Skip to main content

Changing the I Can't - Challenging Limiting Beliefs.


Over a period of time, we traverse through life and develop a set of beliefs about ourselves. These beliefs are a culmination of things we've heard from our primary caregivers - grandparents, parents, siblings, etc. Growing up we develop a belief system that comes from interacting with our classmates at school and things we have been told by our teachers. These limiting beliefs paralyze our way of thinking and are definitely obstacles in
These are deeply rooted in our subconscious and our brain mostly confirms these beliefs to form a thinking pattern. These beliefs mainly come from our childhood and transform into a series of experiences as adults.
Our beliefs are formed from our experiences and these could be positive or negative. We start to expect certain things, based on our belief systems, and the brain influences the outcomes.
For eg. If a teacher said you weren't good enough at math, that may have formed a part of your belief system. This will somewhere manifest in some of our life choices and actually makes us believe we are not good at say math and so we have an aversion to anything to do with numbers in our education and our careers. When you realize that you are eventually in a job that includes calculating taxes - you realize that you are actually good numbers. What you actually believed is completely untrue.
Maybe someone told you - you can't write or sing or draw or do something and that stopped you, even though you so badly wanted to. You didn’t even test it. You just gave up.
The brain has a tendency to predict the future and develops patterns.
These limiting beliefs come in the way of our goals many a time. These goals could be our personal relationship goals and probably areas of our lives like our career or a certain venture we take on.
How do we identify these beliefs?
This is a lot of work, but this may happen with some introspection.
The moment you hear yourself saying I can't do this, ask yourself what is this CAN'T based on? Identify if the CAN'T is based on a fact. Asking ourselves what is stopping us may be a good starting point.
Positive affirmations do work as they challenge our unhelpful limiting beliefs. They do make you feel better. While they sometimes seem silly, they do change your outlook.
While this looks like a lot of hard work, it does start from a willingness to stop being in a rut and change the stories we tell ourselves. These stories are way far from the truth.
The I CAN'T do this has to be replaced by I CAN. Change the narrative. You are the author of your story.


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

itadaki Mas - The Japanese thank you for the meal at the table .

 ι ‚きます（γ„γŸγ γγΎγ™） to receive; to get; to accept; to take (humble). This explains why you say it before you eat. You're "receiving" food, after all. Itadakimasu (and its dictionary form itadaku 頂く γ„γŸγ  ) comes from Japan's roots in Buddhism, which teaches respect for all living things. I was introduced to itadaki masu by my Japanese friend Etsuko who had dinner with us at my home in Lonavala. It turned out that Etsuko had a sudden pasta craving and wanted me to cook some for her.  Before our meal, Etsuko thanked my mother with clasped palms as a gesture of gratitude, for the hands that cook our meals. Etsuko then introduced us to the concept of itadak imasu and also told us that this meant saying thank you to everyone in the chain of food distribution - bringing to mind the farmer and his family, the truck driver who drives the produce to the city and so on . A second of thought is given to each person in this chain of bringing food to our table. At that point, I remember b...
1 comment
Read more

Always fill your own cup first...

Throughout our lives we are expected to do things for each other, even it is something we wouldn't like to do. Pressing the no button becomes difficult, almost impossible. As kids - our relationship with our parents is one of co-dependency unless circumstances decide otherwise. Our parents are equally dependent and thus starts the cycle of expectations and living up to people's expectations. We grow up do to these things for our friends, partners, children, in-laws, and so on. Why - because this is the way it is supposed to be? Almost like a generational curse. We end up becoming a similar kind of parent, not letting children get out of our clasp. Whether we like it or not, we are already in the trap. This whole process can be very exhausting for us and our relationships. In the scheme of things, we forget about ourselves, our needs, our dreams. It is almost like quicksand that cannot come out of it. Some of us learn the hard way and able to make a clear distinction of putting ...
Post a Comment
Read more

That which holds us ....

  I am going to stick to the connect with the Earth element that I wrote about last week. The pandemic has given us a lot of time to observe and re-think some things, right from fitness to looking inward and most definitely outward. It has also made us conscious of the environment. We now realize that maybe we didn’t need to consume so much in the materialistic sense. Our wardrobes are full of clothes, and our shoes think we are dead or something (At least mine think I am :)… I miss them too ). After having consumed so much - we wonder if we can differentiate between a need and a want. This may be an excellent time to ponder over some of these parts of our daily lives. We have a place of influence in our homes. We may be primary or secondary consumers of many products, which may help us practice waste management or avoid plastic. You may notice that these products are slightly expensive. But if we can invest in our shoes and our clothes and our lipsticks and our nail paints. You g...
Post a Comment
Read more