Do you have limiting beliefs? 

Maybe you wouldn’t word it that way. Maybe you’re simply tired of being stuck in neutral and can’t figure out why.

If that sounds anything like you, you need to change your thinking if you ever hope to become a higher performer.

Matt Clark is a pit crew coach who helps high performers experience a MindSHIFT using the neuroscience behind belief formation. He spent 15 years in NASCAR building high performance pit crews for championship drivers like Jeff Gordon and Jimmie Johnson. His career accomplishments include taking part in five NASCAR Championships, winning over 70 races, being named the NASCAR Pit Crew Challenge Champion, working as a FOX Sports1 on-air analyst, and so much more.

Matt brought unique insights, experiences, and lessons to Creating Your Encore Career last week. Let’s overview some of the things he shared on how to use neuroscience to become a higher performer in your Encore Career.

 

Matt’s Story

Over the years, Matt has realized that he has some self-limiting beliefs that impact his performance. 

Part of this realization was reflecting on a situation that happened to him in high school. He was a sophomore playing varsity and his coach decided to have a senior play pinch hit for him. Though that was a good coaching decision, it began to stack beliefs that Matt wasn't good enough. This one event created a fundamental core belief that he was an imposter. 

Eventually, he decided to get to the bottom of this and began to dig deep into the neuroscience behind how beliefs are formed. 

The Power of Beliefs

Belief formation happens at the cellular level. This in itself makes them powerful. They literally shape our physiology. 

Additionally, many people, especially high-performers, confuse desire with belief. We have the desire to be successful but feel blocked from fulfilling that desire. Often, this is because we have fundamental beliefs that are broken. This is the power of beliefs. 

How to Change Your Self-limiting Beliefs

Your brain takes beliefs you currently hold and looks for things to reinforce them. We interpret events in certain ways so as to reinforce our beliefs. After we make an interpretation, there's a physiological response and we store it away in our “database.” That's how we begin to stack our beliefs. 

Your job, therefore, is to break that loop by changing the way you interpret situations. How?

Well, affirmations alone won’t produce this change in your thoughts and beliefs. You have to tap the subconscious by going through the five senses. 

When you do affirmations, think through how the affirmations will affect what you will see in your life, what you’ll hear about yourself, what you’ll hear other people say about you, and what you feel as a result of the affirmation. 

This is when you will begin to see change.