Mastering Self-Confidence - How to Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs?
Now that you have identified your limiting beliefs, it is time to work on overcoming them. Unfortunately, most people don’t take the steps necessary to do this because they believe that by having an awareness of their limiting beliefs, they will be able to think differently about their circumstances and lives.
While being aware of your limiting beliefs will encourage you to think about them differently, a significant number of your limiting beliefs have a ton of emotional investment behind them, which is ultimately where the problem lies.
Whenever you have a tremendous level of emotion invested in something, it can create a barrier to change. In order to make lasting change, you have to cut your ties. In fact, the deeper the conviction or belief, the more difficult you’ll find the process and the longer it will take.
Lying at the cornerstone of any change that you want to make is the willingness to adapt to the changing conditions and circumstances that surround you. This is especially true when it comes to changing your limiting beliefs.
You Must Choose the Outcome You Desire
The very first step that you must take to overcome your limiting beliefs is to choose the outcome that you desire. When you choose your desired outcome, you can gain more clarity about what it is in your life that you would like to change.
You must ask yourself some tough questions and thoroughly consider your answers.
You need to ask yourself:
• What goals would I like to achieve?
• What’s currently preventing me from achieving my goals?
• What kind of person would I ideally like to become?
• What specifically do I want to change?
• What specific beliefs aren't working for me?
• What limiting beliefs are preventing me from achieving my desired outcomes?
Once you have become clear about the limiting beliefs that are holding you back, you can start the process of overcoming these limiting beliefs and increasing your self-esteem.
Questioning Your Limiting Beliefs
It is important to remember that your limiting beliefs are only as strong as those references that support them. Often, the limiting beliefs that you hold have a plethora of references that have helped to influence and shift your perspective on reality.
It is important to remember that these references started out as ideas, which turned into opinions, which later became your beliefs. If you want to change your limiting beliefs, you have to change your perspective and opinion about them.
You can start to throw doubt on your limiting beliefs by asking yourself:
• Is the belief accurate?
• Have I always believed this? Why?
• Was there a time that I didn’t believe this? Why?
• Is there evidence that can disprove this limiting belief?
• Are there times when this belief doesn’t make rational sense?
• Will this belief help me get what I want? Will it help me reach my goals?
• What is the exact opposite way of thinking about this belief? How is this helpful?
These questions are designed to help you increase perspective and the possibilities of your situation. They are meant to encourage you to think outside the box, so you can begin to shift how you think about your limiting beliefs.
Consider the Consequences of Your Limiting Beliefs
Now that you have begun to throw some doubt on your limiting beliefs, it’s time for you to consider the possible consequences of holding onto your limiting beliefs. To do this, you need to think long and hard about the following questions.
• What will the consequences be if I’m not able to make this change and eliminate this limiting belief?
• How will not making a change affect me emotionally? Physically? Financially? Spiritually? In my relationships?
• How will not making a change affect my life?
• Are there short-term consequences in not changing my life? What are they?
• Are there long-term consequences?
• What makes making this change now so essential?
The more pain that is associated with holding onto your limiting beliefs, the higher motivation you'll have to make positive changes in your life. That's why it is essential to move through each of these questions, one at a time to fully experience the pain. You want to feel the anger, think about the regrets, experience the guilt, and allow yourself to cry.
Choose a New Empowering Belief
To move forward after you've considered the consequences of holding onto your limiting beliefs, you need to choose a new empowering belief. It is vital that you make sure that this new belief is believable. If it isn't one that is believable, the chances are high that you will be unable to condition your psyche.
To unlock your new empowering belief, you need to consider the goal that you want to achieve, the person that you want to become, and the core values that you want to maintain. Once you have considered these, you need to ask yourself the following questions from a third person’s perspective:
• What would this person likely believe while pursuing this goal?
• What would this person believe about themselves?
• What would this person believe about their goal?
• What’s their attitude like? How do they think about the goal?
• How would they think about the obstacles they encounter along the journey?
Now, you need to take some time to consider the advantages of this new empowering belief and how it can improve your life and your circumstances.
Ask yourself the following:
• What benefits can I expect from using this new belief?
• How will it help me reach my goals?
• How will it change my life for the better?
• How will it help in both the long-term and short-term?
• How will this new belief make me feel about myself?
• How will this new belief empower me moving forward?
• Why is this important?
The more reasons that you can find, the higher your motivation will be to break your old patterns of behavior and replace them with a new, empowering belief system.
Condition your New Belief
Now that you've committed yourself to changing your limiting beliefs to new empowering ones, the next step is to begin to condition your new beliefs into your psyche progressively.
One way to do this is through the process of visualization. Spend time every day visualizing yourself, in your imagination, using your new way of thinking in your day-to-day activities. Take particular note of the actions you take, the decisions you are making, how you talk to others, and how you talk to yourself.
Think about your newly formed attitude and how your new beliefs are going to help you manifest the life you want. You are in essence imagining a new you in your minds-eye.
Another process that you can use is the process of anchoring this new belief to condition it into your nervous system. This involves anchoring a sensation that is physical to your body that will allow it to automatically enable you to get into an optimal state of mind that corresponds to your new empowering belief.
It’s not easy to overcome your limiting beliefs, but with a significant amount of work, introspection, and time, you’ll be able to overcome the limiting beliefs that have been holding you back and build your self-confidence.
