What are limiting beliefs and how can you overcome them?

Limiting beliefs are those nagging doubts you have about yourself that minimise your ability, knowledge, skills and experience. You believe them to be true and so you tend to stick by them, no matter what. Your limiting beliefs affect the perceptions you have about what you can achieve and inform the choices you make about your life and career. They are often subconscious, so you may not even be aware that you have them.

But, everyone does…

Limiting beliefs that are conscious are sometimes referred to as an ‘inner critic’ - that voice inside your head that tells you that you can’t do something because you are <insert negative thought about yourself here!>

Limiting beliefs can be damaging, but they exist for a reason. Learning more about what they are, where they come from and what you can do about them can help you to be bolder, braver and happier with the choices you make. Shifting or reframing your limiting beliefs could be the key to your development and career success.

So where do they come from..?

Limiting beliefs are often formed in early childhood and are reinforced by the ‘evidence’ you collect as you move through your life (more on this later). Your brain is designed to protect you from harm; learning what is safe and what is unsafe. A limiting belief is an attempt to protect you from feeling pain - both emotional - such as embarrassment, heartbreak, rejection - and physical.

For example, if your parents or caregivers didn’t listen to you when you were a young child, or worse, if they showed a lack of interest or even annoyance when you spoke to them, your brain will have stored that information so that it can protect you from feeling rejected and hurt next time.

You have learnt that speaking up or sharing your thoughts is either pointless or bad. Your limiting belief here might be: “When I speak up, I will be rejected. No one wants to hear what I have to say.”

Your brain likes certainties so, because of a process called confirmation bias, you will seek out evidence that supports this belief, throughout your life. When you forget your lines in the school play or the teacher doesn’t pick you to answer a question in class or you get bad feedback from a presentation you gave at work, this information backs up and confirms your limiting belief so that, in your mind, it is true.

It probably goes without saying that the limiting belief will affect your ability to do anything other than reinforce that belief through your actions e.g. you believe you will be rejected if you speak up, your brain triggers a fight, flight, freeze response to stress and you are unable to articulate yourself well. And now you have more evidence to back up your belief…

It’s a continuous cycle that can be hard to break but, once you are conscious of your limiting beliefs, there is a very simple technique you can use to beat it (keep reading...).

Not all limiting beliefs are formed in childhood. You can pick up a limiting belief at any time in your life, especially during times of transition. For example, if you are returning to work after parental leave, changing careers or have become a manager for the first time. Your feelings and doubts here can also often overlap with imposter syndrome, which can affect literally anyone and everyone.

The cognitive process is the same but, if you identify your limiting beliefs early and with the right support, you can stop them in their tracks before they set in.

A little bit of science:

When something negative happens to you, your brain stores this information in the hippocampal region, or the social / emotional brain. This is where your emotions are generated and stored - your memories and emotions are intrinsically linked. When a memory is triggered, it generates an emotional response that can override your prefrontal cortex, or logical brain. You react instantly, rather than responding logically.

The more you experience an emotional reaction to certain situations, the more habitual the response becomes. Think of it as a well trodden track that gets deeper the more you walk down it. Your brain likes certainty and will always take the easiest route - it works extremely hard sifting through tonnes of information every day, it needs to take a break where it can!

When you become aware of a limiting belief, you have the choice to respond differently - reactivating your prefrontal cortex so that you can reflect on the situation and respond in a more measured way. You start to carve out a new track. At first this will feel clunky and, at times, hard. But the more you choose to guide your thoughts down the new track, the easier it becomes.

Eventually, with work, taking the new track will become habitual and you will no longer be in the grip of your limiting belief.

Identifying your limiting beliefs

Think of something that you would like to be better at e.g. public speaking, budgeting, difficult conversations.

First, check that this will be useful to work on:
If I were to be better at this, what difference would it make to me?

‍Then, think back to the most recent time you were faced with this situation:
What do you believe about yourself that could be holding you back?

You might have to dig deep here but some examples are: “No one wants to hear what I have to say”, “I am terrible at maths”, “I always say the wrong thing”, “I need to be liked”.

Once you have identified what your limiting belief in this situation is, it’s worth reflecting on where this belief might have come from e.g. “My parents always told me that I am shy”, “My mum is bad at maths and she told me that I was just like her”.

What you tend to find here is that, although you may have collected some evidence to reinforce your limiting belief, the original belief often stems from something that someone else has told you about yourself - either verbally or through their behaviour towards you.

Learning that the belief was never really yours to begin with can help you to start to wriggle out of its grip.

Identifying your limiting beliefs

Take the limiting belief you have identified and:

Own up to it
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Acknowledge that you have this belief, you know where it comes from and you have the power to change it. Don’t skip this step, it seems simple but it’s important to give yourself psychological permission to change.

Acknowledge that these are beliefs and not truths

You may have bucketloads of evidence to support your belief but this still doesn’t make it true. All it means is that you have been stuck in the loop of acting out your limiting belief time and time again…

Try on a different belief

This is as simple as reframing your belief. So, if your limiting belief is: “When I speak up, I will be rejected. No one wants to hear what I have to say”, try reframing this to be: “I have as much right to speak / share my opinion as anyone else, there is no reason to believe I will be rejected”. It’s that simple.

Of course, you won’t believe this the first time you say it / write it but, the more you repeat the thought - like a mantra when you find yourself in relevant situations - the more you will divert your thoughts down a new track and away from the old belief.

Who can reinforce this?

Accountability is key. Sharing your limiting belief and re-frame with your Voco partner is a great starting point. Asking them, and perhaps others, to give you examples of where you have already beaten your limiting belief can be powerful.

Act as if the new belief were true

It’s not quite, ‘fake it till you make it’ but it’s not far off. Acting out your new belief is a way to reinforce the thought process. The positive feedback you receive e.g. you spoke up in the meeting you never share your thoughts in, becomes your evidence for the new, more positive belief about yourself.

In summary...

Limiting beliefs are normal, everyone has them, but they can really hold you back. Recognising what they are, when they occur and why you have them can help you unlock your potential.

Working to re-frame your beliefs will help you to beat the limiting belief. Acting out your new, more positive belief and gathering evidence to support it will eventually banish your limiting belief for good.

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