How To Overcome Limiting Beliefs

All of us tend to generalize about life in general, others, and ourselves. Based on our experiences of life we form versions of the realities and these versions are the limiting beliefs, which we use to formulate rules for our conduct. Having set out these beliefs, we limit our actions within the scope of these rules. Moreover, we are constantly on the lookout for evidences to support these beliefs.

Unconscious Messages

Often, limiting beliefs are unconscious messages that come to us from our interaction with other people, from our daily living and from the advertising that engulfs us. These limiting beliefs are mostly negative in nature and they can form any part of our lives such as our financial scene, our relationships, and our self-care.

Identifying and Eliminating Negative Beliefs
The first step towards controlling and eliminating such negative limiting beliefs is to identify them and examine them. These could be lying in some corner of our brain and we might not be aware of them. It would be advisable to talk to a friend or a counsellor in order to discover their existence.

Having identified the limiting beliefs, you should try to challenge them whenever they appear before you and you can only do so if you have the courage to refute any insinuation that you are limited in any aspect of life. You have to believe that you are capable of doing anything and all that you need is to find the right way so that you are successful in your mission.

Once you have convinced yourself that you are not limited by the boundaries set by these limiting beliefs, you will naturally stop paying attention to them and slowly they will wither away. They are like weeds in your garden, which have to be eliminated. Such an elimination process will open up new areas of beliefs and activities that you actually desire and which will have a positive impact on your life.

A simple method of getting rid of a limiting belief is to first state the belief that you think is detrimental to your performance. You should write down the thought that accompanies this belief such as, “I am not good at communicating with others" and then state and write down the opposite of your limiting belief such as “I can communicate effectively with others."  You should then write down a positive thought that would go with this new belief such as ”Communicating with others is something that I am very good at." You can now describe the comfortable situation that this new belief will provide and your behaviour when you are acting under the new belief. You can now imagine yourself as an extrovert who is able to communicate effectively with other people. It would be a good idea to write down this affirmation saying that you are good at communicating with others and reciting it repeatedly.

People who have been successful in their lives have all learned how to break the shackles of limiting beliefs that had been holding them back. Moreover, they were wise enough to believe that they were not too old to try out new beliefs and that they had the energy to do so. If you want to be successful, you have to stop moving around in a circle with the heavy burden of limiting beliefs around your neck. You have to choose a direction and you should not rest or give up till you have reached your destination.

Author: Terence Young