The Thirty-Six Most Common Limiting Beliefs
If you read my previous blog about limiting beliefs and how destructive they can be, you already know where they come from. Here’s a list of thirty-six of the most common ones. Go through the list and identify any that you might have.
| There’s something wrong with me. | I’m not good enough. |
| I’m not capable. | I don’t matter. |
| What I want doesn’t matter. | What I feel doesn’t matter. |
| What I do doesn’t matter. | I’m not worthy. |
| I’m worthless. | I’m not okay. |
| I’m not important. | I’m not deserving. |
| I’m not lovable. | I’m powerless. |
| I’m stupid. | I’m bad. |
| I’m nothing. | Nothing I do is good enough. |
| I’m not attractive. | I’m ugly. |
| I’m not talented. | I’m weak. |
| I’m inadequate. | I’m not competent. |
| I’m a fake, a fraud, a phony. | I’m a disappointment. |
| I’m invisible. | I’m not acceptable. |
| I’m doomed. | I have nothing to offer. |
| My needs are not important. | I’m not trustworthy. |
| I’m a loser. | I’m defective. |
| I don’t have what it takes. | Nobody likes me |
Not Just Sound Bites
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 don’t even know 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 The Critical Faculty?
The critical faculty, often mistakenly called “The critical factor,” is essentially a filter that starts developing around seven years of age. 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, even they knew about this.
Unfortunately, without that filter in place, anything your parents, siblings, friends, or teachers say is believed. 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 will often grow up having problems managing their money.
This list above shows you the thirty-six most common limiting beliefs that coaches and hypnotists deal with regularly.
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.