Self-Defeating Limiting Beliefs

Limiting beliefs are destructive thoughts, ideas or beliefs that one feels to be absolutely the truth. They often possess a strong negative influence on one’s life and will prevent them from progressing on a personal and career level. For this reason, limiting beliefs should be dispelled and corrected. The process to do this is not as difficult as you may believe. It just requires understanding and being willing to make some changes in your thinking.

One of the most common self-limiting beliefs is the idea that I don’t have enough money. You may get hurt by this kind of thinking because if you believe it to be true, then you will continue to feel inadequate and unworthy. When you are young you don’t often get told that you don’t have enough money to go out and buy the latest gadgets or clothes. But once you start earning some money you often discover that this money has helped you achieve more in your life. In this case it makes sense to find out what may get hurt if you persist in holding this limiting belief.

Another frequent limiting belief is that I can’t do this won’t work for me. There are many people that are convinced that they can’t do something simply because they don’t believe that they can. When this type of thinking starts to take hold it can have an incredibly negative effect. By telling yourself that you can’t do something you are effectively perpetuating the belief that it is impossible. This could have an extremely negative effect on your success in whatever it is that you are trying to achieve.

Sometimes, when we are trying to build a relationship with someone or accomplish a goal we can become stuck in a pattern of believing that our way of thinking is right and their way of thinking is wrong. This can become very damaging to relationships and it is very common to feel like giving up and backing away when this happens. What many people don’t realize is that by repeating a common limiting belief over it creates an environment of confusion and makes it hard to make simple decisions. When we are in this type of environment, we will usually feel like giving up and backing away from whatever it is we are attempting to accomplish.

The last common limiting belief is that I can’t do it, or this will not work for me. These types of beliefs can create a great deal of stress in our lives and they are usually the result of being frustrated with a lack of success. The problem with these beliefs is that they are completely self-defeating and rarely accomplish anything. In order to combat this issue, it is important to realize that the only person who can control the outcome of any situation is YOU. If YOU feel like it is impossible to do something then chances are it is impossible for anyone else either.

One final example of a self-defeating belief is that I am too old or can’t do it. A common response to this belief is that it is too late or I would have done it by now. The problem with this type of belief is that it perpetuates itself and actually has the opposite affect on people. It is true that you may be too old to achieve the goals you desire in life but anyone who tells you that they are too old has probably been burned by a self-defeating belief like this before. You will be much more successful if you let go of any beliefs that have caused you to feel this way.