4 Ways to Overcome Limiting Beliefs – And Upgrade our Beliefs to Boost Our Energy & Health

4 Ways to Overcome Limiting Beliefs

And Upgrade our Beliefs to Benefit Our Health

Does what you believe align with what you are wanting to see in your life?

What if you can dig a little past the outward actions you’re taking and take a look into the beliefs you’re carrying and finally see some true, lasting transformation?

If there is incongruence, there will be a drain on your energy and a break in your capacity to walk out your desires. Last week, I shared about setting goals with both kindness and joy. When we are kind, loving, and also excited about our goals, we’re far more likely to follow through with them.

But I’m taking it a step further to share about something I’m really passionate about: our beliefs.

I’ve helped many people 1-1 break lies and bring in truth, hope, and new beliefs. I’ve personally gone through many years of belief training, healing, and transformation.

But one thing I started noticing is that we live in such a “quick fix” society that we don’t realize that it can take time and intentionality to actually renew and rewire our brains in a way that can actually help us.

The interesting part is that we are actually daily creating paths in our brains.

Now, whether that is intentional OR unintentional is another question.

You can either intentionally wire your brain for your transformation OR you can let the thoughts and neural pathways created when you were young continue to drive how you react to life.

One way is reactionary and the other is intentional.

Let me share a few examples to demonstrate a picture of what this means.

Every year in January, gym memberships go up, the gyms are full, and in February it all dwindles. By March, most of those new memberships have dropped off.

What’s the problem? Of course, lifestyle, habits, and perhaps goals that were a little too far out of reach can all play a huge part.

But what if it’s even a little simpler? Most often, when I talk with people through what happened, I hear words and language surrounding their beliefs: “Oh I just couldn’t do it” or “I’m just not cut out for the gym” or “maybe I just struggle with self-sabotage” or “maybe I’m just not good at this”. Can you see how limiting these beliefs are? If I believed these, I’d never make it!

Often the beliefs we see rise up are based on our capability to follow through, to take care of ourselves, or even as deep as us being a “failure”. When we have these beliefs, no wonder we can’t follow through. There’s so much shame connected with these.

What we believe about ourselves, our life, our capabilities actually play an even larger part in our healing process than do the steps themselves.

Another example is all the diets that are out there. There are hundreds and hundreds of diets that claim they are the best. Is there one diet that is meant for all people? Perhaps my only answer to that would be, yes, whole unprocessed foods. But a diet with a name really is just a way of giving people 2 things: a set of limited rules and structures that help give guidelines and a belief that something will work for them.

However, diets don’t address the beliefs that got a person to where they are now. Thus, the challenge when many people revert back to old patterns when off the diet and the sickness or weight comes right back. Sickness and weight gain often come from nutritional deficits, but those choices actually came from somewhere beyond just simply not having willpower.

Many times the body is trying to protect itself from trauma. Other times it’s holding on to weight or illness due to consistent stress. Other times, there is a deep-seated belief that you’re not worthy of being loved or cared for (this one is very prevalent and you wouldn’t be alone if you felt this way).

Many years ago, I was training for a half marathon and my body wouldn’t drop any weight and I was overly fatigued. I was eating whole foods, resting plenty, and taking what felt like great care of myself.

Thankfully, I have a deep belief that our bodies are incredibly powerful creations and made to heal when given the right environment. So, rather than sinking back and thinking that something must be wrong with me, I started digging deeper and asking questions around what was going on. As it turns out, our bodies really don’t like too much stress and I had accumulated a nice little stress concoction.

When there is stress, even good stress, whether from thoughts, beliefs, food, work, relationships, exercise, deadlines, etc our body can begin to hold onto weight IF it doesn’t have a way to release it.

Through the exercise I have below, I also started to see that I had a belief system that actually kept me in perpetual stress. I’d developed a “comfortable” state with stress in my life. As a mentor once put it: “I was friends with my enemies and didn’t recognize how comfortable I’d become with them”.

If we tend to believe that “something must be wrong with me” or that “it’s just my genes”, then we won’t be open to exploring what thoughts and beliefs we have around what’s really happening.

Another area this can really have a strong effect is quitting before we even get started.

Perfectionism, self-sabotage, willpower, and beliefs about failure, personal value and worth all play a part in getting started. But these always have so many connotations that invite shame in that I don’t believe are actually part of the problem. What if it was just a belief that started in your 0-5-year-old self that you simply need to address and begin to break free of?

Let’s dig in!

4 Steps to Break Limiting Beliefs & Embrace Empowering Ones:

First, we need to address the limiting beliefs, lies, or past wounds holding you back. We need to see what we’re aiming at:
- Write out every belief you have around one area of your life where you’re experiencing resistance.
- Just freeflow write. Don’t hold anything back. Shed light on all that’s inside.
Second, break agreements with these beliefs. Nothing complicated:
- Simply visualize yourself breaking agreements.
- Or say it outloud: “I break agreements with these beliefs”
Realign with NEW beliefs:
- Next to all the limiting beliefs, write out all the powerful beliefs as you break agreements.
- Going deeper: Write out and find the evidence of these new beliefs by allowing your brain to start looking for proof and evidence that these new beliefs are actually true.
NOW, give your brain all it needs to “rewire”, to “rebuild” and do what it’s designed to do by practicing*:
- Write: Have a place where you can write out / store all your powerful beliefs.
- Declare: Take time every single day to speak these outloud.
- Listen: Record your own voice reading these new beliefs back to you.
- Display: Make them visible. Print them out, or put a few on Sticky notes around the house in places that will catch your attention.

Jump on over to our group for a FREE PDF to go along with this exercise.

*We need to practice our new beliefs in order for them to create a new neural network and allow your brain and body to respond from a place of the new beliefs. As Henry David Thoreau once said:

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives.”