What Are Limiting Beliefs?

Limiting beliefs are the things we believe about ourselves that hold us back. Not only do we believe them, but we can find evidence for them. They are the stories that run a loop in our minds, often subconsciously.

Limiting beliefs are a protective mechanism. They keep you safe, they keep you the same, they keep things familiar and help you maintain the status quo. They are doing their job.

But if you’re reading this, my guess is that you don’t want to stay the same and the status quo is no longer comfortable. As much as limiting beliefs can hold us back, they also can be the source of our greatest expansion.

Where Do Limiting Beliefs Come From?

Limiting beliefs can come from many places:

• Our parents’ or caregivers’ beliefs – These are the things we observed, heard directly, and overheard as kids. Our parent’s disapproving voices often become our own critical voice. Your critical voice is the voice of your limiting beliefs. Think of your critical voice as a 4 year old – it thinks in black-and-white, good-and-bad and absolutes. If “talking back” to your parents was seen as a bad thing in your household as a child, your critical voice may be telling you a story that speaking up isn’t safe and the limiting belief you hold could be that, “I am not assertive” or “I am shy”, or “I am not good in front of people”. or “I won’t be accepted/liked/loved if I say what I’m really thinking,” or “conflict is scary.”
• The things people of authority told us – Much like the stories and beliefs handed to us from parents, we can get those from people of authority. And, it doesn’t mean we had to have received them in childhood. Those beliefs can be handed to us as teenagers and adults, especially from people who hold a position of power, whether formal power like bosses and teachers or informal power like former or current partners, colleagues, etc.
• The meaning we assigned to traumatic experiences – There is Trauma and there is trauma. Big T Trauma is things like sexual abuse, physical abuse, poverty, and parents with addictions. Little t trauma is things like being bullied in 5th grade for a funny haircut or being overweight, having to move away from your friends as a kid, getting a bad grade when you tried so hard, being laughed at when you had to read in front of the class that one time, etc. Trauma isn’t about the size of the event, it’s about how your nervous system, memory and energy registered the event. If you had any kind of trauma – big T or little t – as a kid, (everyone raises their hand), then you likely assigned some meaning to that trauma and that meaning may be at the root of limiting beliefs you hold. For example, I grew up with two older brothers and an overprotective father. Being the baby and the only girl in the family, I was very well taken care of. As teenagers, my brothers didn’t love having to take baby sister to her first day of school, introduce her around, fix her car when it broke down, talk to the neighborhood bully, etc. None of these things were traumatic, but when they happened and my brothers or dad jumped in to rescue me, the meaning I assigned is the source of a limiting belief that I struggle with today… “I am not capable of big things” and it’s close relative, “All my success is because I’ve gotten lucky or I rode the coattails of other people.” Thanks bros *grimace emoji*.
• Our cultural beliefs, friend groups, religious groups, etc – Our peers, those who we spend time around, our cultural upbringings and unspoken norms can be sources of limiting beliefs. For example, if you grew up in a poor neighborhood, the common belief may have been that money was evil, people with money are bad, or that money doesn’t come to “people like us.” If you grew up in a conservative religious family, you may have limiting beliefs around your sexuality and sexual exploration. If you grew up in Mexican-American culture, you may have limiting beliefs about commitments to your family above all else.

How to Get Rid of a Limiting Belief

Bad news – you cannot get rid of a limiting belief. Good news – you can, however, reduce its power and replace it with more expansive beliefs. Limiting beliefs reside in the subconscious. In order to change them, we need to do so at the subconscious level. And here is how:

1. List out your limiting beliefs, one by one. On a blank sheet of paper make three columns. The first column is your limiting beliefs column. Set a timer for 5 minutes and write every limiting belief down you can think of. Some beliefs you write down will hold more power than others and you’ll know it because you feel your heart sink or you may feel a twinge of sadness or regret, or it feels like salt on an open wound. Circle those ones or put a star by them. Those ones where you feel something when you think about them or say them out loud? Those are the juicy ones. Here are some prompts to get you started on your 5 minutes:
   • Why haven’t you gone for that promotion?
   • Why isn’t your relationship as fulfilling as you know it can be?
   • Why are you terrified to go after that calling on your heart?
   • Why haven’t you chased that childhood dream?
   • What do you think about people who are wealthier than you?
2. In the column next to the limiting beliefs that have a star, write an expansive belief. Now here’s the trick with an expansive belief – it has to be a more expansive belief that you can actually find some truth in and resonate with. For example, if you have a limiting belief that you are shy, awkward, and a little boring, you might not want to write down an expansive belief that is something like, “I’m an outgoing social butterfly that knows how to work a room.” That could be too far of a leap to make at this point. You could, instead, find merit in an expansive belief along the lines of, “I’m deeply interested in people, I enjoy connecting with like-minded people, and I have a depth in several interests that makes me interesting.” Write these in the middle column, only for the limiting beliefs that carried some weight with you. As you write these, notice and enjoy the positive feelings that come as you write them. You might feel a lightness in your chest, a warm sensation in your belly or tingling in your shoulders. Enjoy these. Allow these feelings to occur and sit with the feelings as long as you can. DO NOT SHOVE THEM AWAY! This is an important step! Allowing the good feelings to flow in helps to reprogram your nervous system and subconscious that it is safe to invite in new beliefs.
3. Next to your Expansive Beliefs, write out proof points. Proof points are evidence that you can find in your life to support your expansive beliefs. If you can believe that you are deeply interested in people, enjoy connecting with others, and have deep interests that like-minded people find interesting, what are your proof points? What experiences in your past show you that? Was it that conversation you had with that acquaintance that one time where it flowed, you felt deeply connected, and you were so energized afterward? Was it that great first date with that one person (regardless of the outcome of the potential partnership) when you both geeked out about that cool interest of yours? Write all those down. Do not skip this step! These proof points are a critical step in telling your brain you actually aren’t your limiting belief.
4. Make one small promise to yourself that supports one of your new expansive beliefs. The work you have done so far has been on paper and in your mind. This is where you start to take action. Make one small promise to yourself that involves an action you can take to reinforce one of your expansive beliefs – and only one. If one of your expansive beliefs is that you like connecting with people, maybe the “one small promise” over the next 7 days is to ask 3 store clerks, “what kind of day are you having?” instead of “how are you?” You can do this! Remember, you have evidence that you can.
5. Now for the next 7 days, you are going to do The Work.
   1. As you keep your one small promise to yourself (see #4), you are going to celebrate it every night. Feel how good it is to keep that promise. Celebrate how expanded you may feel. Pat yourself on your back. I like to close my eyes, put a hand on my heart and a hand on my belly, and tell my younger version of myself how proud I am when she did xyz today. Again, allow the positive feelings to flow in.
   2. You are going to read your expansive beliefs EVERY SINGLE MORNING as the first thing you do. Right when the alarm goes off, you read your expansive beliefs. You are also going to read these as the very last thing you do EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. Do this right after you celebrate your wins of the day.
   3. Finally, if your limiting belief has anything to do with feeling inadequate in any way, carve out 10 minutes to “skill up” on the thing you feel inadequate about. If I think I’m shy and awkward, I may watch one short YouTube video a day from Science of People on social skills. This will start to boost your confidence, which will move your more expansive belief into the primary position faster.

Now, this will only work if you actually do the work. So, get out a sheet of paper and start the process of expanding! Let me know in the comments how it’s going for you and what’s coming up for you.