[HeartWork] Limiting Beliefs
Welcome to a new mini series within this podcast called HeartWork! These episodes are designed to teach or walk you through a self-coaching tool for your journey to your highest self. We’re kicking off the series with Limiting Beliefs.
What Beliefs Are
Our brains decide what becomes a belief and what doesn’t. When something is coming into our brains, our subconscious mind either is deleting, distorting, or generalizing. For example, someone says, “I love your shirt” but your mind distorts it as an insult. Or you’re deleting what they said but just heard them say something in regards to your appearance. Our brains delete, distort, and generalize based on our beliefs, identities, values, memories, and experiences. If you have belief that you aren’t good enough, then your brain is going to automatically delete, distort, or generalize from that filter.
Our beliefs are very powerful. They have the ability to filter what we think is possible for us. Beliefs become beliefs when a thought has run through your mind over and over again from your experiences and cultural/societal programming. An example of that would be if you were told that you were always the “shy one,” your brain will continue to believe that even if you’re the opposite of how one define’s “shy.” It’s important to recognize when a belief is harmful versus when it is not harmful.
Uncovering your limiting beliefs is something that you’re going to work on daily. I have this belief that I have an addiction to effort. In order for something to work/me to feel worthy, I had to put effort. This came from me feeling that I don’t have the privilege of being sad. I’m addicted to effort because I don’t want to feel sad. I am uncomfortable with being sad. I was able to uncover this limiting belief with my coach and my mastermind; by sharing my experience and tools I’ve learned, I strive to help you uncover a couple of your limiting beliefs with this episode.
Common Limiting Beliefs
Here are some common limiting beliefs:
I'm not good enough
I'm not a great speaker
No one cares about what I have to say
I won't be able to handle it
I’ve been like this for so long, this is just who I am
And the list goes on! To be honest, you don't realize some of the beliefs you have are “limiting” because you just assume them to be true. These are most harmful because we just assume these are true.
So before we get into the process, it's important for you to understand that you don't have to believe everything you think. You actually don't have control over all the thoughts that enter your mind- but you do have control over the thoughts you CHOOSE to believe. Because you have that choice, you can also choose to stop believing the limiting beliefs you have about yourself.
By building awareness of your thoughts, you’re able to slow down and inquire:
Is this thought true?
How does it make me feel inside?
Who would I be without this thought?
You don’t have control over your thoughts. Because you have a choice, you can choose to believe the thoughts you want to believe -- before having a choice, you must build awareness. Building awareness looks like journaling, meditation, and life coaching to name a few. Understand that you can choose to believe the thoughts that you have.
A 5-Step Process to Find Your Limiting Beliefs and How to Unlearn Them
Grab your pen and journal because we’re ready to dive into the unlearning process:
Think of your big dream or goal that you have to achieve. Then, write down all the reasons why you can't achieve it. The bigger and more “unrealistic” your goal is in your brain, the easier of a time you'll have in finding your limiting beliefs
Each reason why you CAN'T achieve your goal is most likely a limiting belief. Take each belief through this series of questions on paper:
Where did this belief come from?
Does this support my mental, emotional, or physical health?
Is this in alignment with the life I want?
Is this congruent with my authenticity and the person I am? The person I want to become?
Do I believe this to be true to myself?
Be really honest with yourself. Take time to acknowledge and take personal responsibility of where these beliefs came from and with radical self-love consciously decide to let them go
Write out your new beliefs! Journal on these questions:
What do you want to believe to be true of yourself?
Who do you need to become in order to accomplish your goal?
These new beliefs become your Intentions (I am statements) inside of your journal.
DO THE WORK DAILY!!! In order for you to believe this belief, you've got to write them out daily and say them to yourself every day in order to engrain them.
*Use the Your Highest Self Journal Flow to make your daily journaling effective.
