Let’s Talk About Limiting Beliefs

Limiting beliefs are the major culprits stopping us from achieving our goals and living our values.

They act as rules that stop us from getting what is possible, what we are capable of and what we deserve.

As a coach, when I ask clients “what stops you from achieving your goal?” the answers very often are limiting beliefs.

Limiting beliefs may come from childhood when we copied our parents – parents are never perfect. These early beliefs often stay hidden and we do not consciously evaluate them as adults. We also pick up limiting beliefs from the media. TV series set up situations where the characters have to act out over-dramatised limitations, otherwise, there is no drama!

Here are some typical limiting beliefs:

• ‘I need to work very hard to have enough money to live.’
• ‘No pain – no gain.’
• ‘I need to be rich to be happy.’
• ‘Success takes a long time.’
• ‘I can’t trust anybody.’
• ‘Most people are luckier than me.’
• ‘You can’t get over a bad start in life.’
• ‘I can’t work a computer.’
• ‘I can’t live without that work.’
• ‘I can’t win without other people losing.’
• ‘I never get what I want.’
• ‘Other people are better than me.’
• ‘Coaching is difficult.’
• ‘I am not a flexible person.’
• ‘I do not deserve to succeed.’
• ‘I can’t get what I want.’
• ‘I have reached my limits.’

These and similar beliefs are only true if you act as if they are.

Suppose they are mistaken: What difference would that make? Is the difference worthwhile?

Identifying Limiting Beliefs

In coaching, sometimes simply being able to articulate limiting beliefs and seeing their effect is enough for my clients to change their beliefs and therefore their reality.

People are not usually aware of their limiting beliefs. The first step is to put them into language. Then they are in the open and can be examined with curiosity and there are two simple ways to do this.

The first is the Limiting Beliefs Worksheet exercise we do in coaching.

The other example of a way to identify limiting beliefs is to ask yourself why are you not achieving your goal? What do you think is stopping you? The answers show what YOU perceive as limits.

Often these limits are more about you than about the world.

A good coaching principle to work from is:

Whatever you say is stopping you from getting your goal is a belief and comes from you, not reality.

Obstructions are created on the outside world from limiting beliefs in our own mind.

Joseph O’Connor, Coaching with NLP

Within your personalised personal or business coaching package, you can ask me to run one session of your program focused on the Limiting Beliefs exercise.

Susan is a professional coach and certified NLP practitioner.

NLP stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. NLP studies three areas that give it its name:

Extract Reference: O’Connor J and Lages A, 2004, Coaching with NLP: How to be a Master Coach, Element, Hammersmith, London