Limiting Beliefs - How to find? & the Process?

Yow everyone I'm trying to find my own limiting beliefs. But I do not know how to start finding them or how to change them.

If you are fimiliar with the process, feel free to give me some tips or advice. Books and articles also welcome

Thanks
Thomas

 

Heard a lot of good things about that book. Will order it after the exams.

 

I found a good blog post which explains the process pretty clearly. I will drop it in spoiler because it is pretty long.

Spoiler: The process

Quick explanation
Beliefs are conditioned perceptions that are built upon old memories of pain and pleasure. These memories are based on how we have interpreted and emotionalized our experiences over time.
These belief systems are, therefore, nothing more than psychological rules or commands to the nervous system that shapes your thoughts and filters your experience of reality.
Beliefs are essentially assumptions we make about ourselves, about others, and about how we expect things to be in our world. we use beliefs as anchors that help express our understanding of the world around us.
It’s important to note that beliefs are not facts. However, deeply ingrained beliefs can indeed be mistaken as facts. These beliefs are often nothing more than conclusions you have drawn based on your childhood experiences.

How is a Belief Created?
Over a lifetime your beliefs are ingrained into your nervous system due to repeated situations that prove their legitimacy.
While holding onto these opinions, you are still quite flexible when it comes to your expectations. However, through the process of repetitively thinking and acting out these things in real life, your opinions solidify and eventually turn into beliefs. And that is essentially the stage when a belief turns into a conviction.

How Much Strength Does a Belief Have?
they influence every aspect of your life in every conceivable way. For instance, your beliefs will determine your expectations and perceptions of reality. They will influence your level of intelligence and impact the decisions you make, or the choices you fail to even realize are possible to make.
Understanding how your beliefs influence your feelings is fundamental because they often disguise what’s real and instead present you with a false view of reality that only exists in your imagination.
What Types of Beliefs do we Have?

• Psychological Rules
  You believe something because you have a certain set of rules that tell you that this “something” makes sense and is accurate.
  
  Psychological rules often stem from the pain and pleasure response. Let’s say for instance that you come across a specific situation. Your brain will ask whether making a certain decision or taking a particular action will result in pain or pleasure. You then either decide to take action that helps you avoid pain, or to gain pleasure. Whatever you choose to do provides you with insight into the underlying hidden belief that is at the core of that particular psychological rule.
  
  
• Global Beliefs
  Global beliefs are generalizations you make about things, about people, and about life. You will, for instance, believe X and you won’t believe Y. You believe X because you have made specific assumptions about X and Y that make them out to be a certain way.
  
  
• Convictions
  They are beliefs that have the highest unwavering certainty, commitment, and dedication. the amount of emotion, time, energy, and thought you have invested in these beliefs over a lifetime makes them virtually indestructible.

How to Identify Your Limiting Beliefs

Firstly You Must Figure Out What You Want
Your first step is to figure out what it is you want. These are your goals, objectives and the outcomes you would like to achieve. These are the things you’ve been working toward for weeks, months, and even years, but for one reason or another they are things you’ve been unable to achieve.

You’re being held back because you probably have a set of limiting beliefs that are sabotaging your progress. However, at this stage, let’s not worry about these beliefs. Right now, the most important thing is to clarify what it is you want. Ask yourself:

What is it that I want?
What goals would I like to achieve?
What kind of person would I like to become?

Why do I want all these things? What are the benefits?

Identify Your Limiting Beliefs
It’s important to keep in mind how useful a belief “is” in your particular situation — concerning the goal that you are trying to achieve. If it serves you and supports the goal you are working toward, then keep it. However, if it doesn’t serve you and hinders your progress, then this is a clear indication that you are dealing with a limiting belief.
You typically won’t be able to overcome obstacles and problems because of the limiting beliefs that are occupying the space between your ears. For instance, your limiting beliefs can potentially manifest in the following ways:

When you make excuses.
When you complain about things.
When you indulge in negative thoughts.
When you indulge in unhelpful habits.
When you talk to yourself in limiting and unhelpful ways.
When you jump to conclusions and/or make assumptions.
When you hesitate or express your fears.
When you worry about failure or about making mistakes.
When you worry uncontrollably for no apparent reason.
When you think about procrastinating.
When you think about indulging in perfectionism.

