A year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to answer this question, or even understand the impact that self-limiting beliefs were having on my life. That was until I started training as a Life Coach.
You’ve probably come across Henry Ford’s quote:
Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.
But have you thought about what it means?
Beliefs are so powerful, that when pharmacy companies carry out clinical trials, they use placebo’s to ensure that people taking the drug received a benefit from the drug, not just from the person believing it helps.
What are beliefs?
Beliefs are simply the things that you believe to be true.
They come in many forms, from religious, cultural, political and moral beliefs (what is right and what is wrong), to ideas that you support for example that the football team you support is the best.
Many beliefs are imprinted on us from the community we grow up in, whilst for others, our life experience teaches us what we believe to be true (or learn that isn’t).
The thing about our beliefs is that they affect our behaviour in both positive and negative ways. They affect how we view the world and what you think about the things in it. When we buy into stereotypes, it allows us to judge whole groups of people and act on those beliefs.
Beliefs v Values
Both values and beliefs impact our behaviour and attitude to others.
Values are the things or concepts that are important to us, however, they are more abstract concepts that we try to achieve. Examples of values include honesty, compassion, kindness and charity.
Values and beliefs do intersect. For example, we may value honesty in ourselves and others, and we may also believe that to tell lies is wrong, but we may also believe that white lies are ok.
Self-limiting beliefs
Self-limiting beliefs are a specific sub-set of beliefs that you hold. These beliefs are very negative and impact how you view yourself. They are the thoughts that prevent you taking action and stop you dreaming big:
- I can’t do x…
- I’m not good enough
- I’m not worthy to
- yes, but
Self-limiting beliefs may start any time and may be a result of something that happened or something someone said. However, over time the may no longer be true.
The chained elephant
One example of this is the story of the baby elephant chained up. As a baby, it didn’t have the strength to break the chains and release itself. However, as an adult, whilst he now has the strength to break the chains, he has grown up believing that they cannot be broken, and so doesn’t even try.
This is what can happen to us humans too. As we grow, we accumulate a range of beliefs, some of which are true at the time. However, as we get older, instead of realising things have changed, we still hang onto those beliefs.
Learned helplessness
Martin Seligman came across the theory of learned helplessness in 1965, when he carried out an experiment on dogs. In his experiment, he set up an area divided by a fence that the dogs could jump over. One set of dogs had been conditioned to associate a bell with a shock whilst the second group weren’t. In the new area, the first set of dogs did nothing to avoid shocks, whereas the second group jumped over the fence to avoid the shock. The first group could have avoided the shock, but believed they were helpless and didn’t even try. Seligman concluded that the first group had learned that they were helpless to do anything about their circumstances, and so the concept of learned helplessness was discovered.
The power of self-limiting beliefs
Like the dogs in Martin Seligman’s experiment, and the baby elephant who grew up, we too can learn to be helpless. We hang onto beliefs that hold us back, because we don’t see any possibility of hope. We can’t see that things have changed, and that we are more powerful than we give ourselves credit for.
One of the benefits of Life Coaching is that we help you question those beliefs that are holding you back from being the person you want to be, and from having the success you are capable of. In reality, you will never achieve your true potential until you tackle those beliefs that stop you from even trying.
Next week, I’m going to teach you a very simple technique to help you banish self-limiting beliefs for good.
Further reading: