Remove your self-blocks - Becoming aware of your limiting beliefs
In the grand tapestry of personal and professional development, one thread often weaves its way through every success story and every roadblock – Limiting Beliefs. While conventional wisdom may suggest changing these beliefs, a different perspective encourages us to embrace them, understand their origins, and ultimately let them go. This blog aims to shed light on the transformative power of overcoming limiting beliefs and offers a two-step approach to break free from their chains. Last week I read about a new thought process to get rid of limiting beliefs that I would like to share with you and practical strategies for transforming limiting beliefs.
Step 1: Identify your limiting beliefs
The first step when looking at what is stopping you is to identify Your Limiting Beliefs. The journey to overcoming limiting beliefs begins with self-reflection. Do you know your limiting beliefs? Try asking yourself these questions:
What are the things that, if I had a little more confidence or courage, I would do differently?
With more confidence and courage, what might I try? What crazy wonderful dream would I go after?
Now ask yourself: Why don’t I do those things now?
The answers to the third question are your limiting beliefs.
Those limiting beliefs, I can tell you from experience, sound pretty much like this:
I am not ready.
I am too old.
I am out of shape.
I don’t have what it takes.
I’m not good enough.
I don’t measure up to others.
I’m afraid of failing.
I’m afraid of winning.
I’m afraid of looking bad or stupid.
I don’t have the support I need.
I won’t be loved.
I am not lovable.
I was raised in poverty and don’t know how to get over that.
And on and on it goes.
Have you ever wondered why humans have limiting beliefs anyway? And why are they pretty much all the same? All these limiting beliefs come from the idea in our consciousness that we are not okay. And this is the new impuls I found:
Step 2: Let Them Go
Instead of engaging in a futile battle to change these beliefs, learn to witness them with detachment. Picture them floating away like leaves on a river or clouds in the sky – weightless and ephemeral. I like the idea and will continue to try this in my morning meditation. Now let me share some Practical Strategies for Transformation as Beliefs determines success and failure. Whether you believe you can do something or you believe you can't do it - you are always right. AND HERE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT:
It is significant to become aware of your own negative beliefs. Only when we know our own destructive beliefs can we be ready to let go of them because they limit us and are false.
Personal Reflection
I remember when I had just finished my coaching training, and we’d talked about limiting beliefs and how you could get rid of them and I thought it was some magical thing that I had to try and figure out. I turned the release of limiting beliefs into a limiting belief that I couldn’t help my clients clear them! Hilarious!
Step 3: Recognizing beliefs
How do I go about it? If you want to change your basic beliefs, the first step is to recognize them. Sit down and write down the thoughts that come to your mind on topics such as success, work, friends, partnership, health and finances. Proverbs can also be an indication of a belief system.
Once you have a list ask yourself which of the beliefs are limiting, which are promoting?
Rank them in order of importance by evaluating each limiting and promoting belief against each other.
Then think about where this basic assumption could come from (this can be due to your parents, related to a failure or success, etc.).
How do you behave? How are you guided by a belief? You can also ask a good friend for help and ask them what belief they think you have. Question basic assumptions - are they true or not? Once you have identified your beliefs, the next step is to question them. Is the belief set true at all times? Does this belief prevent me from getting closer to my desires and goals or does it support me in doing so? What does my situation today have in common with the situation back then? Ask yourself clarifying questions about the belief set, such as: What exactly is blocking me? What exactly is ridiculous? What consequences should I expect if I keep the belief? What impact does the belief have on my success? What impact does the belief have on my relationships? What "price" do I pay financially, emotionally, and in terms of health? What has this belief set brought me so far?
Once you have identified beliefs that negatively influence your life, you can try to dissolve them.
Step 4: Change or dissolve beliefs
You have found a belief system that slows you down and you want to change or dissolve it? There is no patent remedy for this. These basic assumptions are programming your brain. Well-trodden paths that your brain treads again and again to understand life. If you no longer like the old paths, you have to trample new ones into your brain. Question your negative assumptions.
This is often referred to as "reframing". Particularly stressful beliefs are reinterpreted, put into a different context, and formed into a new set of beliefs. You will start to create a new belief
Conclusion
Negative beliefs can have a negative impact on our lives. But this is not a fate that you simply have to accept. If you learn to recognize basic assumptions and change them step by step, you can change your view of the world and influence your actions positively.
Choose the positive beliefs so that negative beliefs can no longer sabotage you. And then be patient: Over time, the new assumptions will replace old motives.
We often make the mistake of thinking that highly successful people are so successful because they possess some special talent. But on closer inspection, we realize that the greatest talent these extraordinarily successful people possess beyond the average person is their ability to motivate themselves to action and their thinking is driven by positive beliefs.
Let´s recap:
We distinguish between two categories of beliefs:
Inhibiting or limiting beliefs. (e.g. too late now, I'm too young) and Encouraging, supportive beliefs (e.g. I know I can do this; I am a happy guy, I have many abilities).
Every action is preceded by a thought. Remember that your behavior is the result of your state, and your state is the result of your thoughts, beliefs and physiology.
AND IF YOUR LIMITING BELIEF IS, THAT YOU CAN´T CHANGE ON YOUR OWN, HERE’S THE THING:
I could be your coach. You have the power to change! And I can help you work on the topics to support you in getting ahead, right to the point. Contact me! I'm here to guide you every step of the way. Reach out to me anytime! Book a discovery session [here] to explore how we can fast-track your success, ensuring you remove the negative beliefs that block you from having the job and life you want to have..
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Kathrina Engelhardt writes about limiting beliefs