It’s been a while. I got lost—lost in life and everything else. When I started feeling like I was stuck in a hole that I couldn’t climb out of, I started thinking about what was holding me back. When I ask myself questions like this, I do what I do best—research.
For anyone following along, I’m a single mom who’s been through a lot over the last decade from graduate school to marriage, to divorce in only a few years. I earned my advanced degree by myself while raising my daughter alone (with no financial support from the other parent). At the same time, I had to figure out how to heal from the trauma and abuse I had suffered. Not really physical, emotional, and psychological. From what I hear, that’s a lot harder to heal from.
A lot of introspection happened. When my life was in shambles and then when my daughter started to suffer too. By 11 years old she was already diagnosed with depression directly linked by the child psychologist to her father. Processing all of this was hard and I quickly blamed myself.
I managed to get an adjunct teaching position, but my daughter was more important. With a four-hour round-trip commute to work and rising gas prices, I gave it up and came home for her. I’ve managed pretty well with freelance writing (it’s paying the bills…mostly). But I struggle with true success. I’m still scraping by and after ten years in survival mode, I’m tired! I’m tired of scraping and clawing and barely getting anywhere only to just drop back down to rock bottom. And trust me, I thought I was at rock bottom before but apparently life had me fooled.
So, now I’m starting a journey. My self-reflection revealed a lot to me, about myself and how I think, but I didn’t know what to do with this information. Actually, realizing and finding these things about myself without knowing what to do with them was, frankly, damaging. Depression and anxiety skyrocketed.
The Moment of Realization
That research I mentioned earlier led me to the concept of psychology called Limiting Beliefs. They spoke volumes to me. All of these things I kept saying to myself all these years were my limiting beliefs and I’ve internalized a lot of them. With this new information, I’m finally armed with what to do with what I discovered about myself. I can now take steps forward instead of constantly falling backward. I can really start to heal. Even before starting the journey, simply having direction has been empowering. I want to share this journey as much as possible so that anyone else who’s struggling might find help where I have too.
Limiting Beliefs
Limiting beliefs are the deeply ingrained thoughts, beliefs, or attitudes that hold you back from achieving your full potential or even from pursuing your dreams and goals. Limiting beliefs are negative.
Here’s how limiting beliefs can affect your life:
- Self-esteem and self-worth: These beliefs often revolve around feelings of inadequacy or low self-esteem. When you believe you’re no good enough, smart enough, or deserving enough, you can struggle with self-confidence and self-worth. This can hinder you from taking risks, pursuing new opportunities, or asserting yourself in many situations.
- Fear of Failure: Limiting beliefs often include the fear of failure or believing that failure is inevitable. The fear can prevent you from setting ambitious goals or trying new things because you’re afraid of not succeeding. It can lead to a fear of taking risks and a tendency to stay well inside your comfort zone.
- Procrastination: Your limiting beliefs can often make you procrastinate or avoid taking action. This is because you believe that you won’t succeed or that the effort required is futile.
- Negative self-talk: Limiting beliefs often manifest in negative self-talk. You constantly criticize yourself and your abilities. This negative inner dialogue will slowly erode your self-confidence and make it difficult for you to overcome challenges and setbacks.
- Self-sabotage: People with limiting beliefs can subconsciously engage in behaviors that undermine their success. This includes actions like not completing tasks on time, missing opportunities, or even engaging in self-destructive behaviors.
- Limited goals and aspirations: Those struggling with limiting beliefs often make small, achievable goals instead of aiming for bigger, more ambitious ones. This comes from the idea that you’re not capable of achieving significant success.
- Interpersonal relationships: These negative beliefs can affect personal relationships by causing self-doubt, feelings of unworthiness when it comes to love or friendship, or harboring negative beliefs about others intentions. This can lead you to a life of isolation, loneliness, and strained relationships.
- Career and professional development: Limiting beliefs can hinder your career growth (imposter syndrome anyone?) and advancement by causing individuals to doubt their abilities, shy away from challenging projects, or avoid seeking new opportunities.
- Health and well-being: Limiting beliefs can contribute to stress, anxiety, and even physical health issues. Constantly worrying about perceived limitation can lead to chronic stress, which can have incredibly detrimental effects on your body.
Limiting beliefs are specific, negative, and self-defeating thoughts or convictions that people hold about themselves, their abilities, or their circumstances. These beliefs are typically deeply ingrained and can stem from past experiences, societal conditioning, or negative self-perceptions. They’re false beliefs that you’ve created for yourself according to experiences you’ve had in your past.
Examples:
- “I’ll never be good enough.”
- “I always mess things up.”
- “I’m not capable of succeeding in that field.”
- “No one will ever love me.”
- “I’m too old to learn something new.”
- “I can’t handle rejection, so I won’t even try.”
Overcoming these beliefs requires self-awareness, challenging their validity, and replacing them with more empowering and positive beliefs that support personal development and success. This process often involves therapy, coaching, self-help techniques, and a commitment to personal growth and self-improvement.
My Goals
I’ve already completed the self-reflection that’s necessary to find my limiting beliefs. It’s taken time and tears but I have my list. My goals are to address each of these beliefs one-by-one and I’m going to share that with you. Next steps are to challenge and question my beliefs, find their origins, and reframe or replace them. I’m taking this journey on my own for many reasons. Others may want to get help from a professional but that’s not an option for me at this time, so I’ve read extensively and I’m going to try and work through my limiting beliefs on my own and see what happens.
The Plan
The plan is to take on one limiting belief each week in a series of posts. The posts are going to be my journaling of the process to share with anyone who wants to read. My successes and my failures will stand alongside my process and progress in the hopes that maybe someone who feels the same way can be empowered too.
Final Thoughts for Today
It’s clear that these beliefs I hold inside have held me back for far too long. The mere act of acknowledging them and committing to change is a significant step forward.
Throughout this blog, I’ll continue to dig deeper into my personal experiences, strategies I’m using to confront these beliefs head-on, and the transformations I’m witnessing along the way. I invite you to join me on this path of self-discovery and growth. Together we can explore the immense potential that lies behind the wall of our negative thoughts.
Remember, our beliefs shape our reality, but we have the power to reshape those beliefs. Let’s challenge the boundaries we’ve place on ourselves and uncover the extraordinary possibilities that await us.
Thank you for taking the time to read about my journey and I look forward to sharing more insights and progress in the articles to come. Stay tuned!
archaeomommy 