4 Cultural Beliefs that I No Longer Subscribe To

I’ve recently signed up for a premium mentorship program on the energetics of business and money, and I realize I’m holding so many subconscious self-sabotaging patterns and limiting beliefs that are blocking me from creating and receiving more abundance in my life.

I recognize some of these beliefs are very much rooted in the culture that I grew up in (in this case Chinese culture), and now I’m choosing to let them go.

Here are the four cultural beliefs that I no longer subscribe to:

Yes and no.

This worked for me as a child studying in school. There was no getting away from the subjects I needed to study, so this was what I told myself. I would put in my best effort for myself. I was not doing my best for my parents or anyone else.

This helped me develop discipline during my student years and take responsibility for my grades. I stopped trying to force myself to get the best grade in every subject. Sometimes I’d get a B, or even a C, and that was okay (and yes, a lot of the time I did get an A).

Then I realized this belief doesn’t serve me anymore.

Running my own business and taking care of my family, I put my best effort into everything I do — and yet, so many times, the outcome still wasn’t what I wanted. I’d fall into deep disappointment and start questioning what I was doing wrong.

So many times I launched offers and no one signed up. I felt defeated.  I’d put in all this time and energy and there was nothing to show for it. So I stopped putting offers out there — because if I didn’t try, I couldn’t get hurt.

The shift: Do what is aligned.

I can pour all my effort into something, but if my energy is out of alignment, it’s never going to work.

It’s like dating. You can chase someone as much as you like, but if they don’t like you back, it’s never going to work out.

With my offers, I love creating them and helping people through them. However, internally I was having doubts of myself. I hesitated to put offers out there in case no one wanted them. I was afraid to talk about them. What I actually needed wasn’t to stop offering — it was to shift my internal beliefs so I could stand fully behind what I was creating.

My mom literally said this to my son the other day – you have to work hard to earn money in the future.

And I disagree.

I understand the part about discipline. About work ethic. About showing up consistently and doing what needs to be done. Yes, that I agree with. It’s like inner work. It is challenging to face our fears and our shadows sometimes, but we have to meet and rise above the challenge to be healed.

But as my business mentor once said: if all we needed to do was work hard, everyone would already be a millionaire.

The issue is not about working harder. Working harder doesn’t automatically mean your cash flow increases.

The shift: Work smart, and focus on expanding your zone of genius.

We all have gifts and talents that we are born with, and we accumulate all these life experiences and knowledge that make us each unique. We are born on this Earth to share our gifts.

Working smarter means knowing yourself deeply: what time of day your mind is sharpest, what lights you up versus what drains you, how to delegate what falls outside your genius so you can focus on what only you can do, and how to recharge so you can keep showing up fully.

When you focus on sharing your gifts, money flows in as a byproduct.

I grew up in a Chinese household where my parents said you need to get an A in your studies. And it’s not their fault — every parent was saying the same thing to their kids.

So I picked up this belief that I needed to study hard to get an A. And getting an A proves that I am worthy. Proves that I am smart. Proves that I have value.

This is where we’ve learned that we need something outside of us to approve our value, to validate who we are so we can be loved.

The shift: I am worthy. I can move through life with ease and grace.

Our worth is not determined by something external of us, and certainly it does not need to be measured by performance.

We are all born here into this life with unique gifts and soul missions. Our worth does not depend on anything outside of us. You don’t need to prove your worth. Your divine presence is your worth.

So stop trying to prove your worth through struggles. Sure there will be challenges in life because we are here to grow and evolve. Challenges help us build strength and resilience.

But we can also manifest what we want with ease and grace. Life doesn’t need to be a constant struggle.

There is a Chinese saying: big trees attract the wind. The warning being — when you rise too high, you invite the wrong kind of attention. Big trees fall in windstorms. Small trees survive.

It teaches us to stay humble. You should not brag or be too proud of yourself, or else you will lose your footing and fall.

That’s why growing up I’ve never heard my parents tell me directly that they were proud of me (they did tell others though). Words of praise are not in the Chinese love language.

The result? I grew up with little confidence in myself. I constantly looked for validation and approval outside of me. Only much later did I learn that the person who needed to say I’m proud of you was me.

And yes, if you’re bragging from an ego-centric place, all “me me me, look at me,” that is arrogance.

But here’s where we mistake confidence for arrogance. We mistake being humble for playing it safe and small.

The shift: The more rooted you are, the higher you can reach.

This is mirrored in nature. A tree can only grow as tall as the roots are deeply anchored in the soil.

When I was learning kirtan, my teacher spoke about true humility. True humility is not playing it small and shrinking yourself.

True humility is shining your light brightly, expressing your gifts boldly and fully, because you are here to serve.

The Divine, the Universe, Spirit, God, Goddess, or however you call the bigger presence around you, gave you gifts. And you are meant to use them. Keeping them hidden isn’t modesty. It’s a disservice to everyone you were meant to reach.

True humility is seeing everything you do as an offering to the Universe. This is your devotion to the Divine. This is why you are here. So don’t stay small, don’t play it safe because it doesn’t help anyone including yourself.

Be proud of yourself. Praise yourself every single day. Have confidence in who you are.  Be your own biggest cheerleader.

I truly believe that these beliefs served their purpose in the past. In order to survive, we needed to do our best even if we didn’t want to, we needed to struggle to prove our worth, we needed to work hard to earn money, and we needed to play it small, especially as women, just to stay alive.

But times have changed. We are in the middle of an extraordinary shift. People are waking up to their true potential, trusting their intuition, and quietly deciding they no longer want to carry beliefs that have never truly been theirs.

It is time to break this cycle of passing these old beliefs down to our future generations. We are all here to learn and grow, but that doesn’t mean life has to be all sticks and no carrots.

I believe with my whole heart that we are each here to share our unique gifts, our stories, our experiences — and in doing so, to lift one another up.

You can start rewriting these beliefs now with this journaling exercise: Journaling Exercise to Rewrite Your Limiting Beliefs

To transform at a deeper level, I invite you to join me for our online fire release ceremony, where we will release these beliefs to the fire.