Tag Archive for: how to break limiting beliefs

In this blog post, I’m going to talk about how to change the four core beliefs that keep you stuck.

What are the four core beliefs that keep you stuck?

1. I’m not good enough

This is a very common core belief to have. Other variations to this include “I am not worthy enough” or “I don’t deserve this“. When you have this core belief (which is often unconscious),  you’ll find that you often sabotage yourself.  You don’t take the steps to achieve your goals and dreams because you don’t feel you’re worthy of it or don’t feel you’re good enough.

It also translates into money as well. You might apply for jobs with a lower salary because you feel you’re not worthy of anything more. This belief could affect how you negotiate salaries or promotions.  So if you have issues with money, it will often come down to the belief of I’m not good enough or not worthy enough. Same applies if you’re self-employed.  Perhaps you’re uncomfortable charging a certain amount for your services, even though that’s the market rate for your profession.

2. The world is not a safe place for me.

This core belief can manifest itself in a number of ways.  Sometimes specific fears or phobias can arise from this. Or it’s a reluctance to go out and try new things, to get out of your comfort zone. However, if you believe that the world is not safe, this is going to affect the things that you do in your life.

3. I am powerless.

Now, this could be feeling powerless to change, feeling that you have no power over your life circumstances or over what happens to you. This can be a challenging belief if you’re into personal development or self-help.  You go to seminars, read books, watch videos, but then struggle to apply the information to your life consistently.  If you have this belief that you can’t change anyway, then you’re not likely to take the steps that are proven to work and give you the changes that you want.

Having the belief that I am powerless also means that you don’t take responsibility for yourself. Instead, you blame other people or other situations for the way your life is at the moment.

4. Love and relationships = pain

If you unconsciously believe that love and relationships = pain, then you might attract abusive or difficult partners or people into your life.  People that will make you unhappy. Or you end up lonely because you just don’t go out and meet people because you believe inside that relationships are going to cause pain.

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What happens if you don’t address these core beliefs

If you don’t address these four core beliefs, then affirmations, visualizations or positive thinking will either not work or be a temporary fix.

You come up with a positive idea or affirmation.  It’s something you want, it’s stated in the positive and achieving it makes you happy and fulfilled.  It all makes logical sense to your conscious mind.

However, another part of your mind looks at your core beliefs and thinks that it isn’t positive. A fear or threat based emotion challenges that positive idea. It seems scary and what if it all went wrong. That part of your mind is simply trying to protect you and keep you safe.

So when you say an affirmation or think of an idea that conflicts with one of your core beliefs, you’ll either get an internal voice that says something like, “you can’t do that”, “this is not going to work for you”. Alternatively, you might get some kind of uncomfortable feeling, perhaps in the stomach.

Related Article: How to Permanently Change Limiting Beliefs

Questioning the Resistance

So the first thing I recommend you do is question that resistance. Do this by asking yourself the following questions:

  • What am I thinking right now?
  • What am I feeling right now?
  • What must I be believing to have this feeling?

What these questions do is take you to the next layer of your beliefs. The more you question those beliefs, the sooner you’ll get to the core beliefs that I was talking about earlier. It’s like peeling an onion, the more you peel it, the closer you get to the core.

3 Ways to Change your Core Beliefs

Here are three methods or techniques that will help you change your core beliefs.

Suspend Belief Statement

The suspend belief statement allows your mind to park your current reality for a little while, which then allows your new ideas to sink in without conflict.

Here is an example of a suspend belief statement.

For the next few minutes, I will momentarily suspend what I believe in this area and willfully accept the belief that I want. During this time, my desire and belief will be one. There will be no conflict because I do this willingly. For this time, I will completely alter my old beliefs. I will act as if the belief I want were mine completely.

The original statement (which I’ve modified a little) came from a book called “The Nature of Personal Reality” by Jane Roberts.  This book is well worth a read.

For me, this statement made all the difference between affirmations that work and affirmations that don’t. What you are doing is suspending your current beliefs for a few moments, whilst you willfully accept the belief that you want, as if it’s completely yours right now. There is no conflict with what I normally think, because I’m going to pretend that all those thoughts don’t exist just for now.

