Recognise any of these?
You say you want to settle down but before you know you’ve booked yourself another international adventure, whoopsie.
This time you are really going to stay committed to working out and eating healthily, but three weeks in and you find yourself back on the couch, Netflix & chill baby.
You are so ready for a stable relationship with a committed partner, so how did you end up with that douchebag that only texts you whenever he’s bored - again??
Or perhaps there’s another situation that you are desperate to change, but you keep finding yourself back in square one, over and over again.
Sounds familiar, am I right?
We can be so committed to changing something about ourselves or our lives, but sometimes it can be so difficult to make a real change in the long term. That’s probably because limiting beliefs are at play.
Limiting beliefs
We all have beliefs about ourselves, about others, and about the world. Beliefs form the basis to shape our thoughts and help us to understand what’s going on around us. We’ve created our deepest beliefs in our early years of childhood, through impactful experiences or things we repeatedly heard, saw or experienced. These beliefs helped us to make sense of what was going on around us at the time, but often they stop serving us in adulthood.
Here’s an example. Perhaps you had two very hard working parents who were never much around. You might have learned to rely on your own, entertain yourself and not ask too much from others. Your belief could be: “I need to take care of myself” or even stronger, “I’m too much”. This belief helped you to adapt to the reality in your childhood, but can hold you back in adulthood. Because if you deeply believe you’re too much, you could be witholding yourself from making real connection or relying on others.
That’s why we call these beliefs limiting beliefs. They block you in some way in reaching your goals or creating your dream life. Some popular beliefs are “I’m not loved”, “I’m not good enough” and “I can’t do it”.
From belief to reality
So how are limiting beliefs playing a role in our reality? As I mentioned, beliefs shape our thoughts. Our thoughts often create our emotions, and our emotions lead to our actions. And our actions determine our reality. So if you’re trying to change your situation with willpower alone, but your beliefs are not on the same page, it probably won’t get you very far. This is the square one loop you keep finding yourself in. Because you can try to change it with actions, but if you don’t truly believe that it’s possible, there’s this magical move that eventually sends you back to the same old.
So if we really want to make a change that will last in the long term, we also need to work on our beliefs. Actually, we should start with working on our beliefs, I would say. Because beliefs are the fundament we are building on.
Ok, how do I do that?
There are some steps you can take to change your beliefs. It’s not a quick fix, but it’s worth it. Are you curious to know more? I’ve created a free video for you that explains everything you need to know about limiting beliefs, plus the steps you can take yourself.
And there’s more! If you watch my video, you can schedule a FREE 1:1 45 minute call so we can go over your limiting beliefs together. I’ll help you to identify your limiting beliefs and create more empowering ones, and give you some extra tips for embodying them.
Are you in? Sign up here!
