We hold onto these assumptions and perspectives as absolute truth while, without knowing it, all they do is hold us back from reaching our full potential. These beliefs are everywhere, and a part of all of us to some degree.

• I’m not good/pretty or smart enough
• I don’t deserve it
• I am too young, people won’t take me seriously
• I am too old, it’s too late to start

We can limit our beliefs in many different ways, through experiences, education, faulty facts, excuses, and fear. Many of them were formed and accumulated throughout our childhood. We picked them up through our interactions with others. These beliefs not only don’t serve us, but in fact, they hold us back from having the life we always desired. The great thing is that eliminating self-limiting beliefs is completely doable.

1. When we realise that we are facing a negative thought about ourselves, first thing we need to do is to find a counter instance.

We need to look for examples where our belief is not entirely true. Let’s say one of our self-limiting beliefs is, “I cannot be loved, because I have too much baggage. No one will want me with them.” Actually, to be quite frank, this is one of my biggest worries when it comes to having a proper relationship. Even though I’m completely aware of the fact that no one is perfect, as we are only humans, this belief is so deeply ingrained that it still manages to hold me back from achieving what I want. Now that we’ve established our self-limiting belief, all we need to do is to look around us and find a couple where even though one of the parties has a lot of issues; they still have a beautiful relationship. This indicates that there is a flaw in the belief system.

2. Then we need to find the source of these negative beliefs.

How do we do that? We need to dig deep into memories from our past – childhood, teenage years, early twenties, or even last year – to see what instance or instances brought us to this conclusion. Going back to the same example I used before, I remember having seen my friends having never-ending arguments just because one of them had a lot of baggage from her past, and automatically, I held onto this experience as the ultimate truth.

3. The next step is to look at the situation from a different angle and find an alternative reason to the problem. 

For example, in my case, when I analysed my friend’s situation a bit further, I realised that the underlying problem was not the issues she carried from her past, but the lack of communication.

4. After understanding where these negative and disempowering beliefs come from, our final step is to eliminate them.

This could be done through visualisation, when we close our eyes and imagine that there are two pictures in front of us. On one of these pictures, we are very sad, as thanks to these unsupportive thoughts, we are not living the life we always desired, while on the other photo, we are glowing, as we have everything we have ever wanted. Now, let’s imagine that the image that illustrates a sad, miserable life is slowly getting blurry, and then it completely fades away. All we have in front of us now is the picture where we are smiling, feeling great about our life.

Here, we need to pay attention to our feelings. Who do we see around us when we look at that picture? How do we feel? What do we hear?

CHANGE ALWAYS STARTS WITH AWARENESS, FOLLOWED BY UNDERSTANDING, AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST COMES RECONDITIONING.

We have to be careful with the thoughts we have, and the affirmation we use. The thoughts in our subconscious create our future far more that the ones that are in our conscious mind. Let me use the image of an iceberg to illustrate the relationship between the conscious and subconscious mind. Only a small percentage of the whole iceberg is visible above the surface that represents the conscious mind, while the subconscious mind, the largest and most powerful part, remains unseen below the surface. In this metaphor, the subconscious mind holds all memories, feelings, and thoughts that are out of conscious awareness. The conscious mind, the tip of the iceberg, is a small portion of the whole being. It is what we ordinarily think of when we say “my mind.” It’s associated with thinking, analysing, and making judgements and decisions. These thoughts in our subconscious mind are extremely powerful as they are responsible for holding us back from achieving our dreams. Sometimes these beliefs need to be rewired. For example, if you would like to earn more money, it is not enough on its own that you believe that you are a money magnet, if your subconscious mind affirms that you don’t deserve it. After getting to the root of the problem, correct it, and finally enjoy the result of your effort.