The more internal resistance you experience, the more limiting beliefs are laying dormant just below the surface of conscious awareness.
These are the beliefs you need to bring into conscious awareness. You can do so by asking yourself the following questions:

What resistance am I feeling inside while I think about achieving this goal?
Why can’t I overcome certain challenges to achieve my goal? What is holding me back?
What specifically is getting in the way?
What unhelpful habits am I indulging in?
How am I thinking about this situation?
What am I saying or doing to myself that is holding me back?
What excuses do I tend to indulge in? What do these excuses mean? Why do I make them?
Why do I think this is hard or too difficult? What is stopping me? Why?
What kind of things do I tend to complain about, or blame others for?
Do I potentially have any psychological rules that are preventing me from moving forward?
What negative and pessimistic thoughts do I tend to indulge in while pursuing this goal?
What assumptions or conclusions am I making about my inability to achieve this goal?
Do I have any global beliefs that might be holding me back?
What do I expect should happen? What usually ends up happening? Why is there a discrepancy here?
Are my standards too low? Why? Maybe, I should set the bar higher?
Do I have any values that are in conflict with my goals? What do I believe about these values?
How am I labeling myself and/or describing myself as I work toward this goal? How could this be causing problems?
What stories do I tell myself about what I should or shouldn’t be doing, and about what should or shouldn’t happen? How is this of significance?
Having taken the time to reflect on these questions, it’s now important that you specify correctly what kind of limiting beliefs are currently holding you back. Ask yourself:
What insights do the answers to these questions provide about my limiting beliefs?
What specific limiting beliefs are holding me back right now?
How are these limiting beliefs preventing me from achieving my desired goals and objectives?
How are these limiting beliefs denying me the opportunity to become the person I want to be?

Remember that your limiting beliefs are assumptions you make about reality that aren’t true in your particular situation. They aren’t helpful, and they certainly don’t serve you or the goals you want to achieve.

Understanding the Formation of Your Limiting Beliefs
Before moving on, it might also be helpful to identify how these limiting beliefs found their way into your life. Ask yourself:

How did I come to form this particular limiting belief?
What has made me hold onto this belief for so long?

Just maybe, these beliefs are linked to childhood memories and experiences that no longer serve your greater good. Unlocking these memories can help you to let go of specific experiences, and maybe, even forgive certain people that did you wrong. And possibly, you might also find the courage to forgive yourself.


Every belief you hold onto has a set of references that support it. And by understanding the origins of this belief you put yourself in a prime position to pinpoint the various references that have been feeding this belief. To help you with this identification process, ask yourself:

What kind of references support this limiting belief?
What knowledge supports this belief?
What life experiences support this belief?
What intense emotional experiences support this belief?
How have I held onto this belief in my imagination over the years?

What specific things have I imagined? What stories have I concocted?

Many of these references may very well have been concocted in your own imagination. And therefore, they don’t have any real basis in reality. Other references may be based on false knowledge or assumptions.

Then there might be some references that may actually be based on real-life experiences, however, over time the brain has a tendency to distort past experiences to protect you from the truth (pain).

Letting Go of Your Limiting Beliefs
It’s important to mention that each of your limiting beliefs serves a purpose. They are there because they protect you from something. This “something” often manifests as a form of pain.

Now, of course, this doesn’t mean that the belief makes any sense at all, or that it’s practical in the present moment. What it does mean is that each of your limiting beliefs has good intentions, and these intentions are there to protect you from pain.

Moving forward it’s critical to determine what you are gaining by holding onto each of your limiting beliefs. Ask yourself:

How am I deriving pleasure by holding onto this limiting belief?
What good intention does this belief provide me with?
What value am I gaining by holding onto this belief?

To replace your limiting belief with a more empowering belief, you will need to convince yourself that the value you’re deriving from this limiting belief isn’t required any longer. Otherwise, your new empowering belief must in some way fill this void. Therefore, you either fill this void or eliminate the void altogether. The choice is yours to make.

Preparing Yourself for Change
The emotional intensity of each of your limiting beliefs can be measured using submodalities.
Submodalities are ways in which you interpret and then represent your world using your five senses. It’s all about how you visualize things, how you hear things, and how you feel things internally.

The limiting beliefs that are most difficult to overcome are supported by very vivid and emotionally intense submodalities.

How to Transform Your Limiting Beliefs
You can’t just go through this process and hope that you will change your mind. Whenever you have a high level of emotion invested in something it creates a barrier to change. You will need to cut your ties, and this will require some work. In fact, the deeper the belief and/or conviction, the more difficult this process is going to be and the longer it will take.

Step 1: Choose Your Desired Outcome
Your very first step is to choose your desired outcome. This will help you gain clarity about what it is you would like to change. Ask yourself:
What goals would I like to achieve?
What’s currently preventing me from achieving these goals?
What kind of person would l ideally like to become?
What is it specifically that I would like to change?
What specific beliefs are not working for me?

What beliefs are preventing me from achieving my desired outcomes?

Step 2: Question Your Limiting Beliefs
Your limiting beliefs are only as strong as the references that support them. And, often your limiting beliefs probably have a plethora of references that influence your perspective on reality.

It’s important to keep in mind that these references were only once ideas, that became opinions, and later came together to form your beliefs.

Is this belief really that accurate?
Have I always believed this? Why?
Was there a time when I didn’t believe this? Why?
Are there times in some situations when this belief just doesn’t make any rational sense?
What evidence is there that disproves this limiting belief?
What’s the exact opposite way of thinking about this belief? How is this helpful?
What’s funny about this belief? What’s strange about this belief? What’s embarrassing about this belief?
Is this belief helping me get what I want most in life? Will it help me reach my goals?
How would others question the validity of this belief? How would they think about it?
How does the opposite of what I believe work for other people? How is this of value?
What famous quotes throw doubt upon this limiting belief?
What are the critical flaws in believing what I believe? How is it silly to think this way?

