As humans, we all have desires and dreams- something that you truly want to achieve, be, and feel. But many constraints in life inhibit us from reaching our goals.
Often, it is our self-liming beliefs that prevent us from becoming our true selves and achieving success. We imagine our ideal life and then say, ‘I’m not good enough,’ ‘I don’t deserve it,’ or ‘I can’t do that.’
These are all examples of toxic, self-limiting beliefs, living in our conscious and subconscious originating from past experiences and memories. To transform your dreams into a reality, you need to address your limiting beliefs head-on.
Let’s explore what limiting beliefs are and how you can challenge them to achieve personal greatness.
What are Limiting Beliefs?
Beliefs encompass conditioned falsities built upon old memories of pain and pleasure. The foundations of our beliefs depend on how we interpret and emotionalize our experiences.
Our limiting beliefs are unconscious thoughts that act as defense mechanisms to avoid pain, discomfort, and hurt. A limiting belief can be about yourself, your interactions with other people, about the world, and even your career.
Self-limiting beliefs typically fall into one of the following categories:
- I do/ I don’t – limiting beliefs encompassing how we define ourselves
- I can/ I can’t – limiting beliefs regarding our self-image
- I should/ I shouldn’t – limiting beliefs that keep you stuck in self-judgment and prevent you from stepping out of your comfort zone
- I am/ I am not – limiting beliefs revolving around what we are and aren’t
- Others are/ will – limiting beliefs regarding how you assume people perceive you
Your limiting beliefs prevent you from achieving goals, trusting people, maintaining relationships, and reaching personal growth.
What are the Factors of Limiting Beliefs?
Uncovering the background of limiting beliefs is integral for overcoming them. Various factors cause limiting beliefs, such as:
- Your Family Members
Growing up, your family members likely tried to instill their morals and values in you. Their morals stem from familial beliefs and ideas about how the world and you should be.
Typically, it includes how you should behave, engage with others, the career paths you should choose, and how you should act. As a result, you end up forming limiting beliefs, such as never questioning authority.
- Your Relationships
Your relationships, how you engage with your partner, and your encounters with past partners can influence how you perceive emotions, feelings, and sensations.
For instance, if you got cheated on, you may feel heartbroken, think negatively about love, and don’t deserve love.
The Five Steps to Changing Your Limiting Beliefs
Learn to feel confident in yourself by overcoming your limiting beliefs. Here’s a step-by-step guide to eliminating them:
- Identify Your Limiting Beliefs
Overcoming your limiting beliefs starts with identifying them. Your belief systems hold you back from achieving greatness, makes you feel like you don’t deserve success, and that the world is against you.
Typically, limiting beliefs are of four types:
- Limiting Beliefs of the World – It includes your beliefs about how you perceive the world and its working.
- Limiting Beliefs about Other People – It refers to how you assume people think of you.
- Limiting Beliefs about Yourself – Self-beliefs include a self-perception of how you act, behave, and what you deserve.
- Entitled Beliefs – Entitled opinions typically feel empowering, such as thinking the world owes you something.
Create a list of your limiting beliefs to ease the thoughts eating you up inside.
- Acknowledge Them
Once you identify your self-limiting beliefs, you need to acknowledge them for what they are- baseless lies.
In addition, you need to acknowledge the harm they have done and admit how you took part in their creation. This way, you can understand the roots of your limiting beliefs, thus creating a clearer path to move forward.
- Confront Your Limiting Beliefs
To conquer and defeat your limiting beliefs, you need to confront them. The only reason your self-limiting beliefs grow big and scary is that they go unchallenged. Often, we assume our beliefs without questioning or considering them.
Instead of confronting our belief system, we develop a co-dependent relationship. We justify and guard our limiting beliefs, causing them to grow stronger.
To become your authentic self, you need to step out of your comfort zone and tackle your beliefs head-on. Counter your limiting beliefs with facts.
- Create Alternative Beliefs
Now, tap into your creativity, broaden your mind, and think big. To move forward, you need to challenge your limiting beliefs and replace them with unlimited ones.
For instance, if you believe that the average person isn’t attracted to your height, tell yourself that you’re not looking for the average person – you’re looking for someone special.
On the whole, your goal should be to replace ‘I don’t,’ ‘I shouldn’t,’ and ‘I can’t,’ with ‘I can,’ ‘I should,’ ‘I do,’ and ‘I will’.
- Challenge Your Limiting Beliefs Consistently
Ensure you never let your limiting beliefs control you by intentionally challenging them instead of cowering in fear. Constantly tackle your old beliefs to prove that they are false, that you are beyond them and more than capable.
Consider repeating a daily mantra and positive affirmations to reset your mind and cancel out all negative thoughts. Consistently challenge your limiting beliefs by saying statements like ‘I am ready,’ ‘I deserve this,’ and ‘I can do this, and more.’
How Can Your Support System Help You Overcome your Limiting Beliefs?
You can overcome your limiting beliefs by talking to someone you’re close to or a counselor for professional help. You can ask them to provide insight about some behaviors they think are harming you or holding you back.
You may even contact a consultant or therapist to brainstorm your limiting beliefs and their underlying causes.
What Are Some Great Activities to Help Achieve Your Goals as You Change Your Limiting Beliefs?
According to research, self-criticism can lead to depression. Often, your belief system causes you to be self-critical, demeaning, and even self-loathing.
To overcome this, you need to combat your self-limiting beliefs. Here are a couple of everyday activities you can try to challenge your limiting beliefs:
- Meditate
- Cognitive Psychotherapy – tackle your goals by first identifying them, using the SMART method, and transforming negative thought patterns
- Out-of-body Method – try to put yourself in the other person’s shoes to determine why they’re acting the way they are
- Fill-in-the-blank Method – add keywords in sentences like “my ___ skills make my goals realistic”
- Ask questions like ‘am I wrong?’ ‘Is this a belief or a fact?’ and ‘is this belief rigid?’
How Does Breaking Your Limiting Beliefs Improve Your Life?
Overcoming your limiting beliefs can help you break free, maximize your inner potential, and unlock your inner creativity. Apart from this, eliminating your limiting beliefs can improve your life in the following ways:
- You can achieve personal greatness and unlock your true potential
- Switching negative limitations with positive affirmations brings a positive change in your life
- By breaking limiting beliefs about how lovable you are, you can attract loving and kind people
- Creating empowering beliefs enables you to be successful in all areas of life, including personal relationships, finances, career, and more
The Bottom Line
Overcoming limiting beliefs can be a challenging task. These ideas are deeply ingrained in our minds, often from childhood. But once you learn to identify them, you easily overcome them.
Incorporate the strategies mentioned above to break your self-limiting beliefs. This way, you can achieve everything and more you dream and imagine.
For more help on changing your limiting beliefs, so you can create your ideal business and ideal life, reach out to me today and schedule your complimentary consultation.
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