From Fear to Freedom: Breaking Free From Limiting Beliefs Overcome self-doubt, embrace truth, and rewrite the narrative holding you back.
by T.L. Farris
You will only ever be as successful as you believe you can be. Therefore what you believe about yourself and your potential are pretty important. Unfortunately it’s all too common that our beliefs about ourselves are limiting rather than freeing. Luckily, you can change your beliefs. You can actively choose to overcome limiting beliefs and believe the truth instead.
What you believe about yourself and your potential determines how you live your life and the success you can achieve. You have the power to design the life you live, and that starts with believing the truth about your future and yourself.
The First Step to Breaking Limiting Beliefs
Changing your beliefs and overcoming limiting thinking is challenging. It requires time, effort, and a lot of repetition. First, you must acknowledge that the belief is limiting and isn’t actually true. This starts by taking an audit of your thoughts and statements about yourself. Grab some paper and a pen, then ask yourself:
- If someone complimented me on my physical appearance what would be my initial reaction?
- If I had to learn something new what would my first thought be?
- What do I typically say about myself either privately, internally or to others?
- Do I regularly feel confident? Why or why not?
- If someone commented positively on my skills or abilities how would I react?
- Does praise make me uncomfortable? Why or why not?
- What kind of life do I feel “worthy” of living?
- When I envision my future what do I see?
- Do I believe I’m capable of change? Why or why not?
The answers to these questions can all reveal limiting beliefs. They help you to see what you truly believe about yourself and your capabilities but in order for it to work you must be honest when answering even if it’s brutal.
Truth Over Limits
After you’ve identified your limiting beliefs you must invalidate them. Just because it is what you believe doesn’t mean it’s what is true. You must attack each limiting belief individually and intentionally. You can’t invalidate the belief that you aren’t pretty with a truth like I’m Brilliant. The truth has power but in order for it to invalidate a limiting belief you have to attack it with a specific and opposite truth.
For example, here are 7 common limiting beliefs and the truths that invalidate them.
1. I’m not enough.
The opposite and specific truth here would be Psalm 139:13-14, that you are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” You are more than enough and you were placed here on purpose for a purpose. Believe that you are less than only cheapens God’s incredible, unique and perfect creation.
2. I don’t have time.
Unfortunately this one is very common. The truth is that you have as much time as you’ll allow. This comes down to priorities and commitments. We tend to put idealistic expectations on ourselves and our lives. Just because you only have 10 minutes a week to devote to fill in the blank doesn’t mean you can’t do it. It just means it may take longer or look different in the process. You have power over your time, you get to choose how you spend it.
3. I’ll fail if I try.
This is a two-fold limiting belief. First it is the expectation that you will fail. Second is the belief that failure is the end or even bad. The truth is you have no definitive way of knowing if you’ll fail or succeed until you try, and failure is only as final as you allow it to be. Failure is a learning opportunity, a chance for you to become better and succeed when you try again.
4. What I have to offer isn’t valuable.
You are invaluable and what you have to offer is truly one-of-a-kind. No one else sees or experiences the world like you do. Your perspective is unique to you and no one else on Earth can offer what you can. Whether it’s a book, art, a simple conversation, what you have to offer is absolutely valuable and you shouldn’t rob the world of what you have to give because you don’t see its value.
5. I’m alone in my struggles.
According to Hebrews 4:14-16, Jesus fully understands our struggles and experienced them all himself. You are not alone, not only do you have Jesus but more often than not when you speak up about your struggles those around you have also or are currently experiencing the same. Don’t keep your challenges to yourself, someone else may have a solution or may be waiting on you to let them know they aren’t alone either.
6. I have to do everything alone.
This one hits on a personal level for me, it’s one that I’ve had to work really hard to invalidate myself. None of us were created or designed to be islands. Our original design was to be in relationship and community; sharing in our burdens and success’. You don’t have to go it alone, you just have to reach out. Isolating leads to disappointment, sadness and loneliness. Asking for help is a good thing I promise.
7. It’s too late for me.
Nope. There is no such thing as “too late.” You can be anything you want to be at any point in your life. You are as capable as you believe you are so why not believe the best? Women have written their first book in their 60s. They’ve become artists in their hundreds. Become architects in their 50s. Started over in their 40s. Achieved their dreams in their 70s. Time is a construct, age is just a number, there is no such thing as “too late” so don’t give up.
Digging New Ruts
When you’ve invalidated the limiting belief it’s now time to go to work. Just because you’ve acknowledged the bad and stated the truth doesn’t mean your beliefs have changed. Beliefs are deeply rooted and become that way through time and repetition. Years of saying that because I was the oldest child in my family I had to lead the way and therefore had to do everything on my own led to my limiting belief that I had to go it alone.
I had dug a mental rut that declared “Do it alone” it was my automatic response and when I decided to change that I had 2 challenges.
- Getting out of the rut. I did this by declaring the truth and invalidating the limiting belief.
- Digging a new rut.
This comes with the same time and repetition it took to dig the first rut. Everytime I caught myself thinking or saying that I had to do something alone, I stopped myself and instead said out loud that “I’m not an island, I don’t have to do everything alone.” This verbal statement was a chore at first but it eventually became a habit. Then that habit dug a new rut in my mind and before I knew it I was believing differently than I had before.
Something to keep in mind when digging a new rut is how long you’d been digging the old one. Like I said, I’d spent years with the belief that I was all on my own and it took me just as long to change that thought process.
Keep Believing
What you believe about yourself and your potential determine how you live your life and the success you can achieve. Regularly taking time to audit your beliefs will ensure that limiting beliefs don’t have enough time to take root and that you are consistently and intentionally choosing the life you’re living.
You have the power to design the life you live and that starts with believing the truth about your future and yourself. Don’t allow the limiting beliefs that have taken root to stay any longer. Start digging new ruts in your mind and believing the truth about who you really are. Live the life you want to live, achieve your dreams.
