One of the most common things that stops people from achieving their goals is that of limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are thoughts/attitudes towards various situations that affect the way you see the possibilities and potential. Examples of limiting beliefs include:

1. I’m not good enough.
    
2. I may never be able to succeed.
    
3. Other people are better than me.
    
4. I’m probably going to fail.
    
5. He/She doesn’t want someone like me.

These are all examples of beliefs that limit what you can accomplish. They limit it because they affect how you respond to the situation, how you react to new stimuli, how you make decisions and how others view your abilities. Limiting beliefs are self-fulfilling – if you don’t believe you can, you probably won’t.

Limiting beliefs get in the way of how successful you can be, because they automatically put you at a disadvantage. If you take two people of equal skills, and one of them doesn’t believe they can do it and the other one can, the one that believes they can is going to be the successful one every time. In my next blog post, I will go over some exercises that you can do to reduce your limiting beliefs.

21 February 2011