Let’s Talk About Limiting Beliefs: Doing the Lasting Work for Meaningful Change

This absolutely lines up with what I see as a coach and with my personal experiences. My personal opinion is that the third, worthlessness, is most common, followed by helplessness. If someone is convinced that they are not fundamentally worthy of receiving something, the secondary limiting beliefs line up to reinforce that belief.

Similarly, helplessness seems to work in a way that attacks the individual, not the goal. For instance, after a limiting belief is uncovered, helplessness about uprooting the belief seems to overwhelm more than the thought of taking action itself. In the helplessness realm, much like the worthlessness realm, it’s less about the limiting belief at first because the limiting beliefs about one’s identity need to be dislodged first. 

How to Do the Work of Shifting Limiting Beliefs and Framing the Ideal

In my research, I came across a methodology remarkably similar to what I use in my practice: Affirmative Refactoring Methodology. Daria Trutneva outlines a process by which the problem is stated, an ideal scenario is created, responsibility is taken, the inner causes are explored, problematic underlying beliefs are noted, and modification of deeply ingrained beliefs occurs.

I differ only slightly in application. It’s important to truly explore the problem from all angles. Explore how it’s showing up, explore what the repercussions are, note the current impact it has, and then be sure to notice any positives these negative beliefs or habits may be providing. Embracing curiosity and compassion seems to be paramount in this stage. I am cautious about rushing to an ideal too quickly, as it undermines a lot of valuable learning opportunities.

I find value in responsibility being taken after this phase instead of after the ideal phase. If, after fully exploring the issue, why it exists, and what value it serves, we still want to replace it, let’s affirm that in this phase. It’s also around this phase that the problematic underlying beliefs are noticed. After all, they become fairly apparent after spending the time to really understand why the problem exists.

The phase of inner causes being explored is often one I leave to therapists. They have the training and tools, much more so than I do, to explore the “why” behind these beliefs, how they developed (likely in childhood) and the inner workings of these beliefs.

At this point, creating an ideal scenario is absolutely essential. It’s actually very interesting how often we notice something is not working, but when we pause to ask ourselves what we’d like to replace it with, we draw a blank. I feel having an element of play in this stage can loosen the stress and help the imagination.

For example, sometimes I start coaching sessions with, “If we could wave a magic wand and all of this could be absolutely ideal, what would that look like?” or “If somehow I could give you a magic pill to fix all of this, what would you wake up to tomorrow morning?” Actually spending the time to define the ideal is incredibly impactful.

You can see that after doing the digging to explore what the problem is, how it’s manifesting, and what ideally life would look like, a gap exists between reality and the ideal. This is important to intentionally create because, to none of our surprise, the brain does not like gaps. The brain is always trying to close gaps in understanding, does not like cognitive dissonance, and likes finding an easily accessible answer.

So after the gap is identified, sometimes we can simply let the brain do its thing and start closing the gap between the ideal and reality. This can manifest through developing new beliefs, acting with behavioral change, or compromising between the two while gradually moving toward the ideal in thought and or action.

If any stuckness occurs in this stage, which is not uncommon, it’s often because of the familiarity and comfort of the limiting belief and the fear surrounding changing to another belief.

I find in this stage that starting the new belief with “what if” is a great place to begin. For instance, if someone believes they really cannot score well on tests, but in their ideal world they always score remarkably well, that might be too large of a mental leap to make immediately. So we could start with, “What if I could be a good test taker?” This introduces a hypothesis, not an ultimatum, which is sometimes more easily accepted.

Then the subsequent question becomes, “What would I need to believe about myself to show up as a good test taker?” And so the questions continue.

Ultimately, having this organized can be helpful as well. Sometimes it can be helpful to put pen to paper and sketch out what exactly is going on. Get a piece of paper, fold it in half, and on the left side list every single limiting belief you have, no matter how outlandish it sounds when you write it down. Then on the right side, list the alternative beliefs, even if all of them need to start with “what if.”

Ultimately, exploring limiting beliefs is a very worthwhile pursuit. By exploring limiting beliefs, we can learn so much about ourselves, the way we operate, our needs, our fears, how we view ourselves, and the world around us. By shifting limiting beliefs, worlds of possibilities open to us. Instead of operating on potentially quickly made assumptions, we’re operating from intention toward an ideal we’ve taken the time to specifically craft.