Limiting Beliefs: Meaning and How To Overcome Them

What are limiting beliefs and how do you transcend them? Here is a complete guide.

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We are all in pursuit of happiness. Unfortunately, most of us are lost seekers, stumbling around blindly as we try to figure out what will finally bring us the happiness, love, and peace that we are looking for. After 20+ years of studying happiness—and struggling to find strategies that actually work—I finally had a breakthrough. I found the underlying pattern—I saw how limiting beliefs lead to suffering.

By reverse engineering our minds—or working backward from unhappy experiences to understand the beliefs that cause them—we can begin to see our limiting beliefs and rewrite our own “code” in ways that lead to true happiness and well-being. In this article, I’ll walk you through the exact steps to overcoming limiting beliefs so that you can find the happiness that you’ve been searching for.

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What Are Limiting Beliefs? (Limiting Beliefs Meaning)

Think of life like it is a video game. Video games are just programs that enable the player to have certain experiences as they progress forward through different levels. The game of life is very similar. There are specific programs (or patterns) that produce a variety of different experiences which range from very unhappy to very happy. These patterns all begin with a belief. As you begin to deprogram yourself—witnessing and dissolving the beliefs that lead to unhappy experiences—you’ll discover the more subtle beliefs that begin to generate happiness. And eventually, you’ll move beyond limiting beliefs to boundless joy, inner peace, and well-being.

What Is The Pattern of Limiting Beliefs?

Our negative experiences follow a pattern. This pattern includes a belief (or perspective) that leads to specific types of thoughts, that lead to specific emotions, that lead to specific action tendencies (i.e., habits), that lead to specific behaviors, that lead to specific experiences. It looks like this:

Belief > Thought > Emotion > Habit > Behavior > Experience

If the root is a negative limiting belief, then the entire chain of events that follows is likely to be unpleasant.

Undoing The Pattern of Limiting Beliefs with Awareness
To undo our limiting beliefs, all we need to do is bring awareness to the entire chain of events so that we can see it clearly. Although Cognitive Behavior Therapy might suggest we should use our will to change our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, habits, etc…, this isn't necessary. In fact, forcing ourselves to be what we are not can bring up all kinds of negative emotions.

The truth is we don’t need to actively change ourselves. All we need to do is simply acknowledge the entire sequence of events every time it occurs—and do so without self-judgment or self-criticism. By maintaining ongoing self-awareness and self-compassion, we begin to realize that 1.) our limiting beliefs aren’t true, and, 2.) They aren't who we are. This recognition leads the beliefs to dissolve on their own.

After we fully acknowledge a pattern of ours—that is, we bring full awareness and acceptance to the “Belief > Thought > Emotion > Habit > Behavior > Experience” chain—the core belief will begin to dissolve. It’s kind of like a monster under our bed. If we avoid looking at it, then it’s scary. After we look, we realize that it’s really an illusion and it vanishes. The same is true for our limiting beliefs. All we have to do is look and accept.

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Examples of Negative Limiting Beliefs

The most challenging limiting beliefs are those that result in negative emotions and experiences.

Here are some common examples of negative limiting beliefs:

I am worthless.
I don't matter.
I am bad.
I am to blame.
I am trapped.
I can't.
I am a burden.
I am unsafe.
I am vulnerable.
I am weak.
I am mistreated.
I am a victim.
I am a failure.

Ask yourself, “Do I have any of these limiting beliefs?” If you experience emotions like shame, guilt, fear, anger, sadness, or frustration, it likely comes from one of these beliefs (or a belief similar to it). Spend some time really thinking about what ‘Belief > Thought > Emotion > Habit > Behavior > Experience’ patterns occur for you.

Keep in mind that your unique limiting beliefs might be slightly different than the ones listed here. The exact wording of the beliefs you hold may vary.

