The Limiting Belief Equation
First off, what is a limiting belief?
You’re probably familiar with the idea of “limiting beliefs” - these are thoughts, opinions or convictions that hold us back in some way - they are essentially stories about what’s possible or available to us.
Typically, we treat these stories as absolute truth, and deliver them with complete certainty. We’ll talk about them as self-evident, obvious and undeniable - often without questioning them or recognising them for what they are - opinions, which may or may not be true.
Examples would be:
“You can’t change careers at my age”
“There are no good men/women out there”
“Work is stressful - but you have to put up with it to pay the bills”
Each of these examples is presented as a statement of fact, which is how we tend to alticulate them internally. When I hear the third one coming up in coaching - that work is a necessary drudge - I point out to clients that I’m at work right now, and I like it! I get paid to have conversations. Previously I worked as a designer, so I basically got paid to draw. Work can be amazing once it aligns with your interests, or at the very least, supports meaningful pursuits outside of work (another valid route to fulfilment in life).
But back to limiting beliefs…
What’s the equation?
When I think about limiting beliefs, I think of them as an equation - they often come in matching pairs: a desire fused to a limitation, and taken to be true.
One way to look out for this in our own lives is to ask - where do I believe this equation:
“I can’t have X without Y”
For example:
“I can’t be attractive unless I’m a particular weight”
“I can't have a relationship without heartbreak”
“I can’t have a job without stress”
And so on…
Beliefs such as these appear real to us, and may be based on our actual lived experience, the conditions around us, or painfully memorable events from the past.
If we’ve experienced a profoundly hurtful relationship, for example, it would be very easy (and somewhat natural) to create a belief that all relationships are inherently and always dangerous (“All men are bastards”, being a pretty robust example).
Why do we have these beliefs?
This brings us to the origin and purpose of belief patterns such as these. The origin is often a real experience from our past, and must not be minimised. If we’ve experienced genuine hurt, humiliation, trauma or disappointment, even decades ago, we need to do the work to heal and integrate that experience, as best we can. With effort and support, it’s possible to process the feelings that such experiences have caused, while resisting the (very real) temptation to extrapolate these experiences into binding statements of fact to be adhered to from now on.
The sad part of this for me is that, at their core, limiting beliefs often form to protect us, in a somewhat juvenile way. There’s an evolutionary reason for that. Humans are soft, squishy creatures, and throughout our long and precarious past, we made an ideal snack for larger predators. Our modern nervous system, which evolved some 30,00 years ago, is concerned to the point of obsession with keeping us alive. (And very much NOT with taking any kind of risk). An alive person is a successful person, as far as your nervous system goes. It has a point, to be fair, but even though we’re no longer facing existential threat on the daily, we’re still dealing with an over-active alarm system, deeply comitted to risk avoidance.
Compounding this fact, the more cautious humans were probably the ones that survived the eons of time in the wild, and handed on their cautious genes. The primitive humans who gamely investigated the rustle in the bushes may not have made it, whereas the ones that scaled the nearest tree probably did, and went on to successfully pass on their anxious genes to their anxious children, and so on… By this point, we’re likely mostly the descendants of worriers.
So it’s worth bearing in mind that our most risk-averse, negative or nihilistic thoughts probably have, at their core, the worthy goal of protecting us. That could be from emotional pain (such as dating again after a breakup), from resource risk (perhaps from investing time and money in re-training), or from social exposure (such as joining Tiktok over 30). All serious risks, which our system will want to avoid. And what’s the surest way to avoid risk? By doing nothing, even if means no chance of ever getting what we want. Enter limiting beliefs - a sensible-sounding voice in our heads, telling us that what we want isn’t empirically possible, deftly side-stepping any requirement to try.
You might notice that when these thoughts come up, the medium is often some kind of “inner critic” voice. The delivery might be harsh: “Women are gold-diggers, and you’re never gonna win that game”. “Nobody's going to want you at that company”. “People your age don’t start over - don’t be ridiculous…”. Wherever the story - the messenger is often a fairly brutal inner voice, and while that voice can be hard to listen to, or even tolerate, it helps to ask the following:
If that voice is trying to do some job for me, what job is it trying to do?
What is that voice afraid will happen to me if I try?
When did it start talking like this? What happened at that time?
I’m not a believer in bullying our way to progress. We’re not trying to annihilate our critic here. Quite the opposite. If we can turn towards that voice that speaks these doubtful thoughts, we might end up learning a little about its origin, its purpose, and in doing that, softening it a little, in a way that telling it to shut up won’t.
While I am talking about creating some movement around negative thought patterns, this is not a manifesto for “positive thinking”. That’s not all there is in the equation. Privilege, prejudice & disadvantage exist, as do resource, time and health constraints, and all sorts of other very real obstacles. All of these things exist, and have an impact - I’m not advocating for toxic positivity, sugar-coating or bypassing. Rather, I’m saying in the face of our genuine constraints, let’s not compound our challenges by holding onto beliefs that may not be true, or at the very least, not true anymore, or not true always, or not for everyone...
Try it yourself…
To identify where limiting beliefs appear in your system, ask yourself:
What are some examples where I believe:
“You can’t have X without Y”
Write these thoughts down, and try to gently interrogate them with a couple more questions. If for example the belief is “I can’t change careers at my age”, ask the following:
Has anyone ever anywhere on earth successfully done x (changed careers) at my age? Yes or no?
For bonus points, has anyone I personally know ever successfully changed careers at my age? Yes or no?
Let’s say the answer to these questions is a yes. We’ve now established the abstract possibility of changing careers at this age.
Further questions might be:
How might I change careers at this age?
What might I like to do, even if it’s just in a “wave a magic wand” scenario?
Who could I talk to about this?
What am I really looking for in this change? What feelings do I want to feel, that I think this change might give me?
Do I have any willingness to make at least some small, exploratory steps in this area? A Google search? A text message to someone who might be good to ask?
And so on…
You’ll see that once we get out of the binary yes/no paradigm of limiting beliefs, the follow-on questions are much more open, and exploratory. Ok so there may be very real challenges, but if I simply allow myself to question the possibility of things working out, what comes up?
A limiting belief will work - in that it will keep us safe from ever trying. It’s just that in the process, it will also keep us safe from ever succeeding.
