10 minutes exercise to overcome your limiting beliefs
Overcoming Your Limiting Beliefs | Personal Growth | Limiting Beliefs
This month marked the end of the founding members special of the Growth Club and we ended it with a workshop on negotiation. During the workshop, we did an exercise around limiting beliefs related to the topic of negotiation. As I believe that the exercise would benefit also my 3byMe readers and website visitors, I thought that I would guide you through it also here on my blog.
You can do this exercise with all kinds of limiting beliefs and all you need is a pen and paper, and a 10 minute time slot. Ideally, you can take some time before you start with the exercise to create a cozy and relaxed atmosphere.
Why not prepare your favourite hot beverage (it is winter after all…at least where I live😉), light a candle, play some relaxing music and snuggle up under your blanket? If the thought of preparing all of this already creates stress and would hinder you from doing the exercise, then please just take a pen and paper and continue reading. The important part here is after all to actually do the exercise and help you break free from your limiting beliefs.
Create awareness
A limiting belief is a thought that is limiting you. It is a sentence that you might have heard in the past and that you have come to believe reflects the truth. Another way of describing it: a limiting belief comes from the critical voice in your mind that shows up when things go wrong (for example). It could be statements like “You are not good enough to apply for that job.”, “I will never be able to leave this relationship because I am not lovable.”, “You did it again…you failed and didn’t get the promotion.”
As you can see, both “I” and “You” statements can show up and the ones that start with “I” are those that are very much ingrained and also hard to detect, as you have most probably got used to believing them.
Limiting beliefs come from a place of self-doubt and sometimes they can be even destructive. What I’m trying to say here is that they are not “yours” and are not actually part of your identity.
It’s about time to write one of them down: Which one are you going to pick?
Feel free to write down several ones. You can keep the list for later on. What is important is that you choose one and then go through the next steps of the exercise.
2. Question it
Take a moment and look at the sentence. Or why not read it out loud? How does it sound to say it out loud? How does it feel for you? What happens when you hear it? Does it sound very familiar and do you maybe have an actual voice in your mind when you say it out loud?
In this step of the exercise to help you overcome your limiting beliefs, you try to understand where this limiting belief is coming from. Does it come from a past experience? Is an actual person speaking to you (have you heard it before)? And most importantly: Is it true?
Be aware that many of our limiting beliefs, as also our “saboteurs” as we call those critical voices in coaching lingo, often come from a place of caution, protection and safety. So it is definitely not about judging them or beating yourself up for believing them.
Yet, when you manage to define their origin and truthfulness, you will be able to identify them more easily and they will affect you less. Ideally, you will manage to detach from them. The next step will help you in doing exactly that.
3. Rewrite
I hope you still have that paper where you wrote down your limiting belief. You will need it now to go through this next step of the exercise.
When you rewrite your limiting belief, there are several options:
Write down the exact opposite
Example: “I don’t have what it takes to apply for this job.” turns into “I have everything it takes to apply for this job.” / “I am not good enough.” turns into “I am good enough.”
Write down a more positive formulation
Example: “I am very bad at negotiating.” turns into “I am less experienced at negotiating and am ready to learn more about it.” / “I will never be promoted.” turns into “I am very good at what I do. I will share some of my project highlights at my next yearly performance review and discuss with my manager different development possibilities.”
The second one here is quite long, but it gives you an idea of where this exercise could lead you. It is all about creating awareness of what is actually true.
4. Integrate
After you reformulated your limiting belief. It is a good idea to take a moment again, look at the sentence and read it out loud. How does it sound? Is it a bit too much? Or even a bit embarrassing? Excellent! That is exactly what you should aim for when you reformulate your limiting belief.
After all, you have been carrying around this limiting belief for a long time…so it will take some time to replace it with something positive (or may I say: the truth 🙂).
This step can be a creative and fun exercise actually because you can decide, and play around, with how you want to integrate this new belief. It could be by writing it on a Post-it and sticking it to your fridge. Or why not make it your phone background? Canva can be your best friend there. You can easily create a background for your phone, laptop, tablet…whatever floats your boat.
It is important to place it somewhere where you can see it on a daily basis. Or why not use it (if it is not too long) as your computer password? Like that you are reminded very regularly as well. And you actually have to type it.
Repeat it by reading it out loud, send yourself a voice message with it, pin it to your fridge, use it as your password, or have it as your phone background. There are plenty of options and they are all there for you. Grab them and make them your own. You deserve it!
I believe in you.
Lidija