A limiting belief is a belief that you hold about yourself that is not based in fact but rather it’s your natural instinct to hold yourself back because deep down, you’re a bit scared of succeeding. The good news is that you can overcome limiting beliefs and stop them from dragging you down. Here’s how.

Start By Identifying Your Limiting Beliefs

You can do this with any goal in life, whether business or personal, just ask yourself these questions:

  • What are you trying to achieve and why?

  • Why do you think that you haven’t already done this?

  • What are the obstacles preventing you from getting to this goal?

  • When you think about doing this what positive and negative thoughts and emotions come to mind?

  • Can you feel yourself resisting your move towards pursuing this goal?

  • Do you believe that you deserve to succeed in this goal?

  • What scares you about pursuing this goal?

Some examples of what might come out of this:

  • I don’t think I have the right stuff to succeed

  • I don’t have any expertise in this

  • I don’t deserve this

  • I am too busy to do this

  • I am too old (or too young)

  • I lack support

Steps To Take To Overcome These Beliefs

Once you know what you’re thinking that’s getting in the way of success. You can start to tackle them. Here are some simple steps to do just that:

  1. Learn to see potential setbacks as opportunities. Everything that we do in life that is worthwhile involves some sort of struggle. For example, if you become a mum, you’re going to have go through child birth. If you run a business, you’re going to end up firing people as well as hiring them. That’s OK. Potential setbacks aren’t a bad thing, the sacrifices you make to tackle them are what makes your achievements so worthwhile.

  2. Learn to say “yes” to opportunities. There is never a perfect time, never a moment when the stars align and make everything super easy to reach a goal. That doesn’t matter. You have to say “yes” to these opportunities and understand that you have everything you need to succeed, already. And you do. That’s why you are where you are now right now. You’ve already overcome many challenges, dealt with many imperfect situations and you’re still here and still awesome.

  3. Lean to “fake it until you make it”. One way of making things much easier in life is to act like you’ve already done them. That means you stop worrying about failure. We all fail at things, successful people too, the difference between successful people and the rest is that they don’t care when they fail, they’re focused on succeeding. So, when things go wrong, they dust themselves off and keep going.

  4. Learn to visualise success. Think about how much better your life will be when you attain a particular goal. Visualise how good it will feel.

  5. Learn to replace a limiting belief with a positive one. That is, learn to turn your negatives into positive affirmations. That means taking a belief such as “I don’t think I deserve this” and deciding that you do deserve it and then, reminding yourself when things are tough that you deserve it and can do it and will get through and succeed.

Final Thoughts On Limiting Beliefs

There’s no shame in having limiting beliefs, we all have them. The difference between life’s winners and losers, however, is that the winners tackle their limiting beliefs, they work out what they are and then deal with them.

You can be a winner with these tips too.