Limiting Beliefs

Limiting Beliefs: What are they? Where do they come from? And how do you get rid of them?

Have you heard about limiting beliefs before? Not sure? Have you ever thought “I’m not smart enough”, “I’m not good with money”, “I hate my job but I’m stuck here”... yes? Well, then you are already familiar with limiting beliefs. But don’t worry, we all have them, it’s normal, and it's curable.

Tony Robbins says “Limiting beliefs are the stories we tell ourselves about who we are that hold us back from becoming who we are meant to be.”

Limiting beliefs keep you from experiencing life to the fullest, they can hold you back financially, they can keep you from having healthy relationships, and keep you from believing in yourself and accomplishing, or even trying to accomplish your goals.

They hold you back from growing as a person.

“I’m not good with money” keeps you from learning to manage your money and reach financial freedom. “I’m stuck at my day job” can crush your dreams and ambition of changing your career or starting a business. “I’m not smart enough” is maybe one of the most common and limiting, but you can educate yourself so you can start feeling more confident about your intelligence instead of dismissing it.

Limiting beliefs are thoughts, opinions, or convictions you have about yourself that keep you from taking risks. Your brain’s job is to keep you safe, limiting beliefs want to do just that. By keeping you from taking risks, they keep you safe, but they can also keep you from personal growth and reaching a greater potential.

Where do limiting beliefs come from?

They can come from your childhood, education, books, society, cultural influences or even unconscious bias, you name it. They like to live rent-free in your subconscious mind and you don’t even realize they’re here. Your brain doesn’t want you to challenge them, because doing so would “put you at risk”.

I have plenty of limiting beliefs that are not mine. They’ve been planted into my subconscious mind when I was a kid, kind of like Leo planted ideas in people’s dreams in Inception.

When I think one of those thoughts, it’s not really mine, it’s just a voice in my head trying to get me not to do the crazy thing I’m about to do because I'm afraid of failure and judgment.

But luckily, I’m delusional enough to do it anyway, and so far, even if it has been scary and risky at times, it’s mostly paid off in the form of great life experiences and inner growth.

You can start identifying your own limiting beliefs today and try different techniques to get rid of them and install new empowering beliefs instead.

How do you recognize limiting beliefs and get rid of them?

Well, it’s pretty simple, but it’s going to be a lot of work.

I’m gonna share with you some of the techniques I use.

Reframing your limiting beliefs

Identifying limiting beliefs

Try to notice next time you start thinking a negative thought about yourself or your abilities, and write it down.

Understand where limiting beliefs come from

Then try to understand what this thought and belief really means, where it comes from and why you’re thinking it. Is it even your thought in the first place?

Are my limiting beliefs serving me?

Ask yourself what this particular limiting belief might have kept you from doing in your life until now, and what it could cost you in the future if you keep it around.

What’s the opposite belief?

Then ask yourself what could be the opposite of that limiting belief? Something empowering, something that makes you feel good, and that can help you move forward.

Self-awareness

From there, it’s all about remaining aware of your thoughts and catching yourself each time you start to think a negative or limiting thought, so you can replace it with a new, empowering one.

I’ll share an example from my own experience with you.

I used to think that I would never be able to buy a house and be happy at my job, those two beliefs were entangled together in my mind. I thought I was stuck in my career path, with an entry level salary, at a job I resented, and that I was never going to be able to afford to buy and build a home for myself.

My whole life those thoughts were deeply embedded in my mind, they were not thoughts I could change or challenge, it was just the way it was.

Until it wasn’t.

One day I realized that those thoughts were based in fear, a lack of confidence in my intelligence, and were coming from things I’ve been told I couldn’t do or have as a child. But they were not real, they weren’t any more real than telling myself that one day I’ll be earning a yearly 6 figure salary doing something I love and that helps others. And that thought felt much better than the previous one, so I decided to change the tape playing in my head.

Instead of repeating to myself that I was stuck, I started to tell myself that I could build a business, become my own boss, and make more money than I can dream of, all the while doing something I love and being of service to others. And soon after that, I started to believe that I’d eventually be able to buy my dream house.

Today I have no doubt I will succeed in my new career path and buy my first house by 2026.

Your mind is going to feed on whatever you allow it to think, being in control of your thoughts is not an easy task, it’s actually pretty exhausting, especially in the beginning. You’ll have to learn to recognise the thoughts you don’t want, and come up with new ones to replace them.

After a while it becomes easier, more intuitive, and when you start noticing that you naturally choose empowering thoughts and beliefs instead of your usual negative thinking, I can’t tell you how amazing it’s going to feel.

Adopt a Growth Mindset

Adopt a growth mindset, train your mind for growth instead of stagnation. Thrive to grow as a person, for yourself and the people around you, because as you grow on your journey, you will have a positive impact on others.

Be curious, expand your knowledge, learn about new cultures, music, ways of thinking, understand that there is more than one way to live life and you can access new possibilities for your own life as you crack open your perception of the world and of yourself.

Write a new storyline for your life based on your new positive beliefs and not on your negative thinking and fear.

Meditation

Meditation is a great way to open and expand your mind but also to focus on your thought patterns and understand them. I am not a meditation teacher but I’ve been dabbling in it for a while and can talk of my own experience.

A lot of people think that the goal of meditation is to get rid of your thoughts, and while you’re trying to do that, something else happens. You get flooded with unwanted thoughts, more often than not, revealing trauma and anxiety.

Take it as an opportunity to listen to what your subconscious mind wants to bring to your attention and use it to identify your limiting beliefs.

Once you’re past the overwhelming first minutes, you can start to breathe deeper and organize your thoughts. This is a great moment to start installing new ideas into your mind (Inception comes up again), using different meditation techniques such as repeating affirmations, mantras, or visualizing the things that you want to experience. You can visualize what your life could look like once you’re rid of the limiting beliefs you’re working on.

This is honestly a great tool, I definitely used this technique to convince myself that I could become a successful entrepreneur and a coach.

Find Mentors

Find people who are having similar life experiences to the ones you’d like to have and use their experience as proof that it can be done. If they can do it, you can do it too.

Study them, their life, their teachings, the path they took, and get inspired.

I’m not suggesting that you copy everything they do or did, because that won’t work, everyone has their own path to follow, but being inspired by others can really help you reframe your mind and your perception of what’s possible or not in this life.

Here are some of the things that reframing my mindset allowed me to:

- recognise that I am allowed to be financially safe, learn to manage my money and start a new career to find financial freedom and fulfillment

- create and stick to a weekly schedule that allows me to work on my business instead of repeating to myself “I really want to do this but I don’t have time”

- understand that I am not here to fix people but I am here to learn to love and respect myself, and through that personal work I can help others heal themselves (not fix them), merely by just living my life and sharing my experience.

I hope this blog post is going to be helpful for you and maybe open your eyes on some of the thoughts and beliefs that might have been holding you back. You can start working on it today and slowly build a healthier mindset that’s going to empower you. You can reach out to me by e-mail or on Instagram to let me know about your own experience of getting rid of your limiting beliefs!

I am not a doctor, and if you are struggling with anxiety, depression or negative thoughts that seem to be out of control, consider seeing a mental health professional to talk about it.