Overcoming Obstacles
How To Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs: An All-You-Need-To-Know Guide
It’s a common scenario:
You dedicate yourself to becoming a new person—a better person.
You start each day determined to make it the one that changes your life.
You take the right steps toward the right goals. You don’t make a ton of progress but over time, the little wins you made should have added up.
But your reality tells a different story.
You take a look at your life and it’s as if you’re not doing anything at all.
You’re stuck in the same place with the same income surrounded by the same people. You look the same. All your days look the same.
Despite all the work you put in, you aren’t anywhere close to achieving your goals.
Does this sound familiar?
If so, you have an anchor.
You are ship. With enough fuel (read: motivation), power (i.e., willpower), and the right direction (ehm, goal), you can reach peaks you’ve never thought possible.
Like a ship, you have anchors that keep you fixed in place.
Once the anchor is dropped, you aren’t going anywhere no matter how much the captain (you) tries to sail ahead.
The anchors that hold you back are of different shapes and sizes. You might have just one anchor. You may have many.
The challenge lies in discovering what your anchors are. You’ll have to take a different approach to lift each of the anchors that are holding you down.
These anchors could be your beliefs, the people you’re surrounded by, your environment, habits and patterns, self-image, mindset, etc. You have to cut the anchor loose so you can move forward.
Of all the anchors, limiting beliefs has to be the most important and unfortunately, the hardest to spot.
A lot of people don’t realize they even have limiting beliefs. Everyone has them—that includes you and me.
Let’s dive deep to take a look at the limiting beliefs anchor and how you can pull it up to set sail to your ultimate destination.
Limiting Beliefs: The Invisible Force That Holds You Back
As one of the greatest boxers of all time, Muhammed Ali is a legend. He became the first fighter to win the world heavyweight championship on three separate occasions.
One of the most powerful things he has said is:
“I am the greatest, I said that even before I knew I was.”
Right there is his secret to success.
He believed before he became.
We all have limiting beliefs. Whether or not you are aware of them is a different story.
You have preconceived ideas of what you can and can not do.
Maybe these beliefs developed after a certain situation confirmed them. You might have jumped off your bed and hit your knee to conclude that you can’t fly.
You might have been fed these beliefs when you were younger. Your teachers might have told you, “If you don’t get good grades, you’ll never amount to anything.”
You might be thinking, “But it’s true! I can’t fly.”
It’s not true.
Even though you can’t jump off the bed and head up to the clouds, you can get on a plane and fly through them. You can hang-glide. Different method, same results.
Limiting beliefs are dangerous. Sure, they don’t allow you to make progress toward a goal that deep down you “know” you won’t be able to achieve.
But that’s not all…
They stop you from trying. They stop you from giving your all.
The limiting belief causes you to fail, making the limiting belief only more powerful. Now you’re SURE that you can’t achieve what you want.
It’s the limiting belief’s dirty game.
Watch this video to see the stories of 3 incredible people who broke through limiting beliefs to accomplish the impossible.
What Are Limiting Beliefs?
Limiting beliefs are thoughts and perceptions that stop you from starting or making progress toward your goals and aspirations.
An easy way to think about limiting beliefs is that they are the beliefs that separate what makes sense from nonsense.
- “I breathe underwater.” – nonsense.
- “I can get a job” – that’s reasonable.
- “I can rent an elephant and ride it across India” – nonsense (or not?)
Here’s the problem with limiting beliefs.
They’re masters of disguise.
They fool you into thinking that they are the truth.
OvercomE Your Limiting Beliefs With the Break Free Cousre
Winners win. Doers do. Failures fail. But who decides who is what? Your limiting beliefs play a bigger role in your life than you’d expect. The Break Free course will help you create the change within so you can create the change around you
What Are Your Limiting Beliefs?
Knowing what a limiting belief is is hardly as important as knowing what YOUR limiting beliefs are.
You can hold a limiting belief about just about anything. Here are a few examples and how you can discover what limiting beliefs you have.
Limiting beliefs about yourself
Out of all the limiting beliefs you can carry, limiting beliefs about yourself are the most dangerous. These limiting beliefs are the ones that hold you back the most.
Here’s how these beliefs present themselves:
“I’m too/not [adjective] to do X.”
- I’m not smart enough to launch a successful business.
- I’m not good enough to get promoted.
- I’m too shy to make new friends.
- I’m too ugly to find a partner.
Limiting beliefs about others
Limiting beliefs about others affects how you interact with them and how they act around you.
If you believe your boss hates you, then you will interpret all their actions in a negative light.
“They only gave me this project so I can fail. She looked at me the wrong way today. I’m sure she’s complaining about me to the others.”
More times than not, we base our impressions of someone on just a few select events and many times we don’t have all the information needed.
Maybe your boss gave you the harder assignments, not because they wanted you to fail, but because they thought you were the most capable of handling it.
