Whether you are aware of it or not, limiting beliefs are the cause of a lot of unnecessary frustration in your life. They are the by-product of your personal “world” view and unfortunately, they are a necessary component of the human experience. Limiting beliefs are nothing more than preconceived ideas, notions, and realities that have been enforced into your conscious mind over time. Your limiting beliefs have been confirmed to be true by so many people over the course of your life that you no longer know what to believe. Limiting beliefs can prevent you from taking action in the areas of your life that interest you.
So what are some of the most common limiting beliefs? When we think of something as being important or having an impact on our lives, a common limiting belief is that we should do it. It has been proven that the majority of the population believes that we should do things rather than simply think about it. We are trained from an early age to follow the leaders of our society and if we don’t do it their way, or are not able to do it ourselves, we blame others. So if someone else tells us that we should do something, we often try to make it ourselves rather than simply look at another way to achieve the same results.
Another common limiting belief is that you should not change careers. This belief is almost as common as the belief that you should not eat chocolate. Why is this so? It is because once you have been in a certain career for many years, your brain becomes programmed to see your career as the “normal” way of doing things. The only way that you can change this belief is to bring up a whole new bunch of limiting beliefs about careers.
Here’s one example of one of the most common limiting beliefs about careers: That we should not do what we are currently doing. This statement is a self-fulfilling prophecy, as it will have absolutely no bearing on how successful you are. However, if you say to yourself that you WILL be doing that same thing tomorrow, then it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. You will feel like you must change careers to be able to survive, and you will find yourself trying to make a change.
You might ask, why do limiting beliefs like this have any bearing on your success? Well, the limiting beliefs that are mentioned above have an effect on us emotionally. If we believe that the only way to get ahead is to accept less money or work harder, then these beliefs will have the desired effect on our lives. However, if we believe differently, that what makes us successful is having a large family, then these beliefs will have an opposite impact on our lives.
The truth is, that many limiting beliefs are completely false and have absolutely no bearing whatsoever on our success. You may very well feel that they are true for you at this very moment, but they are not true for everyone. You need to learn how to remove these negative limiting beliefs from your life. When you remove them, you will also gain a freedom that money can’t buy. You will gain the happiness that money can’t buy.
Here’s the deal: We can break these common limiting beliefs and give us back our sense of freedom, security, success, and happiness. The first step to getting rid of these negative beliefs is to identify them for what they are: Things that hurt us subconsciously. When we know what we are feeling, it becomes easier to attack the problem. Sometimes all we have to do is simply stop doing the thing that triggers the reaction. For instance, if your biggest problem is not being able to accept less money, then you simply need to accept the fact that money is something that we need in order to survive.
Another way to get rid of your limiting beliefs is to start using affirmations and visualizations to change your negative thoughts. When you start seeing money as a source of wealth instead of as a hindrance to living happily, you will start to see your situation in a new light. Limiting beliefs come from our past and our upbringing. Therefore, it is our responsibility to eliminate them in order to live happily. Take action now: Remove your negative limiting beliefs and start living a life of success.