How to Transform the 5 Most Limiting Beliefs Into Tools for Success

Limiting beliefs hold us back from reaching our full potential as humans. Learn how to question these beliefs so you can move past them.

Key takeaways:

• Limiting beliefs are negative thoughts we intrinsically believe regardless of the truth
• Everyone has beliefs, even if we’re not aware of it
• These beliefs can be faced and replaced to make way for your success

As humans, we are often our own worst enemies. At some point, we have all stopped ourselves from doing something because we didn’t feel good enough or strong enough or that we were in the right place or frame of mind. Decisions like these are products of limiting beliefs, holding us back from our full potential.

I had a brush with this confusing phenomenon in 2016 when I finally took a step back and assessed my life to find a few recurring patterns that weren’t helpful to me. It turned out that those patterns had a lot to do with my thoughts.

Limiting beliefs typically stem from past experiences and affect your decision-making, even if you’ve never verbalized them. This article explores the fundamentals of limiting beliefs, five of the most common, and how to effectively move past them.

What are limiting beliefs?

The subconscious mind controls at least 95% of our thoughts and decisions. Humans form most of their beliefs by age seven and unconsciously understand them as fact (whether true or not) for the rest of their lives.

Limiting beliefs are those we come to believe about ourselves throughout our lives, regardless of whether they’re true or false. In my case, when only two kids showed up to my eighth birthday party, I developed a belief that other people didn’t like me, which stuck with me far into adulthood.

This and other common limiting beliefs can hinder growth and stop us from becoming our best selves. Fortunately, there are many effective methods of addressing and overcoming these tricky mental traps.

Top 5 limiting beliefs

People often think they’re the only ones with limiting beliefs — it seems everyone else is confident and capable but you. The reality is that everyone experiences limiting beliefs occasionally, and some are very common.

1. I’m not good enough — This belief is called Imposter Syndrome because it can make you feel like an imposter in your job or community. You may constantly feel as if you’re incapable of doing your job despite your training or education. You may feel undeserving of anything good in your life or that your accomplishments are actually accidents.

2. I’m the wrong age — Believing you are too old or young to accomplish something is a limiting belief. Many employees feel they’re too young to apply for management or too old to change careers. These are beliefs that stem from society and other people’s opinions. The truth is that age doesn’t stop anyone from learning, growing, and broadening their experiences.

3. I don’t have time — Time can often seem scarce in our fast-paced world. When work, family, and personal ambitions collide, it looks like all your time is taken. People make time for what’s important to them, however. Improving your life often improves those of the people you love, too. Once you realize the impact of investing a few hours in yourself, it’s hard to see it any other way.

4. I don’t have enough money — Many of us put money too far up on our priority list. We don’t consider all the assets in our lives that don’t have monetary value, nor do we contemplate the many ways to get what we want at discounts, with scholarships, or as an apprentice. Money can help make life easier, but happiness is a state of mind that has nothing to do with dollars.

5. I am unlovable — When the needs for love and acceptance are not met, people become unhappy with all the other parts of their lives. Nothing seems as important because there is no one to share it with. Many people have this belief despite being in loving relationships. It typically originates from a core memory that must be faced and conquered.

Our beliefs are conditioned ideas stemming from how we’ve interpreted prior experiences to protect ourselves from future pain. We create the foundation of our beliefs by assigning a feeling or emotion to people, circumstances, and incidents.

These beliefs act as mental signals to our nervous systems that shape our thoughts and interpret our experiences. They link our mind, body, and thoughts with our behaviors.

Address your limiting beliefs to change the negative behaviors associated with them. There are several effective methods you can try to determine what will work best for you.

Challenging limiting beliefs

The most important thing to realize about limiting beliefs is that they’re often not provable or unprovable in any concrete way. Instead, you can spin the internal rhetoric in a positive way and back it up with real-life examples.

For example, I looked at my current friend group and the nurturing familial relationships in my life and turned my no one likes me into I am loved. I did this by keeping these three factors in mind:

Acknowledging

Acknowledge the limiting belief so you know when it shows up. One of the best ways to identify these beliefs is by writing down your general life beliefs and examining how each one affects your growth or holds you back.

Another approach is through behavior assessment. Identify some of your worst behavior and what triggered it. Then consider which beliefs you have that played a role in your choice.

Change the narrative

Change the narrative or reinterpret the events that led to your limiting beliefs. When my birthday party flopped, the real problem was summer vacation, not me. Sit back and take a long, hard look at some of the beliefs that hold you back, and you’ll soon realize that most of them aren’t necessarily as you remember them.

Replace the belief

Beliefs are not written in stone anywhere. They aren’t enforceable by law. They aren’t even qualifiable — they can’t be proven or disproven. Change a negative belief by completely spinning it in your head and labeling it the opposite while backing it with pertinent history.

Keep in mind how I turned “No one likes me” into “I have deep meaningful relationships” with my college peers, current social circle, and the business community and see how you can do something similar for yourself!

These three tactics are only the beginning. You will find other effective ways of recognizing your limiting beliefs the longer you work at it.

Challenging your limiting beliefs is one of the most important things you can do in your journey of self-discovery. It’s incredible to learn that things that happened to you in childhood can still hold you back today. The good news is that you can free yourself by uncovering and exposing your negative, limiting beliefs.

Spotting your limiting beliefs is easier than you think

My journey of self-empowerment and the impact I’ve seen it have on others has made me a huge proponent of personal transformation and how it changes the direction of your life, from home life and relationships to work.

Check out my Medium and LinkedIn pages to see what personal transformation can accomplish firsthand and learn more about what it can do for you.