The 36 Most Common Limiting Beliefs

We know limiting beliefs are soul-crushing and prevent anyone from achieving their maximum potential. Here’s a list of thirty-six of the most common ones. Review the list and identify any that you may have. Below, I'll outline their origins and explain why they're challenging to eliminate without specialized help.

I'm Not Capable

I'm Not Good Enough

I Don't Matter

There's Something Wrong With Me

What I Want Doesn't Matter

What I Feel Doesn't Matter

I'm Not Worthy

I'm Worthless

I'm Not Okay

What I Do Doesn't Matter

Nothing I Do Is Good Enough

I'm A Fake, A Fraud, A Phony

I'm Not Lovable

I'm Powerless

I'm Stupid

I'm Bad

I'm Nothing

I'm Ugly

I'm Weak

I'm Inadequate

I'm Invisible

I'm A Loser

I'm Defective

Nobody Likes Me

I Don't Have What It Takes

My Needs Are Not Important

I Have Nothing To Offer Anyone

I'm A Disappointment

I'm Not Competent

I'm Not Acceptable

I'm Not Trustworthy

I'm Doomed

I'm Not Important

I'm Not Deserving

I'm Not Attractive

I'm Not Talented

Don’t forget they’re not always just sound bites like the list above. How about things like
“I could never be a millionaire,” or “She would never go out with me?”

They can be condensed down to “I’m not good enough” or “I don’t have what it takes.”
But a lot of times, you say things like the above and don’t realize you’re just talking about a limiting belief.

Hard To Get Rid Of

The problem with them is they’re insidious. To begin with, many people are unaware that they have them. They come from when we’re children, before something called your “Critical Faculty” comes along. Once they’ve taken hold – typically before the age of seven – they can be really hard to shift. Doing so on your own is almost impossible.

What Is Critical Faculty

The critical faculty, often mistakenly referred to as “The critical factor,” is essentially a filter that begins to develop around the age of seven. This is why you can tell a three-year-old there’s a pink dinosaur in the driveway handing out candy, and the child will run out convinced it’s there.

Try telling that same thing to a twelve-year-old, and he’s going to roll his eyes and say, “Yeah, right.”FYI, a famous Jesuit priest said many years ago,
“Show me the boy before seven, and I’ll show you the man.” So, they even knew about this.

A purple dragon handing out candy to show how Nick Hughes' coaching can help with beliefs installed at an early age.

Unfortunately, without that filter in place, anything your parents, siblings, friends, or teachers say is accepted as the truth. It’s even worse if there’s any type of emotion behind the delivery. So, a parent yelling at their kid for a bad mark on their report card, “You’re so stupid,” will scar the child for life. It’s also why children who grow up in households where spouses argue over money often develop problems managing their own finances.

The list above shows the thirty-six most common limiting beliefs that coaches and hypnotists frequently encounter.

Eliminating Limiting Beliefs

Any psychiatrist will tell you that dealing with trauma that happened before the age of seven or eight is hard. Now you know why. It’s almost as if someone at the computer factory installed a virus before you bought it and added an anti-malware app.

This is why you’re going to want a coach who’s trained specifically in either hypnosis or eradicating limiting beliefs to help you if you identify one or more you’d like to get rid of.