What are Limiting Beliefs? Limiting beliefs are false ideas, thoughts or opinions that one strongly feels to be the truth. They often have a powerful negative effect on one’s daily life by preventing them from progressing and growing on an emotional and personal level. These ideas often originate from early childhood years and can prevent you from growing as a person and sometimes they can even grow in intensity until they become a major block to your personal growth. You can find and work through limiting beliefs, but it is important to recognize them for what they are so you can work to get beyond them.
One of the first ways that limiting beliefs may set in is if you feel that you are not good enough or talented enough to do something in your life. For instance, if you believe that you are not talented enough to be successful in sales, you may have this strong limiting belief. In order to get out of this belief you may need to try very hard to get out of it, and if necessary start practicing the things that you are supposed to do but were holding back from in fear. If you constantly hold yourself back from doing the things that you know you are capable of doing, you will never reach your full potential. Remember that if you only focus on what you can’t do, you may get stuck believing that you are not talented enough to be successful at doing those things.
Another example of a limiting belief is when you have these kinds of self-sabotaging beliefs. It may be that you worry that you might not be able to land a job because you do not have enough experience. You might also think that you might not be a good leader because you lack the skills needed. You can start by examining why you are holding these limiting beliefs and work to eliminate them.
What are some examples of these limiting beliefs? One example is this: “If I fail at this task, then my entire career will surely fail.” Another one is this: “If I am not very good at getting along with people, then maybe I will not be able to succeed at this job.” Another belief is this: “If I am not very good at picking stocks, then I will not be able to make a lot of money.” Or, “I think that I would not be successful in this new business venture because I lack the necessary skills.” Or, “If I am not very good at handling customers, then I cannot possibly be a good salesperson.”
Once you understand your limiting beliefs, you need to work to eliminate them. For example, if you believe that you are not talented enough to be a good leader, then you need to find out why that is the case and how you can overcome it. You can start by doing some simple research, reading some books on leadership, and going on a leadership seminar or workshop.
It’s also important to ask yourself some tough questions: Are my limiting beliefs holding me back from success? Is my belief that I am not good enough holding me back? Will they really hold me back from the life that I really want? What are the alternatives for me?
It’s also very important for us to keep in mind that our self-limiting beliefs aren’t actually the truth. They may have been what we have been led to believe in our lives up until this point, but they are not true. Instead of focusing on what we believe to be true, we need to focus on what’s actually true. Our new belief could simply mean that we are better suited to lead a certain type of company or that we have an easier time recognizing sales leads. However, if those things are true, we need to find a way to prove them.
If you want to increase your productivity and succeed more in life, then you must remove your self-limiting beliefs. Don’t believe that you are unable to achieve whatever it is that you want to because of these beliefs. In fact, by removing your self-limiting beliefs you will have more opportunities to accomplish what it is that you want. It might even sound a little bit magical, but that’s the power of new beliefs.