Coping with Limiting Beliefs

About a month ago, a co-worker said something to me that just about made me fall off of my chair laughing. I have always had alot of respect for him, and believed that he was one of the most confident people I knew. On this day, he ed me this girls picture on myspace and said "I almost think she's interested in me, but I must just be dreaming. I could never get a girl like that." As soon as I was able to stop laughing I said "Man, you really need to do something about your limiting beliefs."

To put things in perspective, this guy has just about everything he needed -Good looks, a good sense of humor, a sweet car, and (or so he had had me convinced) confidence. The part that I found funny was that I looked up to him, yet the girl he showed me was slightly below what I know I am capable of attracting.

This was a classic example of a limiting belief and I had to find a way to explain to him what a limiting belief was, and get him to talk to her. It hadn't been very long since I had dealt with my limiting beliefs, and I still didn't completely understand how I had managed to change them. I don't know if he ever did talk to that girl again, but a couple weeks later he was showing us pictures of his new girlfriend who I have to say was much more on his level.

At some point in time, we all experience limiting beliefs wether they are about women, our career, our family or anything else. These are the things we believe that tell us "I can't because..." I many cases we say we "can't" when in fact we can. Perhaps whatever we're speaking or thinking of might be difficult or possibly its something we really shouldn't do, but in fact we really are capable of doing it or at least trying to do it.

Step 1
With that in mind, The first step to ridding yourself of your limiting beliefs is to remove the word "can't" from your vocabulary. For instance if you were asked to do something you had neither the tools nor the knowledge to do, change the way you think. Instead of saying "I can't because I don't have the tools and I don't know how" to "I could learn how to do it and find tools that would work, or possibly find someone else who is more suited to do it." In this case I have used a situation where you probably shouldn't do whatever it is, but you continue to recognize the fact that you are capable of doing with the right resources. Another case would be if someone asked you to kill someone. Hopefully your limiting belief response would be "I can't do that.", but now that you have removed "can't" from your vocabulary, you might say "I am capable of doing that, but doing so would require me to go completely against my beliefs so I won't."

Obvoiously there may be reasons why you should do something despite knowing that you can in fact do it. You probably shouldn't pick up that girl in the bar if either of you is married. Perhaps it wouldn't be a good idea to take on a project that you don't have the resources to complete on time. I'm sure you can think of many other situations where this applies.

Step 2
Learn to change your thoughts. Eliminating the word "can't" from your vocabulary may help remove it from your thoughts, but it probably won't work completely. Fortunately, the part of your brain that feeds you these thoughts learns very quickly. In order to do this you just have to reason with that little voice.

First, think of a situation where you know you have limiting beliefs. Ask that voice, in your head, "In this situation, what would you tell me." Pay close attention to the thoughts that come to mind, and pick out the limiting beliefs. At that point, ask the voice again why those specific limiting beliefs are important to it. Next you will want tell that voice that you understand why what it is saying and explain how you recognize that it is looking out for you in feeding these thoughts to you. Finally you need to negotiate with the voice and come to an agreement on how it can replace the limiting language with more empowering language.

I know this sounds like the mutterings of a psychotic person, but what I am speaking of is actually very natural. The "voice" I speak of is that inner thought dialog that we all experience. Once you have come to an agreement with that "voice" simply ask it if it could try to handle similar situation in a similar matter.

After you have completed these two steps you should notice that many of your limiting beliefs are pretty much gone. You may experience some self-doubt at times, but in these cases you can reason with your mind once again.