Limiting Beleifs

Do you ever feel like you are not good enough?

That everyone else seems to have it figured out except you?

That you will never feel confident doing the thing you really want to do because your brain finds reasons not to the moment you even think about it?

That is a limiting belief.

It might show up as a voice in your head or just a heavy feeling in your body. Either way, it is your subconscious mind doing what it thinks is its job.

So how do we pick up limiting beliefs in the first place, and more importantly, how on earth do we get rid of them?

Surely, we can just think positive, right? Sadly, no. If it were that simple, I would be out of a job.

Your brain runs all sorts of programmes in the background. It distorts, deletes and filters things as they come in, a bit like you are on autopilot. Ever driven somewhere and realised you have no recollection of the last fifteen minutes? A little unnerving, yes, but that is your Reticular Activating System at work, RAS for short.

Its job is to filter what enters your awareness so you are not completely overwhelmed. It highlights what it thinks matters, based on what you repeatedly tell it is important.

So be careful what messages you feed it.

And here is the interesting bit. It is not just what you tell it. It is what other people tell it too.

It is how advertising companies get us to buy things or remember brands without even trying.

I cannot hear Jess Glynne’s Hold My Hand without instantly thinking of Jet2.

That is also anchoring, but that is a chat for another day.

Back to limiting beliefs.

They are often planted without us realising. A teacher writes on a school report Johnny will never amount to much. A parent casually says Mary is shy and lacks confidence. You may remember exactly where it came from, or you may not. It does not matter.

Your subconscious stored it anyway. So it is the unconscious layers underneath that we really need to explore.

Different personalities respond differently.

Some people hear a limiting comment and vow to prove that person wrong. And they might do exactly that, repeatedly, but still never quite believe they are enough. Others simply absorb the comment and start living as though it is true.

The trouble is that once you tell yourself you are not good enough, your RAS works overtime to bring you evidence to prove yourself right. It will chip in constantly with things like do not mess this up, people are judging you, you will forget what to say, you are not ready, who do you think you are.

No wonder your confidence wobbles.

Who can thrive with that kind of mental commentary.

Now for the good news.

Limiting beliefs can be removed.

It is simply a matter of recoding the subconscious mind.

Think of it like resetting the combination on a lock.

You just need to know the steps.

With a padlock you would check the instructions on the packet.

The trouble with your brain is that nobody handed you the manual.

This is where NLP Comes in, how to remove limiting beliefs is covered in the Rider Mind

Mastery Programme or check out the free video’s in the Self Belief Hub.