What You Believe Defines You

Your experiences shape your world view, how you perceive yourself and others. And, paradoxically, your perceptions and beliefs are the basis for your experiences, leading you to take action that you hope will benefit you in some way. To make things even more interesting, there are times when positive beliefs, and the actions you take because of them, can be limiting, leading to negative consequences and creating or reinforcing further limiting beliefs.

While limiting beliefs can be about the ways in which you perceive others and the world around you, the most powerful ones are about how you perceive yourself. These might include:

• The thought of not being enough

• The thought you don’t have enough

• The belief that you have to work hard for money

• The belief that you don’t deserve success

• Being afraid of success

Such beliefs may seem impossible to change; even when you do make a committed, consistent effort, some neurological patterns appear just too hard to overcome.

Two Ways to Start to Transform Limiting Beliefs

Here are two steps you can follow in order to make the shift to new, more empowering beliefs.

• Step back and observe your beliefs – Most beliefs are so difficult to change because we identify with them so much we think they are the truth. Our thinking becomes our reality and part of who we are. And, because we identify with them so strongly, we allow ourselves to be defined by our beliefs. If you think you’re not creative, you’ll see yourself as someone who just wasn’t born with that ability. If you think you’re bad with getting things to work, you might think you’re just not a mechanical person. It’s easy to get caught up in allowing our beliefs to define us, but they don’t have to. So, the first step is to step back and simply notice your thinking and your beliefs.

• Challenge your assumptions – Without pushing the boundary and testing your assumptions, it’s impossible to move past your limiting beliefs. You need to do something to break the pattern of your limiting belief. Questioning is the first step, but if you only do that, the possibilities of moving to a more empowering perspective will not stay in your head. Some type of action must be taken that puts your conclusions to the test. Just make sure that you’re not staying in the limited head-space, or bubble, that leads you to reinforce what you already hold to be true. Suspend your judgment and take some kind of action to test your assumptions.

Changing your limiting beliefs to empowering beliefs requires practical steps to get it done. Start with the two steps above. To go another level, give this article a quick read, 51 Ways to Break a Limiting Belief.

Filed in: Work/Life Balance | Tags: beliefs and self-care, challenging assumptions, how to change limiting beliefs, limiting beliefs, negative beliefs about self, overcoming limiting beliefs