How to Find Out Your Limiting Beliefs and Change Them Fast!

Even the most successful people have limiting beliefs in some areas of their lives.

So don’t beat yourself up if you have doubts about yourself from time to time – or even near enough all the time.

Instead, take a few minutes to find out and identify the beliefs that are holding you back.

Then swap those limiting beliefs for ones that are more constructive.

Quite often, our limiting beliefs masquerade as truths.

So if you’ve ever said “I can’t do that”, that’s a limiting belief.

OK, there are a few things where you really can’t do that given current technology – defy gravity, survive in outer space without a space suit, that kind of thing – but most of the time our limiting beliefs are much more mundane but nevertheless they’re holding us back in life.

Start by noticing all those times when you think you can’t do something or when you do your level best to avoid encountering something in the first place.

The situations don’t have to be big or challenging.

Often it’s the small things that hold us back because they crop up so much more often.

Whether it’s as simple as not liking eating green vegetables (I’m guilty as charged on that one) or not being able to get your mobile phone to do all those flashy things that the adverts said you could (technophobia is very common but can be a big limiting belief now we’re surrounded by technology) or anything else that puts limitations around you.

Whether it’s as simple as not liking eating green vegetables (I’m guilty as charged on that one) or not being able to get your mobile phone to do all those flashy things that the adverts said you could (technophobia is very common but can be a big limiting belief now we’re surrounded by technology) or anything else that puts limitations around you.

Start by noticing when these things happen.

Especially if your answer uses the word “because” in it.

Because is a powerful word.

Read Influence by Robert Cialdini if you want a full explanation but the executive summary is that we use because as a short cut.

We assume that whatever words follow it are a valid reason.

And that just isn’t the case.

In fact, because the word because is so powerful, we stop listening and just assume that whatever follows it is valid.

Yikes!

That’s where so many of our limiting beliefs are hiding in plain sight.

Because we just assume that we’ve got a valid reason – those words we keep repeating after using the b-word.

And, yes, I’m using because a lot.

Because it helps make the point.

But the difference is that I’m using it deliberately rather than on auto-pilot.

That’s a big difference.

Make yourself alert to all the times you make an excuse because of whatever.

Put them in a note somewhere – on a pad, a Post-It note, on your computer or phone, wherever is most convenient.

Then question that reason.

Often, it’s as simple as asking why.

That might sound child-like but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t work.

Why is a really powerful word.

Especially when you answer it back.

Sometimes you’ll get to the root of the limiting belief in one or two questioning sessions.

Because you’ll be asking yourself why to each answer you give.

Sometimes it takes longer.

Lots of whys.

Maybe in more than one session.

But all the while, you’re chipping away at the power the limiting belief had over you.

If you’re still not sure this will work – which is a limiting belief in its own right – test it on something simple and near enough inconsequential.

Something like a limiting belief that you can’t start a post on Facebook because what would other people think of you.

Or anything else that as soon as you think about it for more than a second or two, you just start laughing at yourself at how silly it is that thing is holding you back and limiting you.

Do that a few times and your limiting belief that you can’t change your limiting beliefs will start to change.

Probably slowly at first – you’ve held on to these beliefs for longer than you’d care to admit so don’t be surprised if at least some of them are reluctant to leave you alone.

But you’ll be surprised at just how fast limiting beliefs can change.

We’re actually hard wired to learn fast.

It’s kept our species alive for thousands of years – it wasn’t in our best survival interests to take too long to figure out that sabre tooth tiger wasn’t a cuddly pussy cat.

But those beliefs can be changed, almost at the flick of a switch.

Not something your average shrink will tell you because it’s not in their best interests to do that.

But beliefs are perfectly capable of changing as fast as you want them to.

Incidentally, if you’d like to pursue that thought further, check out something called the NLP rewind technique.

It’s a super-fast way to changing beliefs like fears and phobias that are holding you back in your life.

But there are also plenty of other ways to change the thoughts and beliefs that are stopping you from reaching your full potential.

The easiest way I’ve found to shift most lmiting beliefs is hypnosis.

It’s cheap, quick and remarkably effective.

You can download a hypnosis track here to help rid yourself of limiting beliefs.