Introduction.
- Why it is important to Identify Limiting Beliefs
- How we get these beliefs.
- Instructions on identifying these beliefs
- Action Steps
Why It Is Important to Identify Your Limiting Beliefs (We all have them!).
If you are having difficulties in making changes, then it is most probable that there is some belief that you have that is getting in your way.
We take what we believe to be absolutely true. So if we believe, for example, that we cannot learn a certain thing that we will be unable to learn it. As Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right."
However, there is another whole set of beliefs about our value in place in the world which can seriously interfere with us achieving our goals. So it is vitally important that you identify these, and in the next module I will show you how to change them.
About Beliefs.
We all have some limiting beliefs. We take these limitations as being real and do not recognize them as being creations of our imagination. I would like to tell you a very vivid illustration of this. I call this story "Starving in the Midst of Plenty".
The Pike is a large freshwater fish that preys on smaller fish such as minnows for its food. Now imagine this. There is a large tank of water in which the Pike is swimming. All around him minnows are swimming which are his natural food. But the Pike does not attempt to eat any of them and is starving. 
You may well ask yourself "How could this be?" Well what happened was this. A psychologist studying animal behavior set up this experiment. He placed the Pike in a large tank which was divided into two by a glass barrier. The Pike could not see the glass in the water. On the other side of the barrier was a school of minnows. The Pike could see the minnows but every time that he tried to get them he bumped his snout on the glass barrier. As a result he gave up trying as he was convinced that it was impossible for him to get at the minnows.
So, even when the glass barrier was removed and the minnows and Pike were swimming together, he did not believe that he could eat these minnows. So his limiting belief caused him to starve in the midst of plenty.
Nearly everyone has some kind of limiting beliefs. We derive these beliefs from our interpretation of events that happen in our lives particularly events which are highly emotionally charged. Once we have developed them we take them as true without consideration of the evidence -- and they persist until we make conscious efforts to identify them and change them.
So identifying your limiting beliefs and changing them into enabling beliefs is very important. Unfortunately, many people believe that they cannot change in any significant way and therefore do not even attempt to change. Or, they make a start but give up because they cannot really see themselves as being capable of change.
Beliefs are one of the ways in which we organize our experience. They help us to make sense of the world we live in and to make predictions about what is going to happen.
For example to take a really simple case, I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. But, until the sun actually comes up in the morning then this is a belief which is a prediction. Now this belief is one which is universally shared and has a lot of evidence to back it up. Nonetheless it is a belief.
When we are young, even before we have any words to express things, we are forming a schema or model of the world in which we live. These preverbal schemas are very enduring and are not so readily available for examination and change.
There are several kinds of beliefs; beliefs about meaning, beliefs about identity and beliefs about cause and effect. For the purposes of making change in your life then beliefs about identity are probably the most important. We all strive to hang on to our sense of who we are and how we define ourselves. I often say to people that most people would rather be right than be happy. By this I mean that they hang on to a cherished belief about themselves even if it prevents them from attaining fulfillment in their lives.
Another important subset of this has to do with beliefs about capability. As Henry Ford said whether you believe you can do something or believe that you can't do something, then you are right.
To summarize: --
- We all try to make sense of the world we live in.
- As a result of our experiences and the meaning we attribute to those experiences we create beliefs.
- These beliefs help us to make sense of and to predict events in our world.
- An important set of beliefs are the ones that we create about ourselves.
- We create these from what others have told us about ourselves when we are little and also from our interpretation of what is happening to us.
- Often these beliefs persist unchallenged throughout our lives and serve to shape our destiny.
- Where we have beliefs that limit our possibilities then it is important that we change them.