Looking At Your Limiting Beliefs

If you’ve brought awareness to a limiting belief many times and yet you notice that it is still producing the same emotions and negative experiences, try looking deeper for the exact wording of the beliefs you hold that lead to unhappy experiences. To completely transcend the belief, you'll likely need to bring awareness to it again and again. Once you see the programs with complete clarity—POOF—they start to disappear.

Overcome Limiting Beliefs: Step-By-Step Guide

Awareness of Your Limiting Beliefs
To effectively undo a limiting belief, we need to allow the information to come forward into awareness and just look at it. For example, if we are looking at a thought, we might try to observe it as a thing, notice the emotions associated with it, look for the beliefs that created it, and watch it fade away. You can think of it as moving through your awareness as if on a conveyor belt.

Working Backwards To Limiting Beliefs
A great way to increase awareness is to work backward from a given experience. For example, if you experience a negative emotion, bad habit, or bad experience, follow it backward in time to the thoughts and beliefs that caused it. It can take some time to learn how to do this, but once you learn, it’ll begin to happen automatically—you’ll have a bad experience, and it’ll lead you to look for the underlying belief.

Pro Tip: Usually, it is easiest to gain awareness of the end experience. For example, I might notice that I dislike something or want something to be different than it is—that is the type of negative experience that we’re looking to find. From here, you’d follow the experience backward through the events to the root limiting belief.

Sometimes we might first gain awareness of some other step in the chain—like emotions. Personally, I find emotion can sometimes be easy to become aware of. For example, maybe I’m feeling anxious in a certain situation. From here, you would just follow the emotion forward to see what habits, behaviors, and experiences it leads to. And you’d follow it backways to see what thoughts and limiting beliefs caused it.

Go Further Backwards To The Root of Limiting Beliefs
Sometimes it can help to go backward even before the belief and ask ourselves, “Where did this belief come from?” Usually, you’ll find that it was given to you by your parents, community, or culture. If you can see this clearly, it becomes obvious that the belief isn’t YOU and this helps you let go of it.

Some beliefs may come from before the age of 3 or so and you won't have a memory of where they came from. That’s okay. Just do your best to bring as much awareness as possible to the beliefs and patterns.

Acceptance of Limiting Beliefs

As we begin to be more aware of our limiting beliefs and their patterns, we might have the urge to resist, fight, ignore, or otherwise push away what we see. At this point, we need to simply allow the information to exist as it is. (You can’t change what already is. So there is no point in trying!) This doesn't mean you can't take action to improve your circumstances. It just means you literally can't change what is occurring now.

For example, if you realize that you’re miserable in your job, accept the truth of your experience. It doesn’t mean you necessarily need to stay in your job or leave your job. If you can allow your true thoughts and feelings to exist (they do anyway) and accept them as they are, the negative charge of the belief begins to dissipate. This actually makes it easier to take action in the ways that will most benefit you and others.

Self-Compassion & Limiting Beliefs
I’ve found that self-love and self-compassion can be successful ways to get to acceptance. For example, if you find that you have shame, try to give the part of you that feels shame the love that it didn't get in your past. Engaging in positive self-talk or inner child work can be extremely helpful in undoing the attachments we have to our limiting beliefs.

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Disidentification From Limiting Beliefs

Once we’ve gained complete awareness and acceptance of a given belief and its pattern, we begin to disidentify with it automatically (although it can take some time). For example, maybe you now see that your belief “I’m not good enough” has led you to spend your whole life trying to please your parents. Just seeing the belief makes it less solid.

Seeing, now, that this belief is not who you are, and it just kind of runs on its own, you instinctively begin to let go of it. For a time, you may notice the belief popping up. But now, you just watch it play out its pattern and kind of laugh at how silly it all is. You may find that you are no longer a people pleaser, and that identity falls away. In time, you may notice that the belief is entirely gone. Often, though, you’ll just feel happier and not realize it’s because the belief is gone and the pattern has stopped.

