What are limiting beliefs?
Limiting beliefs are ideas you believe to be true that hold you back in some way.
An example would be an enthusiastic pianist who thinks music college is only for those who want to become concert pianists. They don’t believe they are talented enough, so they choose to pursue a course in engineering instead. They’ve probably been told that engineering is the safe and sensible route by their parents and teachers. However, they spend their whole career miserable, wondering what might have been if they had followed their heart all those years ago.
It could be someone with innovative ideas, who believes their suggestions are silly, so they don’t raise their hand in a meeting. They sit back and watch as colleagues with way less original suggestions gain promotion after promotion, wondering why they are so “unlucky” in life.
It could be a talented painter who believes their “hobby” is taking too much time away from their “real work” or their children, so they ignore their pull to create art and focus on their day job or their family instead.
Where do limiting beliefs come from?
Limiting beliefs come from all kinds of places. It could be your parents, wider family, your teachers, your friends, a magazine, a TV show, a random person in the pub, or even a character in a book. We all have them. However, once you become aware of them and how they are holding you back, you are in a position to change them.
The amazing thing about beliefs is that they are just repeated thoughts. The solution is both simple and complicated. Simple because all you need to do, is think differently. Complicated because that is often easier said than done.
Peeling away the onion layers
Our inner worlds are complex. Many of us go to great lengths to avoid scary emotions, such as anger and fear. Looking at things honestly requires courage. It also requires persistence and time. I found it to be the case that my trauma overwhelmed everything else so much that I couldn’t even begin to look at other things until I had shifted some of that.
I’ve heard this kind of inner work described as “peeling away the onion layers”. This is so true. Once I peeled away some of the trauma around my childhood, new things come to light, things that I didn’t even realise were affecting me because the pain of the trauma was taking up all of my attention.
Everyone has different limiting beliefs but I am going to share some of mine as part of my own journey to unearth and shift things. It is my hope that reading this might be helpful to you too in some way.
Limiting Belief #1 – I’m not good enough
This has been such a deep-seated underlying limiting belief my whole life, I had to put it at number one. I’ve doubted everything, my abilities as a teacher, a parent, a pianist, a writer, a friend and even as a human being. It comes out in the way I am afraid to be proud of the things I can do. I will often dumb down my achievements and use diminishing language such as, “here’s a piano video. I’m sorry, it’s not that good, but I will keep practicing.” Or, “here’s my latest blog article. It’s just a short one.” (I mean why would anyone want to read a long piece I have written, right?)
Self-sabotage
I compare myself to others. I’ve written a novel, a whole book of around 100,000 words, but instead of being proud of that as an accomplishment, I have dismissed it in the past as something less worthy, because it isn’t published (yet). I’ve struggled with feeling that I am not a “real writer” because of that.
When talking about my book on social media, I’ve begun posts with things like, “I know it won’t be everyone’s cup of tea…” I mean, of course that is true, but that is surely for them to decide, not me.
If a movie preview came on TV and the narrator said, “hey, here’s our new movie… We didn’t have much of a budget so the special effects and actors are a bit shit and you probably won’t relate to the story much,” would you choose to watch it?
This is definitely a form of self-sabotage.
How I’m shifting it
There’s no fancy solution here. The answer is to simply stop doing it. It’s okay to be proud of my accomplishments. Appreciation, especially of art, is completely subjective anyway and we are often our own harshest critic.
I make it sound so easy, don’t I? However, it takes a lot of inner work, reading, learning, talking, unveiling and accepting things to change your whole belief system.
Limiting Belief #2 – I don’t deserve success
I think this is very much linked to a lack of self-worth and not feeling good enough.
I’ve read that when a child is abused, in order to comprehend what is happening they tend to end up blaming themselves. This actually gives them a semblance of control in a situation where they are in fact completely powerless. If it’s my fault, then that means I can do something about it. Therefore, if I do this or behave like that, then I can get my parent to stop hurting me. If *I* was a better person, they would love me for who I am.
This kind of self-blame can definitely lead to an overwhelming sense of not being good enough. It’s the way I felt my whole life. It doesn’t even matter that I had one parent who did care, who did tell me I was enough. The parent who didn’t, still affected me deeply. Up until a year or two ago, I always carried a strong sense of unworthiness within me that affected everything. It was an unverbalized pain that led me to sometimes wonder why I was even on this earth.
Fear of success
In addition to the idea of not being deserving of things, the concept of success itself has felt scary to me. I think that’s mainly because I associate success with being seen. I spent much of my life hiding away, content in my own little corner of the world. Attracting attention was too dangerous for it meant setting myself up to be hurt.
How I’m shifting it
These are deep routed core beliefs, that unfortunately cannot be changed by writing out a couple of positive affirmations. It takes courage and hard work to dive deep, go back to traumatic events, talk about them, write about them, feel them. But it’s only by doing this that you can release the pain that otherwise remains stored in your body, in places you can’t even see, but in a way that will affect everything you do and how you see the world.
I cannot recommend enough finding a therapist or trauma informed coach to help you with this process. The support is essential. I struggled big time with vulnerability, opening up and trusting. I thought people would either think I was exaggerating and making it all up or they’d think I was a big cry baby and should be well and truly over shit that happened in my childhood by now. It is only with the support of my coach and friends that I am where I am today.
