Learning how to overcome limiting beliefs is something we all struggle within our lives. This is not an easy task. Often our limiting beliefs stem from years and years of learning from our external surroundings. Things like our parent’s expectations and society’s expectations can not only create limiting beliefs but enforce them.
In my personal journey, I’ve struggled with overcoming limiting beliefs around self-esteem and self-worth. These limiting beliefs have affected every area of my life. That’s the thing with limiting beliefs, they often affect every area of our life.
Learning how to overcome limiting beliefs means we not only have to dig deep and look back but we also have to be willing to take responsibility for the decisions we have now.
These simple steps on how to overcome limiting beliefs are steps that I’ve taken personally. They’ve helped me to learn how to understand why I think the way I think, take responsibility for them and also empower myself to change my life.
If you like this process I also have a set of free worksheets that I’ve created to help guide you through it!
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Step 1: Self reflect
The most empowering step we can take in overcoming limiting beliefs is to give ourselves space to reflect. For me, a simple task of journaling and asking myself why is a great exercise.
For example, recently I created a beliefs list. I wrote how I was feeling and what I believed about my career. These are some things that came up:
- Feeling overwhelmed and full of self-doubt
- Feeling like I always get interrupted
When I asked myself why I was feeling this way I came up with the belief that:
- I don’t take myself seriously
Digging further I then realized that belief stemmed from the belief that:
- If I don’t earn enough money from something, then I don’t take it seriously
So how do these beliefs attribute to my feelings of:
- Feeling overwhelmed and full of self-doubt
- Feeling like I always get interrupted
I realized when I work with the limiting belief that “if I don’t earn enough from this then I don’t take it seriously” it meant that I spent time saying yes to everything and everyone above my work. When I wasn’t taking my work or myself seriously, others weren’t either. These beliefs fueled the action behind always putting others needs first and saying yes instead of saying no.
Step 2: Take responsibility
After I wrote my beliefs list and created awareness around how this affected my life, I took responsibility.
This might sound like a weird thing to do but it is truly empowering when we look back and realize just how much of our negative conditioning has affected us. We see how much of it we’ve ALLOWED to affect us.
I didn’t criticize myself or blame anyone, I just realized that if I had the power to let my limiting beliefs to determine so much in my life, then it was also up to me to change that.
Which led to the next step…
Step 3: Create a new beliefs list and ask yourself what action you can take to make changes
One of my big life mottos is no matter what happens to us we always have a choice. When I reflected back on all these beliefs and my past, I didn’t feel angry or disappointed. Instead, I was grateful for the awareness I had now and took that awareness with me to make better choices going forward.
It was up to me to clear these limiting beliefs and change my life.
I made a decision to take conscious steps to change these beliefs and how they affected my life.
The steps I’m currently taking to work on these beliefs include:
- Seeking professional help from a psychologist
- Practicing EFT/Tapping to help me work through these limiting beliefs
- Writing a new beliefs list with action I can take to change my situation
To create real change in my life I knew I needed better beliefs. I wrote down a new beliefs list which had things like:
- Whether the money comes or not, this work is soulful and authentic work for me
- I trust in myself and my voice to go in my own direction
After doing all this inner work I realized the action I needed to take. To value my ideas and passions I needed to set structure and boundaries. It went back to the whole “if I don’t take my work seriously then no one will”. So I spoke to my partner and set firm boundaries around the days I work from home such as:
- I have office hours for Mondays & Fridays when I work from home which means I don’t answer my phone or do other household tasks in between those hours
- No visiting or visitors on Fridays or Mondays – these are workdays for me despite being at home
These are just a few examples of the things I currently do now.
This is a short but empowering journaling exercise on how to overcome limiting beliefs. It doesn’t involve hours on end of reflection but for the hour it takes it’s super powerful!
Here’s a recap of the steps to take to overcoming limiting beliefs:
- Self reflect on how your feeling in your life and ask yourself why
- Take responsibility for the power you have now to change it
- Write down a new beliefs list and action you can take to start making changes in your life
3 simple steps, less than an hour but a complete change in life direction! This is all it takes to make small moves towards the life you want for yourself.
