How To Bust Through Limiting Beliefs

Let’s talk about limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are the latest craze on social media — everybody’s talking about them, everybody thinks they have to bust through those limiting beliefs in order to see success. Let’s be very clear about two things:

1. You can be incredibly successful at something and be doubting your talents and skills the entire time. So if you think you need to banish, solve, or eliminate your limiting beliefs entirely before you see results, you’re probably just using those beliefs as a procrastination technique.
2. There are real evidence-based ways to work through limiting beliefs — and I’m going to teach you exactly how to do that in today’s blog.

Prefer to learn on video? Watch here:

Hi, I’m Dr. Karin Nordin — technically “Dr. Karin” because I completed a whole PhD where I spent four years studying all things mindset. The science-backed mindset stuff, not the “woo-woo” version. Now I’m bringing that knowledge to you in these short but powerful weekly blogs and YouTube videos.

The Rat Analogy

Back to the subject at hand: limiting beliefs. I have a rather odd question for you — which is scarier: fighting a singular rat or fighting an entire army of rats? The answer is pretty clear. Both might be scary, but an army of rats is clearly scarier.

When you tell yourself you have to fix your limiting beliefs, that’s like saying you need to fight an army of rats. What you really need to do is approach that army of rats one rat at a time.

Step 1: Identify One Limiting Belief

In the comments, I want you to identify one singular belief — one singular sentence that you feel is limiting or holding you back. Take a second and really think about that. It’s you versus one sentence, you versus a tiny bundle of words.

Do you think you can get past that obstacle? Of course you can.

Step 2: Interject Doubt

Look at that sentence and adjust it just a little bit. Interject the antidote to any singular thought you don’t want to believe anymore — something the human brain is so capable of that you’ve probably experienced in a hundred different situations. That powerful weapon is doubt.

Is there any possibility that the sentence you wrote down is not true — or even not all the way true? Let’s say the limiting belief is “I’ll never be able to get over my procrastination tendencies.” Do you know that for sure? Can you see into the future? Is there any possibility that you’re wrong? Has there been anything else in your life that you’d assumed would always be true, and then that thing changed?

Our goal here isn’t to suddenly believe that you’re 100% capable of ditching procrastination forever with ease. Our goal is to simply rock the foundation of the original limiting belief just a little bit — because those cracks multiply, and that’s where new beliefs can actually start growing.

Step 3: Act As If

Our last step is probably the most difficult, but the most important. New beliefs are formed through action. Identify the opposite of the limiting belief you just wrote down.

To use our procrastination example, maybe what you want to believe is, “I am capable of managing my urge to procrastinate.” Imagine for a second that you believed that. How would your actions change? Maybe you would be more willing to put that big task on the calendar for Monday morning. Maybe the next time you felt the urge to procrastinate, you’d take a deep breath and allow yourself to experience that urge instead of panicking.

Start acting as if the new belief were true. You don’t have to actually believe it yet. It’s sort of like method acting — you’re putting on a facade, a new character version of yourself. It’s okay if it feels phony in the beginning.

Conclusion

So there you have it — the three steps to busting right through a limiting belief:

1. Get that belief down to a single sentence you’re focusing on.
2. Interject doubt.
3. Act as if.

The process of believing new things is not easy, but it’s much easier when you have an expert coach on your side. While you might not believe the new thought, they will believe it for you. If you’re ready for a major personal reinvention process, make sure you check out more about our one-on-one coaching program.

Keep me updated in the comments on how your life changes as you update your beliefs — I can’t wait to chat with you more next week.