F*ck Off, Binding Agreements

Michael Zick
7 min readOct 9, 2020

They keep us stuck in roles that don’t serve us.

During my latest round of Life Coach training, I learned about a powerful concept: Binding Agreements. I also learned a technique on how to discover and dispel them, freeing up the client to move forward.

This was more or less a “fuck me” moment, because just understanding Binding Agreements was a radical shift for me.

I’ve known for a long time that core beliefs, assumptions, fears, and PTSD were operating behind the scenes of my life, but this added another layer to it.

Binding Agreements are basically subconscious “contracts” we have with someone from our past, an institution, or even society at large. They tell us things like “You can’t be more financially successful than your father” or “You’ll never have a successful marriage because your parents didn’t.”

It’s yet another way our subconscious/emotional brain tries to keep us safely in our comfort zone.

Some other Binding Agreements are:

  • “You’ll never amount to anything because your parents said you wouldn’t.”
  • “You can’t find an available partner because Mom never found someone after Dad left.”
  • “You can’t have kids because your parents struggled financially and could only afford one.”

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