Is their an inner voice doubting yourself? Ever thought the other person knows more than you? or someone you know walking past you and didn’t say hello to you? and inside you think they don’t like you. These are limiting beliefs.
Limiting beliefs are beliefs that constrain us. We believe things that are often negative, untrue and are not based on facts. These can be beliefs about our rights, our duties, abilities, etc. It relates to ourselves and our self-identity. This can be things like, I am not good at remembering names or not being good at learning languages.
In fact, these beliefs in many cases do not have any truth to it. You can learn how to remember names using various techniques. Your previous experience in learning languages may be due to the language learning method and not your ability. By having these beliefs, it limits our self-belief, self-confidence, our abilities, and our future. These beliefs are often inside us from our childhood and can be things like: I don’t, I can’t, I mustn’t, I am not.
How Do We Define Beliefs?
Nobody wants to get rid of beliefs but they want to get rid of behaviors and emotions they don’t want. They want to get rid of anxiety, procrastination, and relationships that don’t work.
So what are beliefs?
“A belief is a statement of reality that you believe is true”. Philosophers use the term “belief” to refer to personal attitudes associated with true or false ideas and concepts. Most of our beliefs are unconscious. If you believe dogs a dangerous and a puppy comes in a room you won’t pat it. Our beliefs are so powerful and it impacts how we drive our behavior.
What is the Most Common Limiting Belief?
One of the most common belief is “I am not good enough”. This can be from someone who thinks they are not good at public speaking. It can be someone who thinks they don’t look good enough. It can be from someone who thinks they are not good at remembering names.
Before we go further, I would like to acknowledge a lot of the insights I gained are from my eagerness to learn new things. This particular post was inspired by a Kwik Brain Podcast I recently listened to.
Let’s Break This Down Further.
Where does the belief ” I am not good enough” comes from? Let’s take a look at the root cause of this belief and break this down logically.
The common limiting beliefs are:
- I am not good enough
- I am not important
- I am not capable
These beliefs often drive people to:
- Try hard to achieve something to prove themselves.
- To be the best to prove others wrong
- Want to be important
Why do we do this?
While the outcomes from the above drivers may not necessarily be a bad thing but do you really want your purpose to be about how people perceive you or prove others wrong?
What makes me good enough is having other people think well of me. Is it because we don’t think we are important enough? Am I not capable? Where do these beliefs come from? Our mistakes and failures are bad and if I make a mistake or failure I will be rejected. Is this really a wise thing to believe. If we don’t make mistakes how can we learn from it?
The Imposter Syndrome
A term commonly used is the Imposter Syndrome. It’s the faulty feeling you don’t measure up, or you don’t deserve a compliment or accomplishment. No amount of evidence talks to you of your belief.
Where Does Limiting Belief Come From?
Scenario 1 – Limiting Belief: The belief I am not good enough
Let’s go back to our childhood. If you are a parent, you know when you arrive home your child will run up to you all excited it. If you are not a parent, you will most likely see a young child running their mum or dad after school when their mum or dad picks them up from school. They are excited to see mummy and daddy and are seeking attention and affection.
Take a moment and imagine what will the child think if mum or dad does not show affection to the child because he needs to do something straight away. Imagine what the child thinks if the parent was too busy on the phone. If this is a common thing the parent does who would the child react over a long period of time?
Scenario 2 – Limiting Belief – Mistakes are Bad
When a little child drops a sandwich and makes a mess, the parent would often tell them off and be angry at them. What does this signal to the child?
What do the two examples have in common and what do they represent from a child’s perspective? From a child’s perspective, the father not showing affection shows a sign of rejection or “Oh, I am not important, I am not good enough”. When the parent is angry at the child, when they drop some food on the floor, the child senses mistakes and failures are bad. They feel making mistakes will result in the parent being angry and reject them. Not being able to make mistakes stops us from trying new things and innovating. In the long term, the child will be afraid to make mistakes and be less willing to try new things and take risks.
Another common example is when the child asks “Why” and the parent does not try to explain the reasons why to a particular question. This can be intrepid by the child as they are not worthy of the parent’s attention.
This is quite common among normal loving parents because this behavior must likely what their parents displayed when they were young. It’s just that nobody told these parents the impacts of this behavior and they also don’t realize it. I am not trying to have a go at any parent here. I am just presenting what I have learned and but out these scenarios and questions for you to think about.
What Can We Do About Limiting Beliefs?
First and foremost, we need to recognize limiting beliefs that exist and how they are developed. I will go through some more questions below to further drive the point through.
When you feel stuck next time, ask yourself the question – What will happen if I did this thing and failed?
Imagine you always put this one thing off you always wanted to do. When will you do it and will it get done?
If you did a thing and failed a few times. You may have a question in your mind, what will the judgment be? What will I think others are judging me for?
Thoughts that may come up include: I am not good enough, I am a loser, etc. These are the limiting beliefs playing in our minds.
Steps to Getting Rid of Limiting Beliefs
If you can trace where the belief came from, you can get rid of it.
Example 1 – The Loser Limiting Belief
For example, I never saw myself as a loser. I saw my father call me a loser. Anything you see has as color, shape, and location. Can you see a belief? Is it a fact?
Example 2 – Santa Claus Belief
As a child, most kids believed in Santas Claus. We believed a man dressed up in a red and white suit will go down a narrow chimney and deliver presents. Even if we didn’t have a chimney he can enter the house undetected. Once the child realizes Santa is just daddy in a Santa Suit pretending to be Santa dropping the present off, this belief disappears. The child now sees Santa as just a make-believe character and in this case, daddy dressed up in a Santa suit and not some man from the North Pole in a sled, the belief instantly disappears – BOOM!
Now you are aware of what a limiting belief is and know how to find the origins of a lot of limiting belief, its time to take action.
The key is to remind yourself “your limiting beliefs” are not true and when you come across any limiting belief go through some of the steps in this blog and work out how the belief became part of your subconscious. Next is to take active steps to get rid of these beliefs. Identify them, face up to them, find out when and where it occurred and try to get rid of them. Have the mindset of – I can change my limiting beliefs and make an effort to do so.
In summary, by identifying the limiting beliefs, we have to identify the emotions and behaviors we don’t want. Going back to the early time and we thought we saw it and what did we really see. This is how you get rid of these limiting beliefs
Final thoughts…
All behavior is belief-driven. For example, if you say you are not good at remembering a name, how can you remember the name? I will end with the following quote.
”Pay attention to your thoughts, because they become words. Pay attention to your words, because they become actions. Pay attention to your actions, because they become habits. Pay attention to your habits, because they become your character. Pay attention to your character, because it is your fate” – From the Talmud