The important factor here is that you have to consciously, deliberately and willingly suspend your normal reality for a moment. Then willfully accept some new ideas as if they’re already true now, not at some point in the future. Right now!

Create Affirmations that address some or all of the four core beliefs.

The second process (which I recommend doing after the first process above) is to incorporate affirmations that address some or all of these four core beliefs. Here are positive affirmations that are the opposite of the four negative core beliefs outlined earlier.

  1. I am good enough or I am worthy enough or I do deserve this.
  2. The world is a safe place for me.
  3. I am powerful and can influence my world. This is being powerful within yourself, rather than power over other people.
  4. Love and relationships equal pleasure.

What I recommend is to start saying these to yourself. When you say these, you may notice any kind of inner resistance.  This might be negative self-talk or an uncomfortable feeling.   If you notice any resistance, then modify these statements to replace the word “am” with the word “want” and then “can“.

Example of positive core belief affirmations using the word”want”

  1. I want to be good enough or I want to be worthy enough or I want to be able to deserve this.
  2. I want the world to be a safe place for me.
  3. I want to be powerful and able to influence my world.
  4. I want love and relationships to equal pleasure.

When you use “want” instead of “am”,  you will notice that your mind will be able to accept the affirmations more easily with less resistance.  Your conscious mind will pick up on the fact that you haven’t got this right now.  However, your unconscious mind will still pick up on the core idea of being good enough, the world being a safe place, being able to influence your world and relationships being pleasurable.

As your mind accepts these “want” statements and you notice little or no resistance, then you can then move on to “can” statements.

Example of positive core belief affirmations using “can”

  1.  I can be good enough or worthy enough or deserve this.
  2. The world can be a safe place for me.
  3. I can be powerful and able to influence my world.
  4. Love and relationships can equal pleasure.

Once you feel comfortable with the “can” statements, you can then use the “am” statements that I covered earlier. You can also replace “am” with “want” or “can”  with your other affirmations as well, so give it a go.

Related Article: How to Create Affirmations That Work Extremely Effectively

Using Emotion

The third part of the process is using emotions in the most effective way.

Think about how exciting the lead up to Christmas can be.  However, when Christmas day arrives, it’s often not quite as exciting as the lead up to it was. Same goes for holidays. During those last few days at work, you get really excited about your forthcoming holiday.  The holiday arrives and you hopefully have a lot of fun, great experiences and enjoy relaxing.  However, have you noticed that after a few days, the holiday starts to feel kind of normal.

That’s the kind of feeling you want to create when saying your affirmations. You want your brain to start thinking of this new experience as normal.  It can still be fulfilling, pleasurable and you can feel grateful for having it.

Creating this “normal” feeling will help you when taking action towards your goals, by transforming that emotional excitement into physical action energy. So you’re putting this energy into achieving the goal and focusing on it.

Other Important Tips

  1. Repeat your affirmations at least once a day for 30 to 40 days.  This may seem like a lot, but if you incorporate it into your morning ritual or morning routine it will become a habit and something that makes you feel good.
  2. Focus on one idea, one affirmation for 15 to 20 seconds.  That is actually quite a long time to focus on one idea. Typically, after 3 or 4 seconds, our brain has wondered to something else. When you focus on one idea for 15 seconds or longer, your brain thinks the idea is important and latches onto it. The affirmation will then take on more meaning in your brain and your own conscious mind will take it more seriously as well.
  3. Say your affirmations out loud when you can. This will really help. When your mind hears what you are saying, it goes in deeper. Repeating affirmations out loud also helps improve your concentration, so you can focus on this one idea for longer.

We unconsciously say affirmations to ourselves every day, hundreds of times a day and they’re often negative!  So you need positive affirmations to counteract these. The affirmation that is repeated most often is the one that’s going be most effective.

If you’re repeating positive affirmations to yourself regularly and are also saying things to yourself like, “I’m not good enough” or “I’m stupid” regularly, and if the negative idea has more emotive force than the first idea,  then the negative affirmation is obviously going to win!

Thank you for reading this article.  If you enjoyed it and found it useful, then please share it with other people, or on social media.

Hope you are having a wonderful day!

Paul