How to reframe your limiting beliefs and take the first step toward achieving the freedom you desire.
Have you ever found yourself stuck in a negative cycle? Do you feel like you’re stuck in a job or relationship that’s dragging you down, but can’t seem to muster the strength to leave? Have you ever had that sinking feeling—like those dreams where you realize it’s all been one big mistake and now there’s no way out? If any of this sounds familiar, then I have good news for you: You don’t have to stay stuck forever. And reframing your limiting beliefs is the first step toward achieving the freedom you desire.
Self-awareness
If you have the desire to change your limiting beliefs, then you’re in the right place. But before we get into the how of how to change them, let’s talk about where they come from in the first place.
What are limiting beliefs and where do they come from?
A limiting belief is a thought or state of mind that you think is the absolute truth and stops you from doing certain things. Many people develop self-limiting beliefs during childhood, when they are learning about the world around them and developing their own identities.
These beliefs don’t always have to be about yourself, either. They could be about how the world works, ideas, and how you interact with people. These beliefs can be hard to recognize, because they’re often subconscious – we sometimes don’t even know that we have them until someone points them out to us.
The first step in changing any limiting belief is self-awareness and being able to reflect on your thoughts and actions. Self-awareness is defined as “the ability to reflect on one’s own thoughts, feelings, and actions; attentiveness directed toward oneself rather than toward objects or individuals outside one’s mind.”
You can develop this ability by practising meditation or mindfulness exercises like journaling as well as doing things that challenge yourself (e.g., going out of your comfort zone).
What holds you back?
Is it your beliefs, your fears, or a combination of the two? Identifying which is easier said than done. While our beliefs can sometimes be obvious (I’m not good at math!), they often appear as excuses in disguise: ‘I don’t have time to exercise because my schedule is so busy; the weather isn’t right for running outside today; maybe tomorrow will be better’. It’s important to ask yourself what is holding you back and identify whether there are any underlying fears or limiting beliefs that might be standing in your way.
Challenge your limiting beliefs
Limiting beliefs can restrict your ability to grow, learn, and develop. It’s a misconception that you hold about yourself or others, which can limit your success in life. They’re harmful because they keep you from doing things that would help you improve as a person, such as looking for new job opportunities or pursuing an education.
Reclaim your life
To reframe your limiting beliefs, you must first become aware of them. Becoming aware is the first step in changing any pattern or behaviour in your life. Once you are aware of what’s holding you back, then it’s time to look at the real cause of your problems.
When someone starts to feel overwhelmed by something that has happened in their lives, they often start blaming themselves and thinking there must be something wrong with them because they couldn’t handle it as well as they thought they could. This leads them down a spiral of negative emotions where they feel like nothing is working out for them and everything is falling apart around them because there must be something wrong with them – but this isn’t true! The problem isn’t really with ourselves; it’s simply our thoughts getting us stuck on this path towards unhappiness instead of happiness.
The next step after becoming aware is understanding where these beliefs came from (perhaps an event during childhood) and how we can change them into positive ones so that we can truly live our lives without fear holding us back anymore!
How to reframe your limiting beliefs
Imagine your belief is like a tabletop, and evidence supporting that belief is like the table legs. If you knock enough legs out from under it, your belief will collapse. You do this by creating doubt about your evidence or looking at it in a different way. Then, after you collapse the old, unwanted belief that makes you doubt yourself or your dream, you can use the same method to build up a new one. That’s right—you can use this method in reverse! If you determine a belief that is more empowering than the one you have now, find evidence that supports your new belief and build up your confidence again.
STEP 1: Identify a limiting belief you would like to change:
Make a list of all of the things you can think of that provide evidence (table legs) that support your belief (at least 3 pieces of evidence).
Let’s say, for example, that you have a limiting belief about money. You might believe might be: ‘I’m not good with money’. This belief could be holding you back from going after your dream job (if the job pays well), pursuing an idea for a side hustle or app that would generate passive income, or even making financial decisions like where to spend your time and energy on a given day.
Find your 3 pieces of evidence that support your claim. They could be ‘I spent all of my savings when I was 18 on a trip around Europe’, ‘I haven’t met my financial goals in 5 years’, ‘I don’t have a job that pays as much as I want to’.
