Strengthen Your Belief System – Part 5
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will rule your life and you will call it fate.” – Carl Jung

Welcome back to our ongoing series on how to Strengthen Your Belief System from the Inside Out. If you’ve been following along, you know we’re deep into Step 3 of our “Out with the Old & In with the New” exercise—exposing the false beliefs that quietly limit our potential.

If you missed the earlier posts, you can catch up here:

• 1: Strengthen Your Belief System: How Confidence Gets Built from the Inside Out
• 2: Out with the Old & In with the New: Disempowering Your Inner Critic
• 3: Trace It to Erase It: Where Your Inner Critic Was Born
• 4: Debunking the Inner Critic (Empty Wells + Comparison)

Today, we’re wrapping up Step 3 by identifying two more root causes of Inner Critic thinking:

•  Past “Bad” or “Failed” Performances
• “Haven’t Done It Before” Thinking

Let’s shine the light on them so you can break free for good.

C. Past “Bad” or “Failed” Performances

This might be the most common Inner Critic seed of all.

People often use a poor performance or tough experience as “evidence” to prove something limiting about themselves. I know I did. One of my earliest Inner Critic beliefs was:

“Can’t perform in the clutch.”

Why? Because I had two specific high school games where I didn’t get it done late. I took those outcomes and allowed them to define me.

But here’s what helped me flip the switch:

Outcomes aren’t permanent—
As long as you learn from them and apply the knowledge.

Take my daughter, for example. When she was learning to walk, she fell constantly—producing outcomes she didn’t want. If she thought like many athletes do after a bad game, she might have said:

“I must not be a good walker. I’ll never be able to do this.”

Sounds crazy, right?

But that’s exactly what so many of us do with our own performances. We forget that mistakes and setbacks are part of the process.

Here’s a formula to remember:

1. An outcome is produced
2. You learn from the outcome
3. You apply the learning next time

That’s how you stop watering the Inner Critic—and start growing a mindset built for the long haul.

Here’s how that formula played out in my own experience:

• The outcome: I wasn’t clutch in two key high school games.
• The learning: I let my nerves take over. I was worried about the outcome and what people would think—beating a rival, impressing recruiters, earning a scholarship—rather than focusing on my skills and what I could control.
• Applying It: In future clutch moments I focused on my skills and the process. Worked on my breath. Repeated my affirmations.

This exercise and shift in perspective helped me unlock one of my favorite accomplishments—
Seven 4th-quarter comeback victories in college.

That stat didn’t just mean we won.
It meant I rewrote the belief I once carried. I went from “Can’t perform in the clutch” to becoming “Cool Hand Luke.”

But it started with the story I made up about those early failures.

(Picture from the Spokesman-Review Nov. 9, 2017 Article)

Athlete Action:
Look at your list of limiting thoughts.
Did any of them come from a past moment that didn’t go how you wanted?
If yes, mark it with (past performance) and start using the formula to learn from and reframe it as an opportunity for growth.

D. “Haven’t Done It Before” Thinking

This is the fourth major root of Inner Critic thinking—and I see it all the time, especially in high performers.

“Well, I’ve never done that before, so I probably can’t.”

This belief is built on absence, not evidence.

Think about it:

• Before you walked, you hadn’t walked.
• Before you passed your first test, you hadn’t passed one.
• Before you led a comeback win, you hadn’t done that either.
• And get this—before 2007, the iPhone didn’t even exist.
  Now it’s literally running the world.

The first time doing anything always feels uncomfortable. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it.
It just means you’re growing.

One of the most powerful tools to combat this kind of Inner Critic thinking?
Visualization.

Every time you mentally see yourself succeeding, leading, or achieving your goals, you’re laying the neurological foundation for those outcomes to become real.
Visualization primes your mind to believe, prepares your body to act, and helps you move with confidence—even before the world has caught up to your vision.

Athlete Action: 

If one of your limiting beliefs is tied to something you haven’t yet done, mark it with (haven’t done it before).
Then use visualization to create a new reference point for your future.

As I heard Ed Mylett say “If you build it in your mind it’ll come.” He certainly is right. 

Shine the Light. Break the Chain.

Let’s recap the four major sources of Inner Critic thoughts:

• (Empty Wells) – Unqualified voices we gave power to
• (Comparison) – Measuring ourselves against others
• (Past Performance) – Using past mistakes as false proof
• (Haven’t Done It Before) – Letting inexperience create doubt

These false beliefs can no longer stay hidden.

This is your opportunity to call them out, challenge them, and stop letting them define your story. Because in the next step, real transformation begins.

What’s Next: Step 4 – Clear the Negative

Stay tuned next week for Step 4, where we’ll learn how to clear out the negative we’ve been carrying around for far too long.

This next skill is one of the most powerful in the entire process—and here’s a hint:
It’s the #1 thing I did the night before my games as a player…
And it’s still the exact process I use before stepping on stage to give a talk.

It’s called The Clearing Method—and you won’t want to miss the power it brings to your preparation, confidence, and peace of mind.

Let’s keep building the belief system the best version of you demands.
See you next week.