Share!
Dr. Damita J. Zweiback is the founder of Coaches Corner and a certified life coach. She is currently on leave from her position with the Michigan Dept. of Health and Human Services. Zweiback is in the United States Navy Reserve and is currently serving on active duty in Washington D.C.
“Will they accept me?”, “Will I succeed?” thoughts like the ones shared here are called limiting beliefs. But what does the term limiting belief mean? Limiting beliefs are self-imposed barriers and societal pressure that prevent you from reaching your full potential. In most cases, these barriers are not self-imposed but rather imposed upon us by the community, or the people that surround us. These people can be your family members who do not mean any harm but limit you by imposing their opinions on you. Similarly, peers and other societal pressures cause a kind of pressure that limits you from achieving your goal in life or limits you from maximizing your potential.
Understanding Limiting Beliefs
To break free from limiting beliefs one must understand what limiting beliefs are. Limiting beliefs are the thoughts and the mindset that you can never succeed. The potential that a person can reach is limited by beliefs such as “I am not good enough” or “others are better than me” These kinds of beliefs hinder you in your journey to reach your maximum potential. A coach helps people leave behind these limiting beliefs and instills trust and faith in who you are and that you are good enough to do the job and reach your maximum potential.
The Role of a Coach
Coaches know how hard it is to break free from the patterns and the experiences of limiting beliefs. Hence, they have exercises and tools that can help you come out of your limiting beliefs. The beliefs that once held you back will be left behind and what will come forward is a person who has enough confidence in himself and his abilities to reach the maximum potential. In the coaching world, people feel safe enough to answer the most difficult questions and look deep within themselves. The ability of a coach to provide a safe environment to the client is something that only a life coach can do.
The Power of Awareness
Coaches understand that to break free from limiting beliefs the client must first be aware of what kind of limiting beliefs are they carrying. For this purpose, coaches around the world have developed various tactics and unique ways to probe and provoke those feelings and bring them to the forefront. Once these feelings are brought to the front the client can confront the issue and be aware of it. Being aware of the limiting belief helps in tackling it in future exercises. Knowing that it’s just the mind playing games helps decrease the intensity of the limiting beliefs and empowers people with faith and awareness of their unique abilities.
Positive Mindset: A Catalyst for Change
Coaches around the world understand that to break the cycle of negative thoughts and limiting beliefs they need to instill a positive attitude. Instead of thinking I cannot do it, the coaches make you believe you can do it. To be able to move away from limiting beliefs you will have to be resilient because the people around you who instill these negative beliefs will still be around you. But you will through various exercises provided by your coach have gained the resilience to deal with them without any difficulty and your positive thoughts and positive way of thinking won’t be lost on such people.
Reframing Negative Thoughts
Negative thoughts can be rephrased to become positive thoughts but the person experiencing limiting beliefs will not be able to do it on their own. This is where the life coaches come in. A life coach instills positive beliefs and converts negative and limiting beliefs into positive affirmations. Life coaches will almost give you a handbook of positive affirmations if you ask them to. Because there is no such thing as impossible. Everything is possible if you put your mind and heart to it. And leave behind the limitations of the world and the thoughts of limiting beliefs that have been instilled in you by the people. It’s all about reframing your thoughts.
Setting Realistic Goals
Coaches work with you on improving how you think how you work on achieving your goals and what kind of goals you set. Goals should always be set using the SMART formula. SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Using this method the client is instructed to set small and achievable goals that follow the SMART goal guidelines. Once the goals are set the client is asked to achieve the goals and once the goal is achieved the sense of achievement is celebrated and within that sense of achievement self-confidence and self-esteem are also acquired. This helps in setting future goals and the clients then can aim for more difficult goals.
Embracing Failure as a Learning Opportunity
Failing is nothing to be ashamed of in fact failure offers you opportunities that success never will. When you fail you can trace back your steps and evaluate where did I go wrong. And when you do it again you will remember to fix the issue next time. So don’t be afraid of failure, failure always comes with the promise to help you do better next time. The failure you experience will provide you with many opportunities to re-evaluate yourself and your mistakes. You will have a unique advantage over every one of having learned from your mistakes.
Cultivating Gratitude
To break free from limiting beliefs you not only have to look within but also what surrounds you. Being grateful for what you have makes a huge difference in the way a person approaches problems. Gratitude is a key tool being used by coaches around the world. Gratitude instills the thoughts of being thankful for what you have. It eliminates the thoughts of lack and inadequacy. Look around you and within you, what you have as opposed to what others don’t have. So many people have it worse than you and you need to acknowledge that. This mindset will change the way you see the world.
Building a Support System
Support systems play a role in lifting you and hyping you when you need it. As opposed to the people who bring you down your support system uplifts you and guides you in times of need. Support groups provide the best kind of reassurance that is needed by anyone in any case. Since we all are surrounded by negative Nancys it’s best to have people who are on your side as well. Reassurance and positive affirmations from your support group can uplift you on your journey of breaking limiting beliefs.
Mindfulness and Positive Visualization
There is a very popular clip of Jim Carrey who is a great comedian of his time. In the clip he said that he visualized himself being an actor so strongly that he wrote a cheque for himself saying acting service rendered for 1 million dollars and that came true a year later. So, believe it or not, it works. Positive visualizations work and play a serious role in our lives hence coaches will always guide you to visualize your best self. Mindfulness and visualization go hand in hand, your coach will guide you on how to be mindful of all the activities you partake in and how to be present in the moment yet have the mindfulness to visualize your better self.
Break free from limiting beliefs: the power of a positive mind
To break the chains of limiting beliefs you have to be able to be in control of your mind. A life coach is the one person who understands the power of the mind and can guide you to better more powerful mindful and positive living. The journey is to be taken by you. Your coach will only help you break the chains and unleash the power of the mind as you go through the process. Let your true potential be revealed and let yourself experience the best self that you can be,
References:
https://hbr.org/2023/06/how-to-overcome-self-limiting-beliefs
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/breaking-free-from-limiting-beliefs-design-your-future-rayyan-karim/
