As an adult with limiting beliefs, you may believe a lot of things that are negative and hold yourself back from the things you really want to do. You might have a negative view of yourself and your abilities. You may believe that you are not worthy of love or have less than desirable qualities. Or your limiting beliefs might be as simple as the fact that you think you don’t have time, money or energy to do the things that really interest you.
You can change your self-limiting beliefs if you want to. You can develop new beliefs for yourself. You have to want to change; it is as simple as that. The first step is to understand your belief system and decide to either challenge those beliefs or to eliminate them. Once you understand your beliefs, you can then decide whether or not they are true and how to make them work for you.
If your self-limiting beliefs are primarily based on the negative, “You are not good enough,” or “You aren’t pretty or attractive enough,” then this new belief will help to dissolve these self-sabotaging ideas. Replace these negative thoughts with new beliefs that focus on your positive attributes. Some of your new beliefs might be, “I am intelligent and I can accomplish anything,” or “I have beautiful friends and family.”
In addition to replacing your negative self-limiting beliefs with new ones, you also need to make a mental note of how you feel when you are doing these things. Sometimes, it helps to write down the results so that you can see yourself in a different way. For example, sometimes when I eat too much at a restaurant, I might feel like I’m disgusting myself or like I’m a piece of trash. It’s important to change your mindset to “I’m a delicious person and I don’t feel like I’m an inconsiderate eater.” Once you’ve made this mental note of your emotions when doing something that you don’t enjoy, then you’ll be better able to resist doing it.
To make these new beliefs stick, make sure they are motivated by good reasons. Bad reasons may seem easier to do but are actually weaker and will soon turn into a dependency. Once you’re in a habit of using self limiting beliefs for protection, you will find yourself doing things that you really don’t want to do or that you hate doing. You will have turned yourself into an emotional wreck, which is exactly what you don’t want to be.
The beauty of changing your self-limiting beliefs is that they are generally not very hard to replace. You can easily get rid of them through the process of becoming an emotionally healthy, confident, and self-confident person. However, you must believe that these new beliefs are real, and that they are motivated by good enough reasons. Otherwise, if you’re relying on them as protection, you’ll soon turn into a slave to them. Once you realize that what you don’t like about yourself is your own personal opinion, and that no one has the power to change who you are, then you can start making a difference in your life.