For the last 3 months, I’ve been working with a life coach. I find that the accountability and connection of having someone “hold my hand” when I’m trying to make significant changes in my life is essential. One of the things we’ve worked on is limiting beliefs. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this concept, in a nutshell, a limiting belief is a thought/belief/story that got ingrained in you when you were young. Sometimes it happens when we’re older, but most of our limiting beliefs have been with us for many years. The problem with these beliefs is that, you guessed it, they’re limiting! And they’re not true. Some common ones are “I’m not enough” or “Overweight is ugly” or “There’s never enough money.” You get the idea.

So my coach and I have only had time to tackle one of these limiting beliefs, and these stinkers will come up and bite you over and over. We’ll work on it, and a couple of weeks later it comes up again associated with a completely different situation. It takes consistent work to figure out what caused the limiting belief (it can be more than one event) and then recognize when it surfaces. Once you’ve called it out, you’ll be more likely to see it affecting your decisions.

If this is something you’d like to try, I recommend talking with a close friend or family member about times when they’ve seen you downplay your brilliance in some way. Then brainstorm with them about what the belief is that may be causing you to do that. Lastly, think back through points in your life, especially in childhood, that could have caused this belief to take hold. It may help to work with a coach if you need someone with an outside point of view. Once you figure out what created the limiting belief, you can begin to build the case for why it’s wrong. Then when you recognize times that the limiting belief comes up for you, begin taking baby steps to combat the belief with a true, positive belief.

It is completely worth the effort to eventually lose that limiting belief so that you can make healthy decisions without a monkey on your back (or in your head!) all the time.