The Science behind our Self-Limiting Beliefs

In life, there are always things holding us back. We let our circumstances and things we have thought about ourselves for years get in the way of moving forward and making progress in our lives. Did you know those negative thoughts and opinions you have of yourself actually have a name?

Self limiting beliefs.

You may know what they are, you may not... so I’m here to discuss them and why they’re backed by science, and then how to overcome them.

Firstly, what are they?

They are negative and destructive comments you have told yourself repeatedly and become what you consider 'facts' about yourself.

So for example:

I am not pretty enough to be a model.

I cannot be a leader because people do not see me as an authoritative figure.

I am too quiet to run my own business...

You get the gist. These facts are your justification for why something is not achievable for you. They are your interpretation of the world around you and they usually start with 'I can't or I'm not'. I’ve had my fair share of experience with these bad boys so I wanted to look into the science of those thoughts. It’s incredibly interesting how complicated and developed our brains are, yet it’ll believe anything we tell it. That’s if we’re saying it with conviction and truth.

We all know our thoughts are there to protect us and to help us survive. It’s similar to fear and why we have the feeling of being afraid. They assess situations and then determine whether or not we need to be protected from the world around us.

A lot of the negative self-limiting beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world around us come from childhood trauma. I mean, what doesn’t? It’s so easy to understand that things come from when we were still learning and growing.

They can stem from things like a bad experience, being bullied or more serious forms of abuse and neglect.

They can come from minor negative experiences too. Imagine being on stage and completely freezing when you were 8 years old and now you refuse to speak publicly because 'You're not confident enough'. All because you forgot that one line in the christmas nativity? That sticks with you and as you repeat it over the years becomes such a strong belief, it actually manifests itself as 'protection' to stop you from hurting or being embarrassed.

An amazing article to check out with some pretty hardcore examples of these beliefs is:

https://positivepsychology.com/false-beliefs/

How do these negative thoughts affect our brain?

We all know that when we feel something, an emotion, our brain releases chemicals. Stimulating our brain and making ourselves happy does great things. In Psychology Today they list the reasons why being happy affects the brain positively:

- stimulates the growth of nerve connections.

-improves cognition by increasing mental productivity.

-improves your ability to analyze and think.

-affects your view of surroundings.

-increases attentiveness.

-leads to more happy thoughts.

BUT

Negative thoughts can have the opposite affect. They can actually disturb our interaction with our environment, the way we perceive things and the way we remember, reinforce or create connections in the brain.

So, is this why when we have a negative experience we create a cushion, a self limiting belief because we cannot perceive the situation correction and objectively? We feel the fear so much that it hinders our ability to remember what actually happened!

These negative thoughts can then go as far as dimming your brains ability to function...what?! Yep. You heard me. Thinking a negative thought can slow down your brain and the way it processes information.

In this article: https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/prime-your-gray-cells/201108/happy-brain-happy-life

I found a specific section that really interested me.

Negative Thinking=Negative Balance

‘Negative thinking slows down brain coordination, making it difficult to process thoughts and find solutions. Feeling frightened, which often happens when focused on negative outcomes, has been shown to decrease activity in your cerebellum, which slow the brain's ability to process new information-limiting your ability to practice creative problem solving. Additionally, the fear factor impacts your left temporal lobe, which affects mood, memory, and impulse control.

Your frontal lobe, particularly your PFC, decides what is important according to the amount of attention you pay to something and how you feel about it. Thus, the more you focus on negativity, the more synapses and neurons your brain will create that support your negative thought process.

Your hippocampus provides the context of stored memories, which means the emotional tone and description your mind creates can potentially rewire your brain by creating stronger neuronal pathways and synapses. What you think and feel about a certain situation or thing can become so deeply ingrained that you will have to work hard to dismantle the negative connections and rewire your brain in order to be less afraid, to think positively, to believe that dreams can come true, to trust that your efforts will be successful.’

BUT WHAT DOES ALL THAT MEAN?

It means that when we think negatively, our brain processes things more slowly and prevents us from problem solving effectively. The more we think negatively too, the more neurons our brain will create to support those feelings of negativity. Reinforcing the negative beliefs.

When we constantly remember and relive these negative experiences and thoughts, they become so part of us that we have to work super hard to rewire the way we think.

That is why, it is so hard to repogram our minds when thinking about self-limiting beliefs.

We can't just hope that thinking positively will rewire them completely. Complicated processes in the brain that we have put into practice have been taking place and we need to create new neural pathways to now stop those negative feelings and switch them around.

That’s a lot of information to take in, right

Well, here’s some more;

Here‘s another amazing post that is super informative about self-limiting beliefs : https://inlpcenter.org/five-step-process-for-releasing-limiting-beliefs/

This is a great resource and remember, knowledge is power! The more you know and can research and read, the easier it’ll be to overcome!

Rewiring those beliefs and what we can do to become more positive is another story in itself. The idea of positive thinking is something that is incredibly important in my life, how important is it in yours?

One of the first steps to conquering your self-limiting beliefs is to realise you have them. We can spend YEARS (personal experience) not realising that we are creating self-fulfilling prophecies with these thoughts.

Start to recognise what yours are.

My biggest self-limiting belief was always that I wasn’t beautiful enough to be successful and that people didn’t want to be around me. Guess what? For a time, I’m sure that was true and why I wasn’t seeing success at all.

Then over time after reading personal development books, attending conferences and watching YouTube videos I decided enough what enough.

I wrote them down and next to them a counter belief. A positive one.

I AM beautiful, my beauty does not define my worth or success.

I then looked at and said this to myself daily because I knew it wasn’t going to take that one moment to override the all-mighty brain. I had to do more.

So have a think. What are you self-limiting beliefs? How are you stopping yourself?

It only takes 5 mins to redirect those thoughts.

You’ll be where you want to be in no time!

Much love,

H

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