These questions are designed to encourage you to think outside the box. They are designed to make you feel a little uncomfortable, and they are, of course, designed to help shift how you think about your limiting belief.

Step 3: Consider the Consequences of Your Limiting Beliefs

What will the consequences be if I’m unable to make this change and eliminate this limiting belief?
How will not changing affect me physically? Emotionally? Spiritually? Financially? In my relationships with others?
How will not changing affect my life?
What are the short-term consequences of not changing?
What are the potential long-term consequences of not making this change?
How will all this make me feel?

Given all this, why is it important to make this change right now?

The more pain you can associate with holding onto this belief, the more motivation you will have to make a positive change in your life.
Step 4: Choose a New Empowering Belief to Adopt
The one guiding principle that you must follow here is to make sure that this new belief is believable. If it’s not believable, then you will, unfortunately, fail to condition it into your psyche.
What would this person likely believe while in pursuit of this goal?
What would this person believe about themselves?
What would this person believe about their goal?
What’s their attitude like? How do they think about this goal?
What would this person believe after having achieved their goal?
How would they think about the obstacles they confront along their journey?

What would they believe if they had to achieve this goal again for a second time?

Now, consider the advantages of this belief and how it could potentially help improve your life and circumstances. Ask yourself:
What are the benefits of using this new belief?
How will this new belief help me to attain my goals?
How will this belief change my life for the better?
How will this belief help me in the short-term and in the long-term?
How will all this make me feel about myself?
To what extent is this belief likely to empower me moving forward?

Why is all this important? What does all this really mean?

The more reasons you can find, the more motivation you will have to change your old patterns of behavior and replace them with new empowering belief systems.
Step 5: Strengthen Your New Empowering Belief
Strengthening a belief requires taking into consideration ways you could build upon the references that support this new belief. Ask yourself:

What kinds of behaviors, decisions and actions could help me strengthen this belief?
What habits and/or rituals could help me strengthen this belief?
What famous quotes could potentially help me strengthen this belief?
Are there any symbols I could use that might help me strengthen this belief?
Could I create a slogan for myself that might help me strengthen this belief?
Are there any stories that support the philosophy behind this new empowering belief?
What about role models? Are there any role models I could turn to that could help me strengthen this belief?

Working through the belief transformation process comes down to building solid references that help support your new empowering belief.
Step 6: Make a Firm Decision About What to Change
What’s my commitment level to making this change?
Do I feel confident that I can successfully make this change?
How motivated am I to make this change?

Go through each of these questions and rank them from 1 to 10. If you’re not at least at an 8 out of 10 on all three questions, then go back to the previous steps and work through them again.

Step 7: Progressively Condition Your New Belief
Having committed yourself to this new empowering belief, it’s now time to progressively condition this new belief into your nervous system. And there are some ways you can do this.

First of all, you can use the process of visualization to help condition this new belief into your nervous system. Just spend time daily visualizing yourself in your imagination using this new way of thinking in your day-to-day undertakings.

Secondly, you can use the process of anchoring to condition this new belief into your nervous system. This primarily involves anchoring a physical sensation to your body that will automatically allow you to get into an optimal state-of-mind that is congruent with your new empowering belief.

Thirdly, you can condition this new belief into your nervous system by making some helpful adjustments to your submodalities. These modifications can help add more emotional firepower to your new belief. This will increase the strength of the references that help support this belief.

Step 8: Make Room for this New Belief in Your Life
Is this new belief congruent and consistent with my values? Do any changes need to be made?
How must my thoughts and perspectives change to match this new belief?
How must I alter my language patterns to match this new belief?
Do I need to develop some new habits and/or rituals that will help support this new belief?
How must I change my environment to match this new belief?

Are there any other aspects of my life that need adjusting in order to integrate this new belief successfully into my life?

Questions are more powerful than affirmations because they focus your mind on solutions and on taking the necessary action steps to solve problems. You might, for instance, alter the above three affirmations in the following way:
How can I do this? How can I solve this problem?
What are my strengths? How can I use them to muster the self-confidence I need to get this done?
How can I make this work? What if I tried…? Who could help me make this work?

When you ask questions, you’re no longer focused on what can’t be done, but rather on the possibilities that are laid out before you

Step 9: Begin Using Your New Empowering Belief
Take action and get into the habit of using your new empowering belief as often as possible until it begins to feel comfortable and familiar.
You may, of course, need to get through that initial awkward stage where you feel a little discomfort and uncertainty. That’s normal. With persistence, dedication, and commitment you will get through it. Just keep moving forward.
It might be helpful to write down your new belief on a sheet of paper and carry it around with you throughout the day. Read your new belief as often as possible until it begins feeling comfortable and natural.

As you make progress along your journey, it’s important to always stay flexible in your approach and make course corrections when required.