Suffering from limiting beliefs handicaps your personal and professional life. Your daily life and your projects often become burdens that prevent you from moving forward and enjoying peace of mind. Fortunately, limiting beliefs are not immutable!
Your psyche is shackled by limiting beliefs. They are insidious, hurtful and humiliating. Without warning, they take over your thoughts and destroy your dreams and your personal fulfilment. But you can fight them and finally realise your potential.
A well of negativity
Limiting beliefs are rooted in our past experiences and are often the result of family and cultural influences. They are powerful because they are anchored in our automatic thought system and act as psychological barriers that condition our behaviour and decisions.
You think of everything in terms of negativity. “I can’t…”, “I’m not capable of…” are leitmotifs that exhaust you and ultimately destroy any move to action. You end up, all too quickly, admitting defeat and staying in your comfort zone with a nagging feeling of pain.
Fear of failure, fear of judgement, doubts about one’s abilities – these feelings are perfectly human. But when they get in the way of our evolution and direct all our actions, we are no longer in the realm of normality. It’s time to take action.
Thumbing your nose at limiting beliefs
To combat your limiting beliefs, you need to start by identifying them. To do this, pay attention to each of your automatic negative thoughts. When you catch one on the fly, write it down in a diary along with the situation that triggered the thought.
The basic problem with limiting beliefs is that they are false. Knowing this allows you to question their validity. What is the proof? Is it a thought based on facts or emotions? Is the belief true? You’ll find your answers by looking for examples in your own life, or in others, that contradict your beliefs, which you think are universal (when in fact they are not!).
There are a number of methods you can use to combat your limiting beliefs. The two most effective are positive affirmation exercises. In this case, you replace your “I can’t…” with “I’m capable of…”. Secondly, practise visualisation. This involves imagining yourself succeeding in any area where you feel limited. Visualisation reprograms your brain so that it accepts new possibilities.
Make your changes step by step, with patience. Give yourself time to acquire new skills by reading or taking self-confidence workshops. You can gradually move out of your comfort zone by facing up to your fears, such as public speaking. And if you can’t do it alone and the pain is too great, seek help from a therapist.
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