Why we won’t get what we deserve
It took me some time to learn this life lesson and when I did, I promised myself to share it with as many people as possible.
Have you ever wondered why sometimes the most capable people don’t necessarily have the best jobs or lives and the less capable ones do? Or, why many talented singers don’t become superstars, yet many not-so-talented ones do?
We don’t get what we deserve in life. we get what we think we deserve.
What we hold to be true about ourselves is mirrored in our reality.
If you’re not where you want to be in a certain area of your life it probably has to do with your thoughts, your beliefs, and your perceived truths about yourself and this specific area. This may feel a bit uncomfortable. I know it’s not very nice to hear that the reason why you don’t have what you want is, well… you.
But, let me explain because this might be the most freeing piece of information you’ll ever receive. Our thoughts and our beliefs about anything function like filters through which we see the world. As human beings, we are exposed to so much information daily that we - luckily - have the innate capability to filter the information we receive to make sense of this world.
Now, that’s actually where things can (and often do) go wrong. These filters are mostly created in the first 7 years of our lives without us being consciously aware of having them in the first place. What we experience in our daily life and believe to be a reality is therefore always just a version of the truth, not the entire truth or reality. It is our perception of a certain situation. That’s why when you ask two people to recall the same event, they will give you different descriptions based on their individual experiences of that event.
What we call reality is a reduced version of the whole of reality, created by our filters.
We have filters for everything in life. For the sake of this article, let’s talk about the filters related to ourselves and what we “get” in our lives.
“You get what you think you deserve in life, based by what you hold to be true for yourself.”
We hold many beliefs and thoughts about ourselves without being consciously aware of them. Beliefs are deeply ingrained thought-patterns. As previously mentioned, most of our core beliefs are created in the first 7 years of our life these two ways:
1. Accepting what others tell us to be true.
For example, your mother/father/schoolteacher/nanny/sibling, etc. tells you that you aren’t smart enough. This leads you to carry a belief about yourself that you aren’t smart enough. Be aware that your logical mind may say, “No, I don’t believe that about me.” However, if you dig a little deeper, you might find that this is exactly the reason why you never asked for that pay rise at work or why you haven’t applied for that dream job.
2. Experiences, conclusions, and assumptions.
As little children, we don’t have the mental capacity to critically assess a situation. We make sense of things by making assumptions and drawing conclusions about our experiences, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t work in our favor.
Example: You get a little brother or sister and your parents have to give them lots of attention. You’re no longer the main priority. As a child, you might conclude that your new sibling is more important than you and that your parents don’t love you as much anymore. This is a very dramatic example, but I just wanted to illustrate my point.
What I’d like to leave you with is this:
Assess and spot the areas of your life where you aren’t fully satisfied. Is it your love life, career, or friendships? Then, ask yourself: What could I possibly be thinking or holding to be true about myself or this area that might be standing between what I have and what I deserve? And let me get things straight. You deserve everything you wish for!
Breaking through my own limiting beliefs has been the single most beneficial thing I’ve ever done for myself and it has helped me tremendously in finding my unique path and peace in life.
That is my wish for you as well.
