Penelope Wilson
Penelope Wilson
August 5, 2020 ·  4 min read

How Your Self-Limiting Beliefs Become Your Reality and What You Can Do About It

You are who you think you are. Period. 

The most important opinion is the one you have of yourself, and it’s the only one that truly matters. External factors may contribute to our development of negative self-images, but it’s largely controlled by your perceptions of yourself. Your mind is an extremely powerful thing and if you don’t take charge of it, it might end up working against you.

The way you think about yourself strongly affects the way you talk, act, reason, and relate with others. One major difference between the most successful people on earth who started with nothing and the rest of the world is mindset. When you think of yourself as an unstoppable goal-getter who can achieve almost anything, you’d eventually become what you believe. You can set your mind to anything and pull off powerful visions. Other factors may try to impede your progress, but your resilience and self-assurance will get you through.

On the other hand, if you go about feeding your mind with self-limiting thoughts and discouraging words, you’re already making the path more crooked than it needs to be. “I’m never going to be good enough for this. I can’t do this. I could never pull this off… I don’t have what it takes…” These trains of thought will ultimately lead to the implied destination — nowhere. Your mind would condition itself to a comfort zone, a mental boundary beyond which you are unable to thrive, adapt or function, and if you had any unharnessed potentials, they all go to waste in due time.

It could be all in your head

Sometimes, your reactions to certain situations do not stem from your core personality. They are simply fuelled by the way you regard yourself. When a person who is not necessarily shy suddenly starts having trouble interacting in social situations, an underlying external issue may be the cause. You don’t just become shy overnight. When a person says, “I could never fit in here. I don’t belong here. I don’t look good enough these days,” they are setting the bar too high for themselves and inadvertently lowering their self-esteem. 

You may have the skills, the talents, the potentials, and the passion, but if the drive and motivation are absent, you’d most likely miss out on amazing opportunities. Even if things somehow click and work out for you, you’ll think it’s just sheer, dumb luck. 

You want to go back to college to start over and achieve your dreams, but you’re convinced you’re never going to make it through the first year. You want to start a jewelry business but you’ve already told yourself that no one is going to buy anything from you, for some unfounded reason. You want to start a company and without even trying to understand the processes, you’re so sure it’s going to flop.

How can you move forward if you continue to allow your mind to limit your progress?

An optimistic outlook and self-encouraging thoughts

Positive affirmations are more powerful than we assume, and a real affirmation isn’t merely spoken words. You need to believe it, agree with it, and envision what it states. For every negative thoughts and label you’ve placed on yourself, a corresponding positive affirmation can cancel it.

A train of thought does not translate to fact. Thinking about seething doesn’t make it true. It only seems true because your mind funnels out what you feed it. 

You can improve the quality of your life and increase productivity by changing your mindset and shifting your attitude to blend in with a more positive disposition. [1] Be kind, gentle and reasonable with yourself. You can improve your self-image with these helpful tips:

Destabilize those negative opinions by rising up to the challenge

If you’ve always told yourself that you are not worthy of something or capable enough, it’s finally time to dismantle those foundations by rising to the challenge. If you want it, go for it. Other factors may work to prevent from succeeding at first, but it’s a huge win in your book that YOU TRIED. You inspired yourself to get up and go for it. That’s something.

Find out what triggered the negativity

Look into the bigger picture behind you. You didn’t just get up one morning and decide to begin the self-hating process. External factors such as manipulation, abuse, neglect, bullying, trolling can so on can influence a person’s perception of themselves. An improvement would be cutting off the sources of these unhealthy influences. Stand up to anything or anyone causing you to limit your own progress. Block easy access to your life and mind, only letting in the people who support and encourage you. [2]

Feed yourself positive, enlivening and encouraging thoughts

Learn to speak to yourself as frequently as possible. You don’t have to wait for someone else to offer you kind words before you can feel good about yourself. You can enrich yourself with your own positive words and encouraging thoughts. “What-ifs” are not allowed in this space except for risk management purposes. However, you can strive for the most exciting possibilities the moment you burn all self-limiting beliefs. 

You can do it, but only if you set your mind to it.

References

  1. Self-affirmation activates brain systems associated with self-related processing and reward and is reinforced by future orientation.” Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci. Christopher N. Cascio, Matthew Brook O’Donnell, Francis J. Tinney, Matthew D. Lieberman, Shelley E. Taylor, Victor J. Strecher, and Emily B. Falk. Retrieved August 1, 2020.
  2. What Are Your Thought Triggers?” Psychology Today. Jeffrey S. Nevid Ph.D., ABPP. Retrieved August 1, 2020.