Limiting Belief #3 – I’m boring (without the alcohol)
This has made my friends laugh out loud when I have aired this limiting belief in the past. I truly thought it was the case though.
I think this might be quite common amongst children of a narcissist. The narcissist makes everything all about them. No one else’s thoughts or feelings are important. When you grow up in an environment where you are silenced and dismissed, it is no wonder you struggle to find a voice and an identity.
In my case, we weren’t allowed to speak out of turn. Meals and car journeys were often silent. If we were “too noisy” then we were told to be quiet. With all conversations dominated by someone else, it was hard to learn to insert my own opinion. I don’t think I had good conversational skills. I was very nervous to talk during meals after being told I was disgusting for breathing on him.
Adult social life often resolves a lot around eating out. I’ve always hated being looked at while eating. Sitting opposite a friend sharing a meal together, being expected to carry on conversation, used to be an extremely uncomfortable situation for me.
It’s all me
Back to the self-blame. Instead of understanding that the reason I was quiet and shy was because I was silenced, I took on the belief that the reason I didn’t talk was because I had nothing interesting to say. So, I spent much of my life thinking I was a really boring person. This led to me being unable to attend social gatherings without alcohol.
The alcohol allowed me to be the person I was too scared to be with all the inhibitions and limiting beliefs running the show. When tipsy or drunk I found myself speaking out, making jokes, the life of the party. People commented on that and it felt amazing.
Hello alcohol dependence in social situations.
How I’m shifting it
I’ve really changed this in the last few years. Building up my confidence in all areas of my life has led me to question this false belief that I am boring. I see now that I am actually pretty fun and quirky and know lots of interesting things. I’ve attended a range of events online and in real life without alcohol and learned that I don’t “need” the booze to be me anymore.
I am most definitely not boring.
Limiting Belief #4 – People don’t like me
You’re probably seeing a pattern here. Again this limiting belief is linked to lack of worthiness and confidence. I think “what will other people think?” is a fear that affects us all to some degree. It stops us from doing SO much.
For me it went even further. I was always looking for betrayal. I didn’t really trust anyone completely. Of course, hearing my father bitch about his friends or other family members constantly probably set me up for that. In addition though, I do remember something from senior school that hurt me a lot.
Looking back
I was in science class.
I have quite bad allergies to things like house dust and pollen and furry animals, so I was always snuffling and sneezing. While most people would check for their wallet and keys before leaving the house, my main concern was whether I had enough tissues with me.
Anyway, I guess with all the stress at home, my sniffing developed into a nervous nose twitch at one point. Some of the kids at school started calling me “gerbil”.
I guess that could most definitely have been worse. Yet sometimes something so harmless sounding can hurt more than you’d think.
See, I also had my dad making fun of me at home for sniffing all the time and telling me I was disgusting. I suppose the good thing with that, was that getting called names at school wasn’t that huge a deal to me. I was used to being called names. Sticks and stones, right?
Bury it
I never told anyone about it though. I couldn’t tell my parents because I knew without a doubt my dad would start calling me that too when he decided I next needed putting in my place, or if he was bored and thought a bit of “harmless” teasing would be entertaining. He used to enjoy trying to get an emotional reaction out of me. By this point I had learned to bury my emotions deep and pretend not to feel anything, as best I could anyway. So it was a fun challenge for him.
Actually I think this could be one of the worst things about bullying. If you can’t talk to anyone about it, then it alienates you so much more. I felt alone. But I also felt gross and disgusting, so part of me didn’t even blame the kids for doing it.
Gerbil
Back to science class though.
This one day, one of the boys sitting behind me ran up and stuck a note with “gerbil” on it onto my back, resulting in eruptions of laughter behind me. I realised something had been put on me and tried to reach it and remove it.
It was then I realised my two “best friends,” seated beside me, were laughing too.
And that is what hurt more than anything.
Oh well
Of course I brushed it off and pretended I wasn’t bothered. I was so hurt and angry deep inside though. But I deflected it away from the perpetrators and blamed my teacher for not having the class under control, for not seeing what was happening, for not stopping them. I hated her after that. She was the adult, she was supposed to be protecting me.
I guess it’s easier to be angry with someone else?
Anyway, I’ve always feared that people didn’t really like me, that they were putting up with me, or they didn’t see who I really was. I believed that if I showed them all of me they would hate me too, because deep down I was flawed, unworthy and unlikeable.
How I’m shifting it
Once again, it is looking at my core beliefs, working on my trauma and learning to open up to my closest friends that has shifted this for me.
Logic tells me of course my friends like me. If they didn’t, then they wouldn’t hang around. There is no legal binding contract forcing them to spend time with me. They do so because they choose to. That is a beautiful realisation. They are in my life because they want to be, not because they have to be.
The other thing I have learned, which I touched on in my previous article, is that even if someone doesn’t like me, then it’s not because I am unlikeable. It’s just a matter of different personalities and interests and it’s no one’s “fault” if two people don’t get along. It’s just life.
Let them go, move on and find your people. The ones who make you smile, hold you up and see the best in you. The ones who would take a note off your back, tear it up and remind you that you’re not alone, that you are absolutely amazing just the way you are. (Even if you do sniff a lot.)
