Your limiting beliefs are holding you back from achieving your goals and allowing yourself to create and live your dream life. Here are 5 common limiting beliefs and how to overcome them.
Do you ever pay attention to what goes on in your mind on a consistent basis?
Are you thoughts positive, inspiring and empowering?
Or do they sound something a little like this…:
- I’m too lazy;
- I can’t do it;
- I will never achieve my goals, there’s no point in trying;
- I’m not good/smart/motivated (etc.) enough;
And those are just a handful of them.
I’m sure that if you stopped to notice your thoughts, you will start to see how negative and LIMITING they can be.
And honestly…what’s the point? What’s the f*cking point of you being so hard on yourself? What does it truly give to you to talk to yourself in such a demeaning way?
Nothing. Absolutely… NOTHING.
What are limiting beliefs?
Your limiting beliefs are exactly that : beliefs/thoughts that are limiting you or holding you back from living up to your true potential and achieving your goals.
Your limiting beliefs are thoughts that you have been conditioned to believe about yourself at a deep level.
These beliefs are so engrained in you in fact, that your mind is subconsciously finding proof to support those beliefs.
For example, if you keep telling yourself you’re lazy and you can’t do anything, what do you think will happen? Is that an encouraging way to talk to yourself to get you motivated to get your a*s up from the couch to get sh*t done?!
NO! Absolutely NOT!
Your limiting beliefs are thoughts and beliefs about yourself and the world around you that you have been taught and have learned to reinforce throughout the years from your past experiences.
They have NO foundation in reality because the truth is that you can transform your mindset in an INSTANT.
- Related: How to Transform Your Mindset
The moment you bring awareness to your thoughts and beliefs, you have the power to transform it and to change it into something more inspiring and empowering.
And yes, I’m putting together limiting beliefs with your mindset because they are interconnected – they’re all related to your thoughts and what happens in your brain.
To draw you a clearer picture of what a limiting belief is, here are 5 common limiting beliefs and how to overcome them.
Common Limiting Belief # 1 | I’m not good enough
Oh goodness… if I’m honest with you, this is a limiting belief that I am still consistently working on overcoming, but the little buggar still manages to creep in sometimes.
This common limiting belief is holding you back from achieving your goals and living life fully because you’re constantly…and I mean CONSTANTLY undermining and questioning every. single. thing.
If you feel like you’re not good enough, then you won’t believe that your dreams and goals can be come reality.
If you feel like you’re not good enough, how do you except to be loved fully and unconditionally?
Feeling like you’re not good enough will always…and I mean ALWAYS drive away good and positive things coming into your life.
This limiting belief is quite common, particularly amongst women, because we feel the need to live up to a certain standard or image of what society projects of what being a “real woman” means and we are constantly being taught, directly or indirectly, that we should or shouldn’t be a certain way.
However, despite this limiting belief and how much society is subconsciously feeding into us believing that it is the truth….you can overcome it.
How?
By sitting down and asking yourself these questions:
- What are the reasons why I am not good enough? (Give FACTS, not how you “feel” like you’re not good enough)
- What are some experiences in your life that made you feel like you weren’t good enough?
- How can you change the story about that experience – what else could it have meant?
- What are some FACTUAL reasons why I AM good enough – that I do deserve … (fill in the blank. i.e. I deserve to be happy… fulfilled…successful)
- What is a more empowering belief about myself?
Common Limiting Belief # 2 | I don’t have enough time
This might be a surprising one for some of you, but hear me out, because I actually think it’s very important to notice how often you repeat this limiting belief to yourself.
Not to get too philosophical here…but what is time…really?
It’s the perception of how quickly or slowly moments are passing you by.
So how could this belief that “I don’t have enough time” be detrimental to your life?
If you feel like you don’t have enough time, that stems from a deep seeded belief in scarcity.
If you feel like you don’t have enough time, then you are cheating yourself from enjoying the present moment. Because by focusing on the time and whether you have enough of it or NOT enough of it, then you are ignoring the more important thing, which is to enjoy the moment.
If you believe that you don’t have enough time, then you will constantly live in a state of frustration, rush and stress.
How is THAT conducive to feeling happy and fulfilled?
How will the believe that you don’t have enough time give you the mental and emotional space to channel your energy towards the things that matter more….
By believing that you don’t have enough time, you are cheating yourself from the time that you DO have, and you are draining your energy from actually doing the work and achieving your goals!
Here are questions you can ask yourself to help you overcome this limiting belief:
- What am I spending time on that is not making feel inspired?
- How do I want to be spending my time? What do I want to be doing and experiencing?
- What are some things that can become less of a priority so that I can open up the space for the things that are more important. For example, do you *really* need to wash the dishes every night? I doubt it. That time could be instead spent doing something you love and that makes you feel happy and fulfilled.
