Overcoming Limiting Beliefs: Three Steps To Owning Your Power

Today we’re digging deep into how we can start overcoming our limiting beliefs. We all have a little friend whispering to us inside our heads – sometimes she’s as silent as a whisper, other times as loud as a scream. However loud or quiet she is, she’s there, ready to voice her opinion at the moments she deems necessary. Maybe it’s when we are about to take a step outside of our comfort zone, perhaps it’s when you find yourself in the dressing room of a clothing store. Whenever your friend decides to rear her head, her words have likely been with you for a long time. She tells you things she has told you before and, usually, you listen. She is the voice of your limiting beliefs, the voice that forms words from your deepest insecurities.

You might have heard the term limiting beliefs get tossed around a lot lately. In the world of holistic wellness, it’s a buzzy word. Basically, limiting beliefs are simply the beliefs you hold that prevent you from moving forward in some area of your life. Limiting beliefs can be about anything but often times they are beliefs about ourselves, our worth, and how far we can go in this life. They are the things that we tell ourselves – sometimes without even realizing it – when things are new, challenging, or even just on a day to day basis.

I called that voice our friend because, although she may be in a negative frame of mind right now, it is possible for her to be our cheerleader rather than our doubter. It is possible for her negative comments, fear of change, and endless excuses to transform into words of loving positivity, excitement for what is coming, and limitless optimism. But she is only going to change if you commit to teaching her how.

Changing our limiting beliefs takes time, patience, consistency, and gentleness. It is a dedicated form of change that disrupts long-held connections in the brain and rewires them with more positive connections. The idea is that years and years of listening to our limiting beliefs have created pretty strong, automatic thought patterns in our brains and that the continuous dedication to disrupting and replacing those patterns with positive counterparts will, eventually, become automatic as well.

So, how do we do that?

There are three basic steps to overcoming our limiting beliefs.

Become Aware Of Your Limiting Beliefs

First things first! We can’t change something if we don’t know what it is. Begin to take notice of the thoughts swirling around in your brain. What are the things you tell yourself that stop you from doing something that you want to do? What are the words you’re telling yourself when you look in the mirror? What is that voice saying when something a little bit scary – but good scary – comes along?

Spend a week actively paying attention to your inner voice, highlighting the negative in order to determine what limiting beliefs you hold.

Which of your limiting beliefs come up for you most often? You can absolutely write these down because, if you’re anything like me, you’ll have more than one limiting belief. That is all I want you to do for step one. Simply become aware. Don’t struggle against the thoughts, just recognize them. Accept that they are thoughts and beliefs you have probably had for a long time now.

Challenge Your Limiting Beliefs

You have done a lot of soul searching, well done! It probably wasn’t easy to listen to the negative beliefs you hold but it was necessary and, now that you know what your limiting beliefs are, you can begin to challenge them.

Pull out that list you have of your most prominent limiting beliefs and go one at a time so that you don’t overwhelm yourself. Challenging your limiting beliefs will take a certain amount of willingness to recognize your strengths and the positive traits that make you you. This is not the time to be humble! It’s the time to stand proud in who you are, what you have accomplished and what you are good at.

For each limiting belief you will think back to a time in your life that proves that belief wrong.

Now, this doesn’t need to be a huge accomplishment on your part. It could be small. For example, a common limiting belief is “I’m not smart enough to do this, I will never be able to learn how to do that”. To prove this wrong, think of a time when you did something you didn’t think you were smart enough to do. Maybe you were certain you would fail a class and you passed. Maybe you were going to quit learning that instrument because it was too hard but you stayed persistent and learned a song (or even just a solid three notes).

For each limiting belief on your piece of paper, write down the moment you proved that wrong beside it.

Change Your Limiting Belief

Now that you’ve taken the time to become aware of your limiting beliefs and proved each one of them wrong, we can begin to change the statement. Pull out that list again.

For each limiting belief that you identified, you will now transform that limiting statement into a positive reframe.

Tap back into your attitude of worthiness and let’s get started. One at a time, go through your list and come up with a positive phrase to replace it with. You want to start the phrase with “I am” or “I do” or any other present tense. If we look at our previous example of “I’m not smart enough to do this” your positive reframe could be something like “I am entirely capable of learning everything that I need to (and more!)”

You want to create a positive statement for EVERY limiting belief that you identified, inspired by the moment you proved that limiting belief wrong. Connect to these positive reframes, believe in them, and write them down next to the corresponding limiting belief because you are going to be using these positive reframes to stop your limiting beliefs in their tracks.

From this moment forward, make a conscious effort to become more aware of your inner voice. Recognize when those limiting beliefs pop up and stop them as soon as you hear them. Every time you hear that limiting belief, tell yourself the positive reframe. You can say this in your head or out loud. Some people even find it impactful to physically clap, snap, or give their body a gentle shake when they recognize their limiting belief.

Catch, challenge, change your limiting beliefs consistently over time and you will notice the differences. You can turn that negative voice into your powerful supporter. Remember that this will take time and we all have moments of doubt and insecurity, just keep at it.