Reprogramming Limiting Beliefs

Disidentification from limiting beliefs creates a peaceful empty space—this is what we’re looking for. However, the mind tries to fill the empty space with new beliefs. For example, maybe we no longer identify with being a people pleaser, but now we fill the empty space with a new belief that we are powerful or assertive.

If we can instead just maintain awareness and presence in the emptiness, we’ll get to keep the sense of peace that exists in that empty space. It is through replacing beliefs with empty space that we find the true happiness that we’re looking for.

Examples of Positive Limiting Beliefs
Usually, once we’ve transcended some of our negative limiting beliefs, we’ll re-attach to positive limiting beliefs. These limiting beliefs can result in positive experiences and often feel like a massive improvement from negative limiting beliefs.

Here are some examples of these positive limiting beliefs:

I am changeable.
I am capable.
I am resilient.
I am effective.
I am skillful.
I am powerful.

These beliefs are indeed useful and they help us develop the skills we need to move into true joy and happiness. This is why things like positive affirmations can be helpful. Unfortunately, the types of positive experiences that result from these beliefs are impermanent and often short-lived. So when we hold these beliefs, we still feel low-level dissatisfaction or like something is missing. We’re not quite there yet.

Letting Go of Limiting Beliefs

To review, negative limiting beliefs make you miserable, and positive limiting beliefs make you feel better, but still dissatisfied. So how do we get to true peace, joy, and happiness? The truth is that we have to let go in a big way.

Letting go of all of our limiting beliefs can often be challenging and painful. At some point—usually once you have overcome a large enough quantity of negative limiting beliefs—you’ll attach to a new set of beliefs. I call these the “awakening beliefs”. Awakening beliefs actually help you to clear out the remaining limiting beliefs that contribute to anger, fear, and shame. They’re like a self-destruct mechanism for whatever remaining limiting beliefs you still have.

Examples of Awakening Beliefs
Here are some examples of awakening beliefs:

I am a product of my experiences.
I am my beliefs.
The "I" that I think I am is my ego.
I am no thing.

Just like the other types of beliefs, these beliefs create certain experiences. These beliefs basically shine a light on all of your beliefs so you can see them more clearly. Ultimately, this is a good thing because you can more easily dissolve negative limiting beliefs and finally be free of their destructive hold on you.

However, it is precisely because you’re seeing everything more clearly that the experiences that result from awakening beliefs are so difficult. We suddenly become aware of our most challenging or painful beliefs—beliefs that we mistook for our identity. During this transition period, we can often find ourselves adrift, not really understanding who or what we are. We may feel nihilistic, lost, or lacking purpose.

During this phase, if you avoid facing the true nature of your beliefs, life only gets more unpleasant. But if you can just hold your awareness on your patterns and embrace them with acceptance, you can finally move past them and to the joy that lies beyond.

Beyond Beliefs

As you move through the awakening beliefs, dissolving each of them just as you did the negative and positive limiting beliefs, you’ll increasingly become aware of the truth of who you are beyond beliefs. Without these loud, obnoxious patterns (like fear, anger, and guilt) hogging all of your attention, you’ll begin to notice subtler, more peaceful aspects of reality. These aspects of reality were always there. We just didn’t notice them when we were distracted by the intensity of our patterns.

How to find and REMOVE limiting beliefs: Step By Step Guide

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs Example

To better understand how we overcome limiting beliefs in practice, here is an example. As I mentioned earlier, I find it easiest to identify the experience in the ‘Belief > Thought > Emotion > Habit > Behavior > Experience’ pattern. But if you find it easier to identify some other part of the chain, that will work just as well. If you can develop an awareness of any piece of the chain, then you can follow it to unravel the rest of the pattern.

Awareness of Limiting Belief Pattern - Example
Your Experience. Perhaps you become aware that you’re tense and uncomfortable when you spend time with a particular friend or family member. That is your experience. If you notice your experience, then you can begin to follow it backward.

