoid dealing with challenges that scare you. Use this checklist to ascertain which avoidance behaviours you are using to avoid facing these challenges.
Each section represents a Foundation Stone of Wellness. Under each heading are a number of behaviours and excuses that are commonly used to avoid dealing with that aspect of wellness.
Of course this list is not complete. But if you are challenged in any of these foundations you will probably adopt a range of avoidance behaviours and excuses. Even if the exact things you do are not mentioned you should sense quite strongly when one of the Foundations challenges you in your interaction with life.
How To Use The Checklist
Work through each section. Put a check beside anything that resonates. At the end tally your score for each section.
The section with the highest score is your dominant Foundation Stone. This foundation is creating a skewed life experience for you and restricting your wellness, success and happiness. This is the area of your life that needs your attention and the one to start with in your personal development work.
You may have more than one foundation crying out for attention. Address the one that feels the most challenging to even think about. You’ll find that as you begin unravelling one Foundation stone, the others will begin to untangle in response, because they are actually all entwined like a tangled ball of string.
Before You Begin…
Before you begin to work through the issues of your Dominant Foundation Stone answer the following questions to gain more insight.
- If you were truly thriving and you were able to move freely, unhindered by limitation in this Foundation Stone, what would it look like? What would be happening in your life that is different?
- What would you change? How might you go about this?
- What would others say if you made these changes? (your mother, father, partner, best friend, colleagues, other school mums etc)
- What is it you worry about?
- I worry I will……
- Achieving means I will have to……
- What terrifies me about……….
- What excites me about……….
Use this checklist to gauge with clarity where your Life Reality really stands at this time.
Simplicity
▢ I thrive on the drama of being busy
▢ I surround myself with time-sucking distractions
▢ My home/ work/ thoughts/ systems are crowded and disorganized
▢ I overcomplicate my life and feel energetically drained
▢ I neglect my self-care and forget to nurture myself, to take time to ‘smell the roses’
▢ I am surrounded in clutter, or I hang on to possessions or people
▢ There is no space for me to experience the movement of my body
▢ I fee drained by things or people in my life that I can’t let go
Connection
▢ I feel disconnected from other people; isolated and lonely
▢ I don’t foster and nurture relationship with the people around me
▢ I don’t make time to connect with nature
▢ I don’t engage with people who cross my daily path – cashier, barista etc
▢ I can’t sense or connect easily with my guides, angels or higher self
▢ I feel influenced by mind-chatter. It’s difficult to clear my mind
▢ I get confused about whether my intuition is real or not
▢ I’ve lost touch with my inner self, forget to nurture myself and neglect my self-care
Authenticity
▢ I need to maintain a successful image in all areas of my life
▢ I am unrealistic about my own needs or I’m simply out of alignment with them
▢ I use adrenaline, addictive substances (including coffee) or illicit behaviour to keep going
▢ I often lack confidence
▢ I focus on my shortcomings, playing down or ignoring my strengths, or vice-versa
▢ I don’t find it easy to forgive others
▢ I tend to have “verbal diarrhea” or not to speak up
▢ I am careful never to offend or upset people so I hold back my honest opinions
▢ I prefer not to stand out from the crowd
Integrity
▢ I feel I have to compromise my values in order to succeed or be accepted
▢ I don’t follow through on what I say I’ll do
▢ I don’t really know the values that are important to me and that underpin my life
▢ I feel out of alignment with my needs
▢ I constantly seek approval from others
▢ I have twisted words to mislead or deceive
▢ I avoid difficult conversations in order not to hurt or upset anyone
▢ I don’t admit my mistakes easily
Respect
▢ I find it difficult to always find the hidden gift in life’s challenges and adversity
▢ I focus on the problems/ challenges I must overcome
▢ I doubt other people’s motives and am suspicious about their giving
▢ I don’t often acknowledge my own successes or positive qualities
▢ There is nobody else to look after me so I need to care for #1
▢ I am critical of my actions, my thoughts, my appearance, myself
▢ I do not incorporate practices to sustain the earth in my life
▢ I very freely give advice about how others can live successfully or improve themselves
Power
▢ I feel out of control
▢ I self-sabotage and undermine my own happiness
▢ I judge myself not worthy
▢ I feel energetically drained by my life
▢ I feel anxious about the future, or judgemental about the past
▢ I use charm to get what I want
▢ I am easily influenced by the comments or non-verbal communication of others
▢ Others take advantage of me
▢ I defer to others opinions
Humility
▢ I don’t ask for help, I stand alone
▢ I exaggerate my (or my loved ones) success, affluence, happiness, fulfillment to others
▢ Nobody meets my high standards – nobody can help me out
▢ I feel pressured to keep up with my friends
▢ I never question my thoughts, actions, emotions
▢ I’m very aware of other’s strengths and inadequacies and compare myself to them
▢ I can be dogmatic and insistent about my viewpoint
▢ There are things about me I dislike and am not proud of, so I hide them from others
Curiosity
▢ I rarely feel that sense of wonder with new experiences
▢ I stop myself getting absorbed in the moment and force myself back to my task at hand
▢ I don’t have time for any new experiences and activities in my life
▢ I’m so busy caring for those around me I don’t have time for self-care practices
▢ I don’t know my purpose
▢ I find change difficult
▢ I rarely feel a zest or passion for life