What is a limiting belief? It’s anything you choose to believe about yourself that limits your ability to achieve success in a given area.
For example, consider the following statements:
I’ll never get that raise because I’m __________.
Customers won’t buy from me because I __________.
People are mean.
Nobody ever listens to me.
My idea won’t work because ________.
I’m just not (good/smart/popular/young) enough to ___________.
Self limiting statements such as these originate at either conscious or unconscious levels. Often they have some isolated basis of evidence to support them, but they can also be purely speculative in nature. What they have in common is that they place limitations on your abilities to accomplish the things in life that can bring you happiness.
Behavior follows belief. When self limiting beliefs restrict our perceived choices of available actions, we have fewer avenues available to achieve our goals. And even worse, when we choose to take action towards one of our goals but possess a limiting belief that we are incapable of achieving the goal, we usually end up failing due to an internal conflict between action and belief. The belief you can’t do something will usually undermine your actions to the point that you end up frustratingly proving yourself right every single time.
The way to overcome limiting beliefs is to challenge them, to see them for the poorly constructed facades that they are, and to consider alternative ways of viewing the same situations that can produce more empowering results. Ready to try this out for yourself? Here’s how it works:
Begin by thinking of a belief that you currently have that is holding you back from being successful in any one specific area.
1. Question the belief:
Ask yourself appropriate questions for the belief you currently hold, such as:
Is this belief always true?
How do I know this?
Says who?
Are there ever any cases when this belief is not true?
If so, when?
What would happen if I did/didn’t?
2. Question yourself:
Are you willing to consider an alternative way of thinking that would be more useful? It becomes much easier to answer this question once you have gone through step 1 and begin to see your old way of thinking as too limited, too inflexible, or too incomplete to achieve the results that you desire.
3. Brainstorm:
What would be a more resourceful way of thinking about the same situation? Take a few moments and generate multiple ideas of new ways to perceive the same situation.
4. Try out your new choices:
Ask yourself for each new choice – how does it feel to believe this way? Practice using each new belief choice in place of the old limiting belief that you know wasn’t working for you. Does believing differently produce better results? If a new choice doesn’t work any better you’re no worse off than when you started the process, you’ve simply identified one more belief that doesn’t work in a given context. Move on to the next choice you’ve identified and give it a try. Once you’ve found a new belief that gets you the results you desire, keep it in favor of the old belief that wasn’t working for you.
The biggest shift that occurs when challenging limiting beliefs is that by going through these steps you realize that there are choices available to yourself when you previously thought there weren’t any. Your chances of achieving the results you desire increase whenever you select a new belief system that you determine works better for you in place of the old.
Limiting beliefs aren’t always negative, however they are always limiting. For example, the belief that one can jog 5 miles each morning is a positive one, but can be limiting if you are trying to increase the distance to 10. So powerful is belief that often the coupling of a new belief with the same level of effort you were previously putting forth will bring you higher levels of success.
Knowledge is potential power that manifests itself in action. Did you try this out with one of your own limiting beliefs? If not, I encourage you to do so today!
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