171: How to Create Lasting Change: Your Thoughts Create Your Reality

What if what’s happening outside of you is just a reflection of what’s going on inside of you? As a coach for helpers, healers, and recovering people-pleasers, I’ve seen how self-limiting beliefs quietly shape our reality and block us from manifesting the life we truly want.

In this episode, we’ll unpack the limiting beliefs that may be keeping you stuck—and I’ll guide you through a powerful (but simple) process to shift your mindset, challenge old stories, and begin creating lasting change. Whether you're wondering how to change your life completely or just how to feel better in your current season, it all starts with changing what you believe.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How your internal beliefs shape your external reality
• Why self-limiting beliefs often create self-fulfilling prophecies
• Real-life stories that show how our beliefs keep us stuck
• How to change your beliefs and rewire your mindset
• A journaling practice to support manifesting a more aligned life
• Why taking ownership of your beliefs is the first step toward how to change your life for the better

Challenge for the Week:

• Identify one limiting belief that’s been shaping your reality
• Write it down and get honest about what it’s been creating
• Create a new, empowering belief to replace it
• Find 3 reasons that belief is already true in your life
• Read, breathe into, and feel that belief daily

Work With Me:
If you're tired of feeling stuck and you're ready to change your life from the inside out, I’d love to support you. Book a free 20-minute clarity call, and we’ll explore what’s holding you back and how to shift the beliefs that are keeping you in patterns you didn’t choose.

📞 Book Your Free Clarity Call

✨ I'm currently offering 6-week 1:1 coaching packages where we’ll dive deep into the limiting beliefs shaping your life and create space for growth, clarity, and connection.

🎯 Ready to reserve your 6-week package? Reach out here

Don’t Forget to Subscribe:
Be sure to follow the podcast so you don’t miss next week’s episode. We’ll keep exploring emotional boundaries, mindset shifts, and how to change your life completely—especially for those who feel deeply and love big.

Let’s Stay Connected:
📱 Instagram: @maryannwalker.life
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Transcript

0:17

Hello, welcome back. My name is MaryAnn Walker and I'm the life coach for the helpers, the healers, and the recovering people pleasers. And today I wanna start with a question that might feel a little bit uncomfortable to explore in the beginning, but it can also be incredibly empowering. And here's the question. What if what is happening outside of you is just a reflection of what is happening inside of you? And this is such an interesting thing, right? Because what happens is we want to take credit and accountability. When things are going well, we think, yes, I created this, I manifested this. This is amazing. But when things aren't going well, we tend to resist the idea that it was self-created. We tend to resist the idea that, okay, well maybe I do have a piece to own in this, and maybe on the outside then you might seem super optimistic. You're kind, you're nice to people. You say the right things, you check all of the boxes, but on the inside, then you might be feeling really discouraged, disconnected, and maybe even hopeless. So if deep down you're feeling frustrated, for example, by non-reciprocal relationships, if you're thinking, well, I'm never going to find true love and connection, if you're thinking, well, my career is never going to take off, then here's the hard truth is those thoughts are probably going to be creating more of the same thing for you. And this isn't because you're broken. It's not because you're failing, but it's because what we believe... what it is that we really believe deep down, not what it is that we tell others that we believe, is going to be how it,is that we're showing up in the world. That's going to be what it is that we are creating. The brain's job is to look for evidence that whatever it is that we're thinking about is true. So if you're continually thinking about how horrible your life is, then your brain is gonna continue to look for evidence of how horrible your life is. So let me kind of use just a few examples to kind of show you how our thoughts can create our reality. First we'll talk about Pam. So Pam is just going through the motions in her marriage. She isn't feeling connected. She actually believes that things are never going to change. She's feeling very resigned in relationship, so she doesn't change anything, right? She and her husband still do the ho-hum date night of getting takeout and watching TV at home. They continue to have surface level conversations, not about their hopes and dreams and adventures that they might wanna go on together, but instead, their conversations are limited to work the kids and home projects that they need to get done that weekend. And every time that one of these things happens, then she says to herself, mm. I knew it. I knew that this was gonna happen. I knew that this is what he was gonna choose for date night. I knew that's what we're going to talk about. It's kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? But at the same time, she isn't planning a more connective date night. She isn't talking about her hopes and dreams and adventures that she thinks that the two of them might enjoy together. She's not talking about other subjects outside of kids and work and home projects. So in other words, she's not creating change, and that means that essentially she's choosing to remain in discontent. But this is all because of the thought that she's having inside, which is things are never going to change. It's impacting how it is that she's showing up, which is creating her external reality. Let's talk about another example, and this time we're gonna talk about Jim from the office because I think that the office is hilarious. So Jim is really embarrassed to tell people what it is that he does for work. He doesn't want to work at a paper company and he doesn't want to be a ground floor employee. He wants something more fulfilling. He says he wants a job where he's proud to tell other people what it is that he does for a living, but deep down he doesn't think that he'd be successful at it. He doesn't think that he has the education to move on from the ground floor, so he just stays stuck and because he believes that he will always have a dead end job and will never be successful. Then he never progresses in his career. He's not applying for jobs, he's not going back to school. He's not even applying to move up the ranks in his current company, but instead he's just reinforcing his belief that I'm never gonna amount to anything and I guess I'm just gonna work at a paper company forever and be unfulfilled. Okay. Now let's use an example of Judy. Judy wants to have more balanced and fulfilling friendships. She wants a friend that she can share secrets with, somebody that totally gets her and understands her, but all that she can think about is all of the ways that her friends are not showing up for her. She focuses on how long it's been since they've initiated getting together. When she gets off of an hour long phone call with a friend, she focuses on the one sentence that was said during that whole hour that didn't feel very supportive for her. She ignores the other 59 minutes and is focusing on that one minute, she's using all of this as evidence that her friends will never be able to show up for her in the way that she would like, and so she stays stuck. She stops initiating. She now seems to be resigned to unfulfilling relationships. So even though she says that she wants more, her internal world is creating her external world, which is keeping her stuck in her friendships. You're starting to see the pattern here, so take a moment right now to really think about what is it that you're thinking about inside in your day-to-day life? And this might be, okay, what is it that I'm ruminating on? What is it I'm believing? What is it that's happening for me on the inside? Who am I resenting right now? Use all of that as information to identify what is it that I'm actually believing on the inside. Now I'm gonna share a few common limiting beliefs as well as what they might be creating for you. And as I read these, I want you to really think about, is this something that I'm believing for myself? And maybe it's gonna spark something you're like, well, I don't quite believe that, but I do believe this. Notice that as it's coming up for you. Okay, so here's a few of'em. Love and affection must be earned. Now this limiting belief, it drives people pleasing and often creates one-sided non-reciprocal relationships. If they're upset, it must be my job to fix it. This thought often leads to over-functioning and ultimately burnout. My needs aren't that important. Or on the other side it might be their needs are more important. Now, this often prevents us from actually seeking out support from stating boundaries or even acknowledging what it is that we might actually want in relationship. I'll never find a relationship where I feel seen safe and valued. This belief, may keep you settling for breadcrumbs or keep you with a misaligned partner. If I become successful, other people will abandon me. Now, this thought is more common than you might think, and it creates a lot of fear and tension in relationship and also really keeps you small and prevents you from actually working towards things that you really want out of life. And that really leads into this next one. It is safer to stay small than to risk being rejected Again, this one is going to keep you small. It's going to prevent you from putting yourself out there and actually finding more. Uh, I'm too old. It's too late for me. There's many, many versions of this one, and again, that's going to keep you feeling helpless and stuck. So notice if any of those really stood out to you, if the energy of them was a bit louder. If you found yourself thinking, oh yeah, of course that one's true, and then I really want you to sit with that sentence and see what it is that that might be creating for you. This might be really hard to hear, but the beliefs that I just read to you, they're keeping you in a victim mindset. Even if you're smiling on the outside, even if you feel like you're really self-empowered when you have those thoughts coming in, it is a victim mindset and it's going to keep you stuck. When you're operating from that place, then what is it that you're attracting? You're not