You have nothing to lose but your chains

I was just chatting with a few others in the cbox yesterday when I was reminded of how important it is to recognise and acknowledge one's self limiting beliefs. Recognising and acknowledging that it's a problem is probably the first step towards doing something (as opposed to just talking) about the problem. After all, if you do not see that there is a problem, you won't spend an iota of brain power to solve it. In other words, after much talking, it's back to square one if you don't think that it's a problem.



I immediately thought of the times when I first started out as a full time private tutor. You cannot believe how many nay-sayers there are that told me I should be getting a proper job. My parents are also saying that I should be getting a full time job until they sort of gave up a few years ago. External factors aside, I think the most important thing about this whole episode is how I handle my self limiting beliefs that hinders my earning power. Here's a list of them and how I managed to break every one of them:



1. I cannot charge more than $22 per hour because some person whom I trusted told me that the going rate is $22/hr. I justified to myself that I'm paid this low because I was a 'newbie' and I wasn't experienced, even though I'm a graduate with a good class honors.



This anchoring effect took me several years to 'correct'. I realised that I was justifying my low pay not because I wasn't experienced or whatever, it's simply because I am not confident enough to charge a high rate. That is stopping me from getting a higher pay even though I was working a lot of hours. I remembered that I was trying to find out how many students I had to take in order to get 5k per month. At 22/hr, I needed  114 students, or 16 two-hour lessons per day, which is impossible. I back calculated to find out what's my maximum income (based on my many self imposed restrictions on working hours) - it's around 2.7k per month. Not exactly a very good amount these days.



This woke me up from the 'dream'. I immediately took action to correct this and never looked back since. With the higher per hour rate, I eliminated a lot of other problems (no payment of fees, disciplinary problems, very low motivation students, low referral rates...) that comes together with the low pay.

2. I cannot work during dinner time because students need to have dinner. I need to have dinner too, so I don't work during normal dinner time. I cannot work late at night because students need to sleep early to prepare for school the next day and I can't get public transport back to my home. Night is also 'rest' time for normal working people, so I don't work after dinner time. I don't work on weekends too because I needed a break.



SO MANY restrictions on myself, all SELF IMPOSED. Because of my need to eat dinner at the proper time and to have a weekend like a proper working adult, I was depriving myself of working hours. Coupled with the low pay, I wasn't basically just part timing this thing instead of doing it full time. What do I do during the non-working hours? Doing lessons plans and preparing for work - things that do not pay me but I deemed important in order to justify my tuition fees, however meager that amount is at that time. As mentioned, it took several years to correct that problem. I simply wasn't out to earn a living. It is like I'm trying to learn how to swim by trying to read a lot about swimming. In fact, I was doing anything BUT teaching. The moment I realised that these is a major problem and that these are just excuses, I leap frogged my earnings multiple times. It isn't that I'm selling my soul or passion for money - no! In a poor man's mind, it's either this or that. You can either have passion or you can have money, but not both. In a rich man's mind, you're always thinking how to be rich and passionate about your job. In fact, the more passionate about your job, the more money you can make AND the more money you get out of your job, the more passionate you are about it (up to a certain limit of course, but I wasn't anywhere near that limit back then).




3. I cannot take too many students because during exams period, when they needed help, I won't be able to spare the time needed to help them. 


In civil engineering, I learnt about queuing theory. In a queue, there is always someone waiting. If you're waiting for a bus, that's because the transport authorities think that it's more worthwhile for passengers to wait for a bus, instead of having many more buses waiting for passengers to arrive. If you're waiting in a long queue to buy a product, it's because the company thinks that it's more worthwhile for the consumers to wait to buy their products, rather than having more products in store waiting for consumers to come buy them. There's always someone waiting!


AND I happen to be on the wrong side of the queue back then! I was waiting for students to come to me. I was at their beckon because I was having so much free time and not enough income, so once they gave me their timing for the lessons, I'll just say yes. That gives me low bargaining power. These days, I'm packed to the brim with students, so the tables are turned and the students are waiting for a free slot to meet me instead. Again, I'm surprised how many other seemingly non-related problems I eliminated by switching the queuing party. Once the students realised that I'm more busy, they started not to waste my time - they get more motivated to do whatever stuff and ask me the really important things during lessons (because they might not get to see me as and when they are free). People think that a busy tutor must be a good one (not a bad assumption but not necessarily true) and I get more referrals. Students quality gets better since I not only handle the really unmotivated students but I get highly motivated ones. I get more satisfaction from teaching motivated students and I get paid more. Everybody wins.



It's so surprising how a bottle neck problem, once identified and rectified, can solve several other problems downstream. Likewise, it's important to know that one or two major limiting beliefs are causing ALL your other problems. It can be stopping you from a breakthrough in your career, a happy marriage life, a good income and on and on. So, instead of spending energy coming up with one thousand and one reasons why you CANNOT make something happen, just think of ONE good way HOW to make something happen.  This is much more useful and practical since you're the only person who can dig yourself out of the shit hole that you've found yourself in.