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It’s important to recognize limiting beliefs or else they become a self-fulfilling prophecy; “Beliefs impact perception and influence feelings and feelings motivate actions or lack of actions and actions produce the results and consequences that follow. Self-limiting beliefs keep you in repetitive learning cycles, until you change the meaning of experience at the belief level” (Limiting Beliefs, 2022). In short, beliefs ultimately impact our life circumstances. The negative circumstances in your life won’t change unless you change the negative beliefs attributed to them. These are usually unconscious and out of our awareness, but there are a few things we can do to recognize them.
We can start by asking, “What have I learned to believe… about myself and about the power within me to create the life that is fulfilling?” (WHAT ARE YOUR BELIEFS, 2022). More than likely, the limiting belief will come in the form of black-and-white thinking, personalizing, catastrophizing, or a universalizing belief (Negative Thinking Traps, 2014; Flynn, 2019). These are what I call tell-tale signs that indicate you are experiencing a limiting thought. By looking at the content of the belief you can tell if it’s most likely limiting or not.
- black-and-white/all-or-nothing/dichotomous thinking: a thought pattern, a tendency, a narrow world view that makes people think and see the world in extremes and absolutes leaving no room for gray areas. Examples include, “I had the worst day at work today” and “I’m a total failure;” what you want to watch out for are words like always, never, worst, best, perfect, every, brilliant, stupid, bad, and good (Alicia, 2022).
- Personalizing/taking things personally/self-blame: a thought pattern, a tendency, distorted way of thinking where you irrationally and erroneously, “see yourself as the cause of things you are not responsible for” that may include what others do or say, how others feel was because of you (Bernhard, 2018). Examples include thinking your friend cancelled on you because you’re boring or thinking your boss is irritable because of you.
- Catastrophizing/catastrophic thinking: unrealistically assuming and believing that the worst-case scenario will happen. This would be like thinking that if you fail a class, you will never succeed in life.
- Universalizing/overgeneralizing: It is a way of thinking where you “apply one experience to all experiences, including those in the future” (Cuncin, 2010). You can tell you are a victim of this type of thinking when you use language such as always, never, everyone, and no one. This includes thoughts like “I will always be depressed” and “I will always struggle.”
- Perfectionism/setting unrealistic expectations: “self-defeating thought patterns that push you to achieve unrealistic goals, which you falsely believe to be attainable;” examples include behaviors like hiding your mistakes because they seem like failures to you or spending too much time planning or redoing work until it’s “perfect.” (Perfectionism: Overcoming All-or-Nothing Thinking, 2022).
At times it’s hard to notice our positive attributes when we keep focusing on our negative ones especially when you suffer from things like depression. It’s important to keep in mind not to resist or ignore the limiting thoughts, though tempting, because resisting or ignoring them can actually make them worse (Wegner, 1994). What you want to do instead is to acknowledge them in order to challenge them. Now that you know how to recognize them, have you noticed yourself having these kinds of thoughts? Feel free to comment down below.
Manifest Dreams: How to Change Your Negative Beliefs Now
Manifest Dreams: How to Challenge Your Self-Limiting Beliefs
References
Alicia. (2022, January 16). Black And White Thinking: What It Is And Why It’s Hurting You. Retrieved from Soberish: https://www.soberish.co/black-and-white-thinking/
Bernhard, T. (2018, August 28). It’s Time to Stop Taking Things Personally. Retrieved from Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/turning-straw-gold/201808/its-time-stop-taking-things-personally
Cuncin, A. (2010, September 28). Overgeneralization and Social Anxiety. Retrieved from Very Well Mind: https://www.verywellmind.com/overgeneralization-3024614
Flynn, B. (2019, May 28). Revise Your Beliefs. Retrieved from OSU Leadership Center: College of Food, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences: https://leadershipcenter.osu.edu/blog/tue-05282019-515am/revise-your-beliefs
Negative Thinking Traps. (2014, November 10). Retrieved from UW Medicine: HarborView Abuse and Trauma Center: https://depts.washington.edu/uwhatc/PDF/TF-%20CBT/pages/4%20Coping%20Skills/Thoughts/Depressive%20Thinking%20Traps.pdf
Perfectionism: Overcoming All-or-Nothing Thinking. (2022). Retrieved from Mind Tools: https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/perfectionism.htm#:~:text=Perfectionism%20is%20a%20set%20of%20self-defeating%20thought%20patterns,Flett%20define%20three%20forms%20of%20perfectionism%3A%20Self-oriented%20perfectionism.
