Do you have goals you want to achieve in your business but find yourself limiting your potential? 

Maybe you’re procrastinating and internalising a negative story that you don’t have enough time, don’t know enough or don’t have what it takes. The truth of the matter is that these are just excuses and the only thing truly stopping you is your own limiting beliefs.

What are limiting beliefs?

Limiting beliefs are the stories we feed ourselves about who we are, which then hold us back from becoming the empowered version of who we are destined to be. 

Your limiting beliefs, if not dealt with, will hold you back from reaching your full potential and often they are subconscious so you don’t even have any awareness that they exist.

The human brain is designed to be as efficient as possible and so we seek certainty in our routines, including our familiar thought patterns (both positive and negative). 

We’re often risk averse and don’t want to come out of the safety of our comfort zones and choose to only invest our time and energy in things that we are certain will give us the results we desire. 

If you don’t have a deep belief in yourself that you can achieve your goals you are likely to give up before you start and sabotage your success. This in itself is the definition of limiting beliefs.

How to identify your limiting beliefs

Whether you can believe it or not we all have unlimited potential and success starts with the courage to believe this to be true of ourselves. 

When you identify your limiting beliefs and shift into a deep knowing that you are capable and deserving of success, this is when you are able to tap into your full potential and reach more people with your amazing work.

When you identify and transform your beliefs, it gives you a strong sense of inner confidence and empowerment, which drives you to take greater action and achieve better results for both yourself and your clients. 

With consistency, you can reinforce the positive beliefs you have in yourself and create a cycle of success. But it all starts with identifying your limiting beliefs.

Stop making excuses

The next time you make an excuse (experience a limiting belief) that you don’t have enough time, or don’t have what it takes to be successful, ask yourself ‘is this true or is it a limiting belief?

When you catch a negative phrase going through your head such as ‘it’s never going to work out for me’ or ‘this is the way it’s always been’, catch that thought and replace it with a more empowering belief.

I’ve flipped the switch on several recurring thoughts and you can do the same…

• ‘It’s hard to make money in business’ becomes ‘making money in business is easy’
• ‘I don’t have enough money’ becomes ‘there’s always more money’
• ‘I don’t have it in me to be rich and successful’ becomes ‘I’m destined to be rich and successful

Growth mindset

Working on developing a growth mindset over a fixed mindset will support you in creating empowering beliefs to lead you on the road to success.

When you have a growth mindset you believe that you can improve your skills and knowledge and you’re willing to put the work in to reach your goals. When you adopt a growth mindset you believe that you can reach your full potential by changing your internal dialogue and creating a new story.

Some of the characteristics of a growth mindset are…

• Failure is an opportunity for growth
• You can learn anything you want
• Willingness to try new things
• Challenges help you grow
• You see feedback as constructive

Those with a fixed mindset don’t believe they can improve themselves and don’t like challenges as they see failure as a sign of inadequacy. This inhibits their growth and ability to reach their potential and impact more people with their work.

Identify the origin story

When you catch your negative thoughts such as ‘success isn’t meant for me’, get curious and dig deep. Going back to the question above ‘is this true or a limiting belief?’, get curious as to when this belief was created.

Most of our beliefs are formed in our pre-conscious years (up to the age of 6) and are modelled on experience that we’ve had with our parents, teachers and society. We inherit other people’s beliefs and they are passed down generation by generation, until you break the pattern and learn to create new positive and empowering beliefs

A great way to explore the origin story of your beliefs is to speak to your parents and family (if possible) and find the origin story behind your beliefs. If you believe it’s hard to make money, was it that you had working class parents (like myself) who told you that you have to ‘work hard to make money’?

Sometimes we wear a badge of honour and tell ourselves a story and the limiting belief that we don’t deserve success until we’ve worked really, really hard. Let this belief go, and replace it with a more empowering belief.

The more you identify your beliefs and do the work to change them, using a growth mindset, the quicker you’re able to reach your business goals and help more people with your amazing gifts. 

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