How to Change Limiting Beliefs
Beliefs rule our lives, whether they are empowering or limiting.
Wouldn’t it be fun to know how to change limiting beliefs?
Let’s start with what a belief is and how we come to adopt them.
A belief is something you accept (a proposition, theory, situation, group or person) as true or trustworthy.
A belief is a feeling of certainty that something exists or is true.
Beliefs are mental representations of how we expect the world to be.
How do we come to create or accept beliefs?
We have mental shortcuts that help us process information quickly, but can also lead us to embrace distorted, untrue, or harmful beliefs. When I say “mental shortcuts,” scientists use the term “cognitive biases” that cause us to accept certain evidence while rejecting others.
As humans, we all do it, we all use these shortcuts. In the book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kune writes about how paradigms or big beliefs cause scientists to miss evidence because of their biases.
Our emotions are another shortcut that creates beliefs. If we’re fearful, we might only see threats in a situation and miss the opportunities. If we’re feeling anger, we might only see blame or judgment and miss the subtle causes that are really creating the results we are experiencing.
Social context influences what we see and eventually believe. Studies have shown that when a group of people embrace a belief, we tend to follow the crowd.
Even more powerful is when a manipulator hold positional authority.
The police, your pastor, and someone in a lab coat are people we might attribute authority to, thereby creating a shortcut to adopting a belief.
Once a belief is “in,” we operate based on the belief, but it goes even deeper.
Dr. Bruce Lipton proved that beliefs also show up in our bodies, cells, and physical systems.
And most of us are aware that beliefs impact our emotions, thoughts and actions.
Let’s get to work changing those limiting beliefs!
To master belief change, let’s start with three foundational concepts that pave the way to change limiting beliefs.
First, it’s possible to rest in an awareness where there are no beliefs, only the awareness that you are. That’s important because, that means that our beliefs, frames, expectations… all those belief words, represent a layer of mind, not our core self.
This is a critical concept because when it comes to changing beliefs, it gets much easier when you can see your beliefs in action APART from your core self.
In other words, if you overidentify with a belief, you can’t change it because it is your identity.
Second, beliefs can be false and harmless.
When I was six years old, I believed that my father served in the military because he had an army surplus canteen.
When I spoke to him about his military experience, he laughed at how stupid I was for believing that.
My belief that he served in the military was false but harmless. Objectively, he didn’t.
But my father’s suggestion that I was stupid represents a limiting belief or the third foundational concept of belief change and that’s…
The third foundational insight for beliefs is, that some beliefs are objectively false and toxic.
This is the tragedy we want to reverse.
Police interrogators can make someone confess to an objectively false and toxic belief that they committed a crime when they didn’t.
This is a well-documented phenomenon. Authority figures like my father can do the same, plant beliefs that are false and toxic.
How?
The police, my father and your religious leader share a common trait; positional authority.
We use this shortcut, trusting positional authority, because they help us make sense of the world when there’s so much to sort through.
The police create a false belief, in part because of their positional authority, but they also start with “isn’t it possible,” as a way to open the door to a false belief.
They may also use fatigue and repetition against you.
Yikes! So if you notice a limiting belief from whatever source, how do you change it?
You have to see the belief and see all of the belief.
First you have to see the belief and see all of the belief. All? You can’t change what you’re not aware of. And beliefs have an underlying energy or feeling.
Beliefs aren’t rational and don’t have to be.
When you become aware of a belief that is operating in your life, first focus on the underlying energy or feeling that’s there. That is what is keeping it in your consciousness. Once the energy is allowed to move on, the belief collapses.
The underlying energy might be an emotional payoff.
People believe weird, irrational things because it makes them feel special, elite, set apart, you know, better than others.
Identify the underlying emotion including the payoffs if you’re ready to change the belief.
For example, believing that you can’t do something, gives you the emotional payoff to feel innocent about not doing it should you not follow through.
“I’ve never been able to learn languages.”
You see the belief and you see the emotional payoff that you feel innocent when you don’t.
Recognizing the underlying emotional payoff is the first step to pivoting to something more empowering.
How? See it the belief and underlying emotions, then thank it, give it permission to dissipate, then start feeding the more empowering belief.
Thank the limiting belief? Yes, there’s a reason you let it in.
Acknowledgment with gratitude for the function it served starts the process of the energy dissipation.
You feared you might fail at learning a language and adopted a belief that gave you an “out.”
See it all. Thank it for how it was trying to serve you.
Give it permission to find another way to serve you.
Start to focus on the empowering belief.
“I can learn languages when I focus consistently, with joy, on learning.”
You find evidence to support this belief, which, by the way, is feeding the belief.
Relax into a space where the belief “feels” true. You can learn that language.
Use images, but also sounds and physical feelings to make this belief speak to your subconscious mind in a way it will understand.
How does it feel when you imagine that empowering belief?
It’s normal for it to feel a bit phoney at first, kind of true but kind of not true.
Repetition with emotion helps the belief take root.
Also, acting as if the belief were true as you go about your day reinforces it in your mind.
Remember when I said, “beliefs are mental representations of how we expect the world to be?”
Act as if the empowering belief was how you expect the world to be. Choose it and do it.
If you find yourself getting pulled back into negative beliefs, move into awareness to see it all, the underlying emotions and associations with the negative belief.
If you’ve been scapegoated by toxic people, you’re carrying around “not enough” or “unworthy” beliefs.
See it, see it all, and start to experiment with more true and empowering beliefs.
A step back into “not enough” or “unworthy” is expected as shame and fear-based beliefs run deep and were meant to control you.
But now you’re starting to see more clearly how you were played, betrayed and dismayed by people you trusted.
You see the belief and see it all.
You give space for “always enough, always worthy.”
You feed “worthy” as you rest in unconditional love.
It feels good but it also feels a bit foreign, perhaps a bit fake.
If you were scapegoated, of course it’s going to feel a bit weird knowing yourself as worthy of love unconditionally.
But you’re curious. You give yourself permission to adopt this truer, more empowering belief.
You imagine, you rest in the knowing of yourself as unconditionally worthy of love, as an embodiment of love.
Yet you also feel pulled back into somehow its okay that people disrespect you.
What’s that about? See it all, the underlying emotions and thank it, give it permission to serve you differently.
Because when you adopted the “unworthy” belief, you were doing the best you could at the time.
And the limiting belief of being “unworthy” made sense at the time.
And now you can see it, see it all, and you are pivoting to a much truer, more empowering belief of unconditional worthiness.
Now that will unleash vitality my friends!
Thanks for joining us today at the Change Capability Institute.
Quinn Price
Quinn is an Executive Coach and change expert who has worked with dozens of large companies, including Microsoft, Nike, Lockheed, Thiokol, PGE, Deloitte, and many others. He is interested in helping people regain their vitality after a setback, heal after manipulation, create high-performing teams, and implement cultural change that realizes measurable benefits.
Popular posts
About this blog
The Change Capability Institute exists to help people and organizations change faster. We focus on change education in the areas of creating vitality after setbacks, developing high-performance teams, and accelerating organizational change (especially culture change).
Created with © systeme.io