going to be attracting abundance. You're going to be attracting lack. You're going to be attracting negativity and resentment. You are gonna be attracting disconnection, frustration, and more of the same dynamics that you really don't actually want consciously. And as hard as it can be to accept that, then this is something that your mind has actually created. Your outside is reflecting your insides, and this isn't intentional. It's not because you want to suffer. But essentially by not changing your thoughts or your actions, then you are essentially choosing for things to remain the same. So the first step is to observe your thoughts, and then the second is to take radical ownership of those thoughts. Now, let me be clear that this is not about blaming yourself for your own circumstances, but it's about empowering yourself to change your circumstances. Einstein once said, you cannot solve a problem with the same mind that created it. So if you want new results, if you want something new out of life, you need a new mindset to back it up. Now I wanna share with you something that I've started doing that has been very helpful for me. And while this does sound very simple, it is not always easy. In fact, I'm often taking these things to my coach. I meet with my own coach once a week and she really helps me to dissect some of these thoughts and see things a bit more clearly,because when we have a lot of emotion behind something, when we have believed something for years, possibly even our whole lives, we just accept it as truth. We don't want to challenge it. We can't see that there's any way outside of that. And having somebody outside of you can be extremely helpful when it comes to actually acknowledging, okay, what is this creating for me and what do I want to intentionally create instead? So what I've started doing is writing down my old thoughts or the current thoughts that I'm really believing that are limiting me right now. I'm writing down my limiting beliefs and getting very clear and descriptive as to what that is creating for me. And then I'm writing down some new thoughts, some affirmations that are more rooted in truth. And then I intentionally look for at least three reasons why that new belief is already true for me. Why it's already real in my life and then I read them. I feel into them. I breathe into them every single day. I breathe into what it is that I actually want every single day. And every time I do that, the volume is turned up on what it is that I want to create. And as a side effect, the volume is turned down on the things that I'm wanting to minimize out of life. So let me kind of share a few examples with you as to what this might look like. And we're just going to kind of expand on the examples from earlier. So remember Pam, she's the one who's going through all of the motions in her marriage and she's feeling a lot of disconnect. And one of her thoughts is, I will never experience the connection that I'm seeking with my husband. When she is thinking that she's resigned, she's not challenging the status quo. She's not planning connective dates or starting interesting conversations, and this is creating a future where she will not ever experience the connection that she's seeking with her husband. So now let's flip the script. And remember, you need to make it believable so that you can look for evidence. So it might be quite a leap to just start thinking, oh, I'm super connected to my spouse. So if you're having a hard time coming up with an alternative thought, then try adding in something like I'm practicing or I'm starting to notice in front of your belief. So, for example, she might think"I'm starting to notice positive changes in my relationship with my husband." Then the key is to actively look for at least three things that back that up. So that could be anything from,"Hey, he really listened to me that day when I got home from work, and he asked some great follow-up questions." Or it might be,"oh, I didn't have to ask him to take the trash out. That's great." So just start looking for evidence that there are some positive changes happening, and then celebrate it and you will start to see more of that in your life. Okay, now let's use the example of Jim. So Jim is resigned to being a paper salesman forever. First, what is that creating for him? He's embarrassed to talk about what he does for a living. So he's avoiding meeting new people. This is limiting his social life. He's also looking for reasons or maybe excuses as to why he can't do anything else. There's no other jobs available. It would take too long to go back to school and get a degree. I'm too old for anything different, but all of those things are keeping him stuck. So after we get super clear on what is it that that is creating for you, then we can start to challenge those thoughts. So what if instead he flipped his thought to, I am working to better my situation every single day. Now with that thought, not only is he more grateful for his current job and paycheck, but he may also start to see other evidences of growth. He might start to notice when opportunities arise, like a business course that's now available at the local community college. Maybe his work ethic may change from being off task and wasting time to having more drive and ambition, knowing that that drive and ambition will lead him towards greater things. And how might that impact his level of success? How might changing that internal thought and looking for evidences that it's already true, how might that impact his external world? All right, and now Judy, when Judy is thinking about how unfulfilling her friendships are, what might that be creating for her? She may look for ways that her friends have failed her. She might be reliving those experiences in her mind. She might be complaining to her husband or her coworkers about how terrible her friends are. She probably isn't showing up as a very good friend either, but instead she's showing up as pretty judgemental. She's judging people before she's even gotten to know them. She's not making new friends. She's refraining from sharing any vulnerabilities, and all of these things are really limiting her personal connection. So what might happen if she intentionally shifted her internal thought and looked for evidence that that new thought were true? How might things change for her if she shifted her new thought to, I am building a beautiful community? Now, she might not only be more likely to look for ways that her friends are currently showing up and checking in on her, but she's also more likely to reach outside of herself, to go to new events, to connect socially, and it's all because she changed her thought about her friendships to"I am building a new and beautiful community." So here's my invitation to you. What if today you sat down and looked at what's really going on inside of you? And then you ask yourself, is this the energy that I want to project out into the world? And if not, what is it that you want instead? Get very clear on what you want your new belief to be, and then look for three evidences that that is already true. You do not need to fake positivity. You don't need to force gratitude. You just need to find one degree of truth and a better story, and then practice feeling into the vibration of that new belief. You can have a life that you truly love. And managing your mind is the first step towards getting there. If you would like help and support in both identifying your limiting beliefs and shifting them into something that can really create more lasting and positive change for yourself, come and book a free clarity call with me. This is just a 20 minute call where we can chat about what's coming up for you and see what it is that's getting in your way. Maybe even gain some clarity as to how this is self-created, and help you to feel a little bit more empowered about how you can create some lasting change for yourself. So click the link in the show notes. You can book your free clarity call now. I would love to support you on your journey back to self-empowerment, connection and personal growth. So until next time, take care of yourself. Be sure to mind your inner world because it is creating everything else around you. Alright, I'll see you next week. Have a great one. Bye now.