When you spend your time doing something day in, day out, for years on end, it can get pretty challenging to continue to find new ways to keep things fresh.
The same goes for any activity that is part of your everyday life and not simply something that you do from time to time. These kinds of activities become such a big part of your life that even the smallest details begin to impact you on a regular basis.
Self-limiting beliefs are not just challenges that performers face – they are universal challenges that we all deal with at one point or another in our lives. If you’re a performer who also happens to be human 😂, there’s a good chance that you’ve experienced some self-limiting beliefs (even if they weren’t framed as such at the time).
Perhaps they manifested themselves as procrastination, fear of failure, nervousness about stepping outside of your comfort zone…no matter what form they took, they were probably very annoying. 😒
What Are Self-Limiting Beliefs?
A self-limiting belief is any idea you have about yourself (or some aspect of your life) that holds you back.
It might be something that you tell yourself, like “I’m not creative enough to do X” or “I’m not good at Y because of Z.” Or it might be something that you’ve been told by someone else, like “You’re too old to learn X,” or “You’re not smart enough to do Y.” ☹️
Beliefs are formed in the early stages of our lives and the more we live by them the harder they are to get rid of.
Self-limiting beliefs can take a lot of shapes and forms. Some of the most common include:
👉 Having a smaller vision of what you’re capable of.
👉 Believing that you’re not good enough.
👉 Taking on unnecessary self-imposed limitations.
👉 Carrying around guilt, shame, and regret.
👉 Failing to forgive yourself for past mistakes.
👉 Letting fear control your decisions and actions.
Why Are Self-Limiting Beliefs So Hard to Overcome?
To be entirely honest, self-limiting beliefs are not something that you can simply flip a switch and get rid of. It’s similar to a habit. 🤷♀️
You can, however, learn to recognize them and then actively work to remove them from your life. The most important thing to understand about these beliefs is that they arise from our thoughts about ourselves.
The human mind is incredibly powerful, but it’s also incredibly biased and programmed for bias. As children, we’re still developing and learning how to form thoughts, feelings, and associations that will become part of our mental programming as we grow up. 👶
If you grew up in a neglected environment then you’re more likely to have a lot of toxic beliefs about yourself. Whereas if you grew up in a loving home then you were more likely praised and raised to believe positive things about yourself.
Either way, beliefs aren’t facts. They may feel like it since you’ve believed it for so long about yourself but allowing beliefs that aren’t facts to dictate your life can end up being your downfall. 🙅♀️
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Strategies for Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs
As I said before, beliefs aren’t facts. This means that beliefs about ourselves can be changed. Limiting beliefs can have several origins such as;
Personal Beliefs – Through your own personal experiences you can develop blocks that seem permanent
Societal – Society can impose standards that can generate limiting beliefs
Social Circles – The people who you spend your time with can have the power to influence your behaviour and thoughts
Here are a few strategies to help you overcome these self-limiting beliefs:
✨ Try to find their source
First and foremost it’s important to determine where your self-limiting beliefs are coming from. If you can identify the source, you stand a better chance of being able to process it and move on.
✨ Question your assumptions
Once you know where your self-limiting beliefs are coming from, it’s time to start challenging them and the assumptions you made to create them in the first place. Ask yourself “Why”. “Why do I think about myself like this?”
✨ Visualize a more positive future you don’t want to focus only on the past
Instead, you want to also start visualizing and creating a more positive future for yourself.
3 Ways You Might Be Limiting Yourself Right Now
💡 You’re not living up to your full potential.
You could be achieving so much more with your life than you are right now. Apply for that job you keep reading the description over and over again. Pack a bag and do that solo trip to Japan you keep thinking about. You have to realise that the only person that is getting in your way is you. 🤷♀️
💡 You’re not reaching out to the people who care about you the most.
Whether it’s because you feel too shy or embarrassed to do so, or you’re letting your insecurities get the better of you, you’re limiting your capacity to receive support, love, and encouragement from the people who care about you. Go into your contacts and message a loved one you haven’t spoken to in a while.
💡 You’re letting your past mistakes and failures hold you back.
If you have regrets, you have to make a conscious decision to let them go. The past is the past, and there is nothing you can do to change it. The only thing you can do is learn from it and move forward. No one expects you to be perfect, stop expecting it from yourself.
2 Steps to Overcoming Self-Limiting Beliefs and Living Fearlessly
💕 Put the work in.
You don’t have to be perfect or have everything figured out before you start. The only thing that matters is that you’re taking action. Action is what will bridge the gap between where you are now to where you want to be.
💕 Keep going even when you feel like stopping.
It’s during the challenging times that you have to be at your strongest. You have to keep going even when you feel like giving up, like you’ve bitten off more than you can chew, or like you’re drowning in a sea of self-doubt and fear.
You have to keep paddling because the honest truth is that can’t anybody come out and save you without you wanting to save yourself first.
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The Bottom Line
When you let self-limiting beliefs control your actions and decisions, you’re doing yourself a disservice.
You’re not giving your full potential the chance to shine, and you’re also not giving yourself the chance to be truly happy and fulfilled in your life. ❤️
The next time you start to feel like you’re letting self-limiting beliefs hold you back, take a step back and ask yourself what you can do to move past them and eliminate them from your thought process.
You deserve to live a life without anything holding you back from living out your dreams. 💭
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