STEP 2: Identify an alternative belief that is more empowering:
If you’re having a hard time identifying a more empowering belief, ask yourself “what if I believed the opposite?” For example, saying “I am good at saving money” or “I already have a job that pays me for my skills”.
Look for evidence that you have already been able to save some money, or that Europe trip wasn’t a waste of money because you gained so much experience and knowledge on the trip.
STEP 3: Unstick the emotional superglue:
Sometimes we become emotionally attached to our limiting beliefs. We experience benefits or emotional payoffs for holding onto these beliefs, which make them sticky. It is like supergluing the table legs to the floor. If you’re having trouble letting go of a particular belief, ask yourself: what is the emotional or practical payoff for holding onto this belief?
Reflect on how this belief has served you in the past. It may seem counterintuitive to question whether we need our limiting beliefs at all. But by reflecting on how they’ve helped us navigate tough situations in the past — as well as how they’ve harmed us — we can begin to see where they may be causing more harm than good now.
Next, ask yourself if these benefits outweigh the costs of keeping this limiting belief.
If your answer is YES, that the emotional payoff is worth it and you are too attached to this belief. Then you will most likely be unable to change. But if the answer is NO, the emotional payoff is not worth it and you want to give up this limiting belief. Then it’s time to celebrate because you’ve just dissolved the super glue! You actually want to change and that means it’s time to start dismantling that table.
STEP 4: Create doubt by reframing your evidence:
As we said, you believe what you believe because you look at the evidence. But what if the evidence was wrong? Or incomplete? Would that make you question your conclusion? It should, and that’s exactly the point of this step. For each piece of evidence you identified for your limiting belief, ask yourself the following questions:
- Could this be untrue?
- Is there any more to the story?
- What is an alternative explanation?
The point is to question your assumptions carefully enough to create doubt. Some assumptions will be harder to refute than others, but that’s okay as long as you can knock out enough to leave less than 3 legs standing!
STEP: 5: Find evidence to support your new belief:
Now we’re going to build up your confidence in the new belief by focusing on the positive aspects of your desired belief. Looking back at your desired belief, make a list of everything you can think of that supports this new belief. You only need a minimum of three but you want to create as many legs or reasons as possible so that this belief is way stronger than the old, limiting one.
With enough supporting legs, your new belief will stand. It might not be as strong as your old belief at first, but that is okay.
Although the table legs that held up your old belief may have been really thick or superglued because of the emotions tied to them. You can still find evidence that supports your new belief.
As you read this, you may already be feeling the positive effects of changing your limiting belief to one that is empowering. But don’t assume that your new, empowering belief will stick without some reinforcement. You may need to remind yourself of this new belief multiple times, or even read it to yourself regularly, but through repetition, you will be able to banish that limiting belief for good!
Reframing your limiting beliefs is the first step toward achieving the freedom you desire
If you are ready for a change, reframing your limiting beliefs is an important step toward gaining the freedom you desire.
When you change the way you think about yourself, your life and your future, you can create anything possible for you. The key is to build new beliefs based on the evidence available to you at this moment in time.
To change your beliefs, you need to become aware of them. One way to do this is by doing a “personal inventory” of the thoughts that run through your mind daily. When you notice yourself thinking something negative about yourself or the world around you, stop and write it down. Once you have identified some limiting beliefs that are holding back your success and happiness, reframe them by asking yourself how they were formed.
Do you want a more tailored in-depth approach?
Feeling stuck and haven’t a clue what to do?
Sometimes we don’t recognise the thoughts that can cause us to feel and behave in ways that hold us back. We don’t understand how they were formed, so how can we choose new thoughts?
Are you holding back from success out of fear that you might not achieve what you want? Your thoughts can be like a self-fulfilling prophecy, affecting your life in ways you don’t even realize.
In a private coaching session, you will learn how to do a personal inventory of your thoughts about yourself, the world around you, and the future. You will understand how these thoughts have held you back from achieving your goals and be ready to choose new ones that will lead you toward happiness and success.
Book a coaching session with me to discuss your specific challenges, get over the blocks holding you back and get into action, turning your goals and dreams into reality.