- What are some LITTLE things you can do in a short amount of time that make you feel happy and fulfilled? Because by doing “little” things, you will slowly feed your mind and soul with the things that matter the most to you and you will create a positive and inspiring cycle in your life.
Common Limiting Belief # 3 | I can’t do it
This one drives me crazy and is a belief that I removed from my vocabulary and mind a LONG time ago, and I want you to do the same.
I want to take a moment and really think about that statement : I can’t do it.
I can’t.
Why the f*ck not?!
Seriously!
Give me REAL, factual reasons why you can’t do something?
I mean, okay, there are some things you maybe can’t physical do for example, I get it.
BUT. There’s always a solution. If there is something that you deeply want to do, you can and you WILL find a way, if you truly want to. By telling yourself “I can’t do it”, you’re already limiting your ability to even think about solutions or things you CAN do!
To me, the limiting belief “I can’t do it” is simply a way that people avoid pain. The pain of potential failure, the pain of potential discomfort (because NEWS FLASH, achieving your goals WILL be challenging…!).
If you want something, you CAN do it and you WILL do it, if you really want it.
So stop making excuses and just f*cking DO IT.
Here are questions you can ask yourself to help you overcome this limiting belief:
- What are some fact-based reasons why you can’t do something? (And you have to be honest with yourself if you want this exercise to work) Are these excuses FACT? Or are they excuses?
- What are you really trying to avoid by using this limiting belief?
- What are the reasons why you CAN do it? Find at least 3 !
Common Limiting Belief # 4 | I failed in the past
If your limiting belief is that you failed in the past so that means that you can’t succeed in the present or in the future, you are seriously cheating yourself from living life.
Because your past does not equal your future.
Your past experiences does not mean that your future will be the same?
Why?
Because that’s how life works.
Life throws your challenges because you have to learn something from it.
So if something keeps on happening over and over again, that means that you’re not learning your lesson. And if you keep on looking on your past experiences as FAILURES, you’re stopping yourself from truly analyzing and looking at it to understand why it didn’t work, or why something did not happen the way you envisioned that it would.
Here are questions you can ask yourself to help you overcome this limiting belief:
- What happened in the past that you weren’t able to accomplish something? Be honest with yourself (and notice how I’m not using the word “failure” because it’s not a failure, but it can be a lesson you can learn from to move on);
- How can you use your past experience(s) to learn from it and CHANGE from it? What are the things that didn’t work and how can that be different moving forward?
- What future do you want to create for yourself? Or do you want to constantly live in the past and risk a brighter and more amazing future?
Common Limiting Belief # 5 | It’s too hard
You know what, I have to first start by saying… I get it.
Life can be hard. Things can be challenging.
I have moments where I want to look up at the Universe and scream “WHY?!!??”.
And the first thing that I will say is that yes, life can be hard sometimes. It really can be.
I don’t know what you’re going through on a personal level, but all I can say is that I’m sorry it’s been hard and that it will be okay.
But more importantly, what I want you to hear is that it doesn’t have to always be hard.
- Related: 6 Common Fears About Goals
What I want you to know, deep in your heart, is that it won’t always be hard. And that you will have moments of reprieve and joy.
What I want you to feel is hopeful. Hopeful for what the future has to bring.
With that being said, let’s tackle this limiting belief together, because at the end of the day, even though life can be hard, this is still a belief that if you focus on too long, it will hold you back from moving forward.
So. It’s too hard?
The first step is to allow yourself the time to feel the emotions around any challenging situation…but then to let it go and not sit with that limiting belief for too long or else, you won’t move forward and you will be stuck.
Here are questions you can ask yourself to help you overcome this limiting belief:
- What emotions do I feel around this specific challenging/hard situation?
- What can I learn from it? How can I grow from it?
- What are things that I can do on a daily basis to make it less hard? We’re talking about real self-care and self-love habits like journaling, meditating, exercising etc. to give you the energy to keep on going and to tackle whatever comes your way.
- What are some inspiring things that you can be doing to make you feel more hopeful and excited about the future? For example, are there any books you can, podcasts you can listen to, courses you can take (*cough* Creating a Life of Love and Purpose Master Class… shameless plug)
Get Started!
I wrote a LOT in this post, and I don’t want you to get overwhelmed.
Start with ONE of these limiting beliefs and go through the questions.
Take as much time as you need to go through every single question so that you can really understand your limiting belief and overcome it.
Keep in mind that doing the exercise once is not enough.
You will have to consistently keep on working on understanding and overcoming your limiting beliefs.
If you want to dig deeper into your limiting beliefs and you’re ready to create and LIVE your dream life, then you need to check out the “Create a Life of Love and Purpose” Master Class where you will learn everything…and I mean EVERYTHING you need to know about how to live a life that you love!
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