Recognising a limiting belief, & how to overcome it

For as long as I can remember, I had always felt like an invisible barrier was holding me back.??

A little voice inside my head, telling me you're not good enough. Blocking the way every time I thought about a career change, getting help for my addictions or just believing that I was good enough to try something.?

I was always anxious, and it felt like a voice inside my head telling me:

?"You can't."

"You don't need to."

"You won't see it through, so what's the point in starting."

Welcome to the world of limiting beliefs. A belief we hold so strongly about ourselves that it stops us from having the future we want.?

. . .

The thing with limiting beliefs is that they are not true. They feel like the truth, but most of the things we tend to believe about ourselves are just ideas.?

Ideas that we've picked up through past experience and seen enough 'evidence' for us to buy into them.?

The trouble is that we tend to make what we least want real by keeping it in our minds. And so our beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies.?

Example:?

Past experiences:?(These beliefs are always learned. If you look at a todler, or child, they don't believe they aren't good at interviews)

↓?

limiting belief -?'I'm not good enough'?

↓

?Thought:?I'm not good enough for this job. I don't know why I was invited to interview, but it won't go well.?(The more this is in your mind, the more intensely you'll think about it, and the more chance it will produce the behaviours you don't want - i.e bad interview performance)

↓

?Result:?Bad interview?

↓?

Mind's conclusion:?You see, you really aren't good enough. - More evidence stored to help solidify the limiting belief.?

And so it becomes a vicious cycle of fear-based beliefs. And it is hard to challenge worries like this because anxious thoughts are always in the future ('This interview won't go well'). And this future doesn't exist.?

Beliefs are powerful things that we tend to stick to. Even if you've see evidence to suggest you are, in fact, good enough (i.e. you ace an interview and get the job) you'll likely distort and delete this ('I got it by fluke but they're bound to find me out at some point'), because we've felt one way for so long.?

. . .

So how can we begin to see ourselves differently??

As I stated above, these beliefs are always there because of past experience. This can be one serious emotional event (SEE) or, more likely, a drip feed of events. And our unconscious holds on to these memories because it believes it can protect us from future pain by doing so.?

So to ever feel any differently, we need to know the root cause of what led us to believe them in the first place.?

The good thing is that once we find these SEEs, we can rewire the significance we gave them in the past and begin to see ourselves in a different light.?

How do we do that??

Take a moment to connect with what you actually believe about yourself.

~ Ask yourself ~?If there was something I believed about myself that was at the route cause of the issues I've been experiencing, what would that be

Example:?I believe I'm not good enough

Now close your eyes and imagine taking a tour of your childhood. Imagine your childhood home, school, and interactions with your friends and peers.?

~ Ask yourself ~

• What do I remember happening here?
• What could these moments led me to have believed about myself

Once you have something, ask yourself these questions:?

• “was this really about you? Or about the limitations of the other person?”
• ”would you behave that way?”,?
• ”What was it about them that would have made them behave like that with you/that way?”

Then ask :

• If there was one thing you could teach the younger you that would allow you to let go of this problem that you've experienced up until now, what would that be??
• And finally: Knowing what you have just taught yourself, what will that allow you to do in the future that you perhaps couldn't have believed before??

Daily task:?

Practice this with all the old memories you can find, that feel like a powerful indication of why you have your limiting belief.?

And feel free to reach out if any of this resonates with you.?