If you saw it through that perspective, you wouldn’t feel and act like you were being set up to fail. You’d be proud she chose you and would work harder to prove that she made the right choice.
In the same way, you may have the belief that
- Others aren’t worthy of your kindness.
- Everyone is selfish and out for their own interest.
- Other people don’t do the work as well as you do.
All these beliefs affect how you interact with other people. In the end, the only person affected by these beliefs is you. It’s your relationships that fall apart.
Limiting beliefs about the world
Yet another set of beliefs that can hold us back are limiting beliefs about the world and how it works. Many times, they represent what you were told. Sometimes, they result from how you’ve seen the world work.
You might also have a lot of reasons to believe these. You may believe that only people with college degrees can live good lives because you’ve seen the struggles of relatives.
How is this a limiting belief?
For a person who doesn’t have a college degree, this belief could stop them from applying for jobs they would be an excellent fit for. It would make them feel less worthy than others in any interview they land. This belief would narrow their outlook and would hinder them from pursuing other ways of earning money that would unlock a better life.
They would be stuck in the victim mindset. “I don’t have a degree, so it’s my destiny to live a life of hardship.”
Here are some more examples of limiting beliefs about the world.
- I have to study engineering because people don’t respect other careers.
- I have to buy a house in order to be in a relationship.
Limiting beliefs about money, love, weight loss, …etc.
You can have limiting beliefs about every aspect of your life. Limiting beliefs about money can keep you from increasing your income. Beliefs about love can stop you from finding your special someone. Beliefs about weight loss can keep you from reaching your ideal weight.
How to Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs
When I was a kid, I thought you would turn the hazard lights on if the car was broken and going to explode.
I have no idea where this belief came from. When I mentioned it once on a family road trip, I was laughed at.
Now, it lives on as a funny story of absurd beliefs children have.
Limiting beliefs are similar. They are beliefs that you hold so deeply now, but once you rid yourself of them. You can’t help but smile at how naïve you were.
Here’s how you can overcome your limiting beliefs and reach a point where you find it funny you ever held them.
1. Admit You Could Be Wrong
Have you ever tried to get someone to change their political views?
It’s like talking to a wall.
You say, “That party is the reason our country is falling apart.” They respond with “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
You can’t change someone’s opinions if they are unwilling to admit that there is a possibility that they’re wrong.
The same goes for your limiting beliefs.
If you hold them near and dear, you will never get rid of them.
Admitting you could be wrong is as simple as asking yourself, “What if that’s not true?”
That’s all it takes to get the gears turning.
Next time you find yourself reiterating a limiting belief, ask yourself, “Could this belief be false? What if it’s not true?”
2. Be Open to Alternative Beliefs
Beliefs aren’t erased, they are replaced.
Ceasing to believe the earth is round = accepting to believe the earth is flat or square or any other shape.
Once you accept that your limiting beliefs are false, then come up with alternative beliefs that will empower you.
For example, you might think you are too old to start a new job. That belief could be replaced with the belief that others are eager to hire someone with years of experience. Recruiters would love to have someone as mature as you on their team.
You say “I can’t do public speaking”. Well, did you learn about it and try it?
If you join a Toastmasters club and make 10 speeches, I’ll bet you find proof that you are a good (or at least a decent) public speaker.
Believing something not based on facts is insanity, of course. You can’t just make up a belief and believe it. These are beliefs that are to be tested. They allow you to realize that there are options. You get to choose what to believe and you get to experiment to see whether or not that belief is true.
3. Questions Yourself… A Lot
Overcoming your limiting beliefs doesn’t happen overnight. It is a process of noticing when you hold yourself back, asking whether the belief underneath is true, and considering what other possibilities there are.
It’s a process of continuous questioning.
Why didn’t I order the tuna sandwich I wanted?
I thought people would think it’s weird to eat tuna in the morning.
Why didn’t I tell my date that I loved his cologne?
I thought I would come off as trying too hard.
Why didn’t I ask for the raise I worked so hard for?
I thought that I didn’t deserve it yet. I was afraid my boss would say no.
The question ‘why’ will discover a plethora of beliefs your subconscious has been secretly using to keep you from moving forward.
Beliefs are like a table. The more legs you have supporting it, the stronger it is. But you can find legs for anything.
Want to believe the world is a nasty evil place? You can find thousands of legs to support that belief. Want to believe the world is a great place full of great people? You can find just as many legs to support that belief.
The information to support any belief is there – it’s just what you focus on and take to heart.
Limiting beliefs are not just bad, they are dangerous. They are the anchors that keep you from sailing toward your greatest achievements. You are not powerless in the face of these restraints. You choose what you believe. You choose what beliefs you act upon.
Once you admit that not all your beliefs are true, and you accept that life is not a test where there is only one right answer, you can question. And once you question, you will cut your chains loose and start moving toward the immense possibilities of what you can achieve.
