what EXACTLY are limiting beliefs?

the wednesday roadmap: intro to neuroplasticity

I talk about “limiting beliefs” a lot so I thought I would write a little post about them specifically!

So what exactly are limiting beliefs? They are thoughts that we have taught our brain are FACTS, while in reality they are just opinions.

At one point in time, they could have been a fact, but maybe now they aren't. There are many areas of our life where we could unconsciously be preventing ourselves from living our true potential because of an old narrative. If our brain believes something is a fact, we rarely question it or test whether it is still true.

me working on my limiting beliefs through journalling :) photo by jonathan dy

Here are some examples of limiting beliefs:

• I am forgetful.

• I'm bad at memorizing.

• Rich people are evil.

• I am an anxious person.

• I'm too old to ____.

• I'll never be as good as ____.

• I don't have time for ______.

• I'm bad at math.

• I'm not an artist.

• I'm not flexible.

• I'm not a good cook.

• I'm a victim.

• I always get sick.

• I can't trust anyone.

Tony Robbins believes that limiting beliefs are stories we've told ourselves to protect us from something we're afraid of. For example, an artist may have limiting beliefs around money because they are afraid that:

• if they make more money than their peers, their friends will get jealous or think that person has a big ego

• if they make too much money from their art they’re "selling out"

• being rich would discredit them from being a "real" artist because all the artists they admire were poor, so poor = cool

Do you see how any of these limiting beliefs could unconsciously keep an artist from even trying to make a lot of money? What if they had the belief that rich people are evil from various depictions in Hollywood (Scrooge) or the media (Trump)? Well who says if they made millions of dollars that they would even have to keep it? They could donate it all or a portion of it to help others!

I hope this gets your imagination going about your own limiting beliefs! We all have them about something, and it's exciting to realize that you can keep "levelling up" in different areas of your life. Think about your career, fitness, finances, skills, relationships, self-care etc. Is there room for improvement in any of those areas? Digging deep about any limiting beliefs you have is the key to unveiling how to move past the barriers that are keeping you from achieving what you want. I like to do this through journalling about an area of my life that could use some work, and noticing when I write negative statements. You can do the same thing when you're talking with a friend and find yourself making grand generalizations in a negative way.

Once you notice your limiting belief, you may look back on your life and realize that you’ve been living in a self-fulfilling prophecy. We are pattern-seeking animals, so we will find examples to back up our "hypotheses" while [perhaps subconsciously] ignoring examples to the contrary. It's also easy to stay in your comfort zone and find excuses to not do hard things or build new skills. So, if someone ELSE points out your limiting belief, it's natural for you to get defensive, because you are still in the phase of being convinced your belief is a FACT! It's like this saying: "If you think you can't do something, you're right."

Professional athletes have to go through mental fitness exercises every day on top of their physical exercises, because as soon as they have an ounce of doubt, their performance could be affected. You may have heard that athletes practice visualization, but before this can really be effective, they have to eliminate their limiting beliefs and convince themselves that their athletic goal is possible, otherwise the visualization is just daydreaming.

I'm looking forward to going deeper into this in the future, but I hope you liked this little introduction to limiting beliefs! If you've already done a deep dive into this topic, I hope it's good a reminder that there is always some area in your life that you could surprise yourself in! I'll end with a personal story of something that I'm currently working on:

At first, it was a little scary for me to be honest about the limiting beliefs I had, but now I actually find it super exciting! Isn't it more fun to uncover what life could be like if your limiting belief wasn't true? For example, even though I've been exploring this concept for a long time now, when I was at my partner's parents' house recently, I said "I'm not an athletic person" and my partner's dad was quick to catch it! I am so grateful to him that he caught it in the moment! He reminded me of all the athletic endeavours I have actually participated in, and encouraged my desire to start playing tennis again. My mind was blown for weeks afterwards that I hadn't caught this limiting belief myself after all these years and it gave me the confidence to get active again!

When I look back at my life, "I'm not an athletic person" was an false identity I had been holding onto because athleticism wasn't something I prioritized in my youth, so I quickly got further and further behind in "body smarts" (AKA "bodily-kinesthetic intelligence"), and increasingly discouraged anytime I compared myself to my peers who were doing way better than me in sports/P.E. class/dance class, etc. It didn't feel good to fail! This prevented me from honing the few athletic skills I did have as I continued to grow up. I played volleyball, tennis, snowboarded, and skied, but I wasn't very good at any of them because I didn't put enough time into them, and had already labeled myself as a non-athletic person at a young age. I still labeled myself this way even when I was running 2 half marathons a week during the pandemic! I'd been carrying an old narrative around with me for decades- so my eyes widened in enthusiasm at how my life could change, and how much better my body could feel if I let go of this limiting belief.

Do you have a limiting belief that you're currently unraveling? Let me know in the comments, and see you at our next Wednesday Roadmap about "The Batman Effect"!