Your Behaviors. You might identify several behaviors that led to this experience. Perhaps you agreed to spend time with this person, perhaps you are not fully expressing yourself in conversation, or perhaps you have lots of other obligations and you’re too distracted to spend time with this person. The behaviors that lead to your experience may be very obvious or they may be more subtle. If you can't find them right away, it’s okay. Just move on to the other steps in the chain and see if you can identify them.

Your Habits. Maybe you notice that you have a habit of spending time with this friend even though you don't really connect with them anymore. Or maybe you have a habit of suppressing your true opinions in conversation (possibly with this friend or possibly with everyone). Usually, when we find ourselves repeatedly in situations that we don’t like, it’s because of some habit of ours.

Your Emotions. What emotions lead to your habits? For example, if we are spending time with someone, are we doing so because of some fear of being impolite? Are we doing so because we’d feel guilty for not spending time with them? Or might we be ashamed of who we are, and this person triggers that shame in us?

The emotions that drive us can be tricky. We might develop a habit to reduce a negative emotion, increase a positive emotion, or even perpetuate an existing emotion. So identifying the link between emotions and habits can be one of the more difficult things to do.

Your Thoughts. Identifying which thoughts lead to which emotions is the cornerstone of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)—one of the most well-respected therapies ever created. So if you need help with this step, CBT may be helpful. In our example, thoughts that may lead to fear or guilt are “I should see this person”, or “I owe it to this person to spend time with them,” or “I’m a bad person if I don’t spend time with this person.”

Your Beliefs. Bringing awareness to the beliefs that start the chain is the most important part. In our example, the beliefs might be “I’m not a good person”, or “I don’t deserve to be happy”, or “I’m helpless to change my situation.” Gaining awareness of the underlying belief can be a painful process as you start to understand how this belief has created and sustained misery and suffering across many situations in your life.

Acceptance of Limiting Belief Pattern - Example
Often, before we can accept the truth of how this pattern affected our lives, we must grieve. Realizing how we’ve been treating ourselves and the amount of life we’ve “wasted” as a result of this pattern can be devastating. But this grieving is the beginning of acceptance. We are no longer in denial about how a given pattern creates our experiences. And our grieving helps us move into acceptance.

It’s important to understand that acceptance is not approval. We may become aware of how traumatic experiences in childhood created our beliefs. Or we may understand that we’ve been causing much of our own misery. Acceptance simply means acknowledging the truth of the situation—it simply is how it is, and there is no point in lying to ourselves anymore. That doesn’t mean we approve of what happened.

For some, acceptance may just be a neutral experience—it is what it is. For others, acceptance may transform into deep gratitude. We may discover an appreciation for both the pattern (it helped us learn) and the dissolution of it (and now we are free).

Disidentification of Limiting Belief Pattern - Example
As we move through grief, we can increasingly see when the program is running and how we automatically follow each step. The program will usually continue on for a short time as we continue to hold it in awareness. For example, maybe you first stop habitually spending time with certain people. Now, when you pick up your phone to text them, you notice your habit and how it is an extension of your limiting belief. So now, you instead pause and reflect on whether or not you actually want to spend time with them.

Maybe you still spend time with them or maybe you don’t. The difference is that now it’s a choice instead of a pattern. You’re not identified with it anymore so you can step out of it if you choose to. And if you do decide to spend time with this person, you’re aware of how the next steps in the chain are likely to unfold, and you can watch it as it’s happening. Often, once you’ve watched the program make you miserable enough times, you’ll decide it’s insanity to keep it and you’ll let go internally, allowing the pattern to dissolve completely.

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Final Thoughts on Limiting Beliefs

Once you’ve become fully aware of—and transcend—all of your limiting beliefs, you’ll discover the pure stage of being. We are no longer driven by beliefs that were created in childhood and through our lives—we’re no longer in a perpetual state of doing. We simply exist, and accept our existence, and that is all we were ever really searching for.

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