Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
Do you have beliefs about the world and about the way things are in general? These limiting beliefs could be holding you back, how to overcome them?
There are many reasons why we develop limiting beliefs, such as being influenced by friends and family. Many of these limiting beliefs are just the result of negative thinking. However, negative thinking is not a reflection of reality, it’s often just the result of societal programming, peer pressure, and various other influencing factors.
What is a limiting belief?
Limiting beliefs examples. “I can’t do or achieve something”, “am not good enough”, “that’s impossible”, and generally a belief which prevents you from doing something. People often label and judge themselves and others quickly. The majority of people in our society share similar beliefs about what is possible and what is not. Generally these collective beliefs are negative, this will be very obvious to anybody that has ever tried to start their own business or achieve something good. They soon discover that most people are critical of their ambitious plans, it can even lead to ridicule.
Why do people criticize ambitiousness?
One reason is because most people don’t like other people going against the norm. People don’t like the idea that you can achieve something that they cannot, which becomes an ego thing. It’s also a comforting belief that something cannot be achieved, this gives people a nice easy excuse to not even try.
Overcoming these limiting beliefs
Firstly discover what your actual limiting belief is, really dig deep if you need to. Once you know what that belief, is analyses it and pick it apart. Objectifying your thoughts and beliefs is a great way to prevent them from controlling you.
Find out where the belief came from. It maybe something that stems from a past experience, past failures, childhood experiences, popular societal beliefs, or it could be one particular negative person in your life that puts you down and puts limits on you.
Use affirmations and positive self talk. Positive self-talk is like reprogramming your mind and installing new positive beliefs and ways of thinking. Positive self talk can be very effective if you keep it up.
Read about successful people and the adversity that they had to overcome to achieve what they did. They would of faced the same challenges that we all have. The main difference is they didn’t pay attention to the doubters. Instead, they listened to themselves and stayed positive.
Set small achievable goals. When you achieve them they will be small successes, it will increase your confidence and install some new positive beliefs. When you succeed at one thing, it makes you think about what else you can achieve.
Act upon your knowledge. If you know what or who is causing your limiting beliefs, act upon that understanding and make a change. For example, if it’s a particular person, find ways to deal with that person less, if possible or even avoid them completely.
