How to Challenge a Limiting Belief: 10 Steps to Freeing Yourself From That Nagging Voice in Your Head

Do you know how many thoughts are racing through your head each day? The average is 6,200!

And many of them are actually not “your” thoughts but those of your fear, your inner critic, your inherited critic, or simply beliefs that are keeping you from feeling good about yourself, being content with your life, or going for your dreams.

Those limiting beliefs take up a lot of space and their main obvious purpose is to keep you inside your comfort zone, to keep you in the status quo because it is familiar and feels safe. They are the result of our conditioning and they are tailored just for you. Your challenging beliefs come up around things that matter to you.

But by challenging those beliefs you can free yourself from immediate limits and move on with more grace, self-trust and ease.

Do you wanna try?

1) Gain awareness of the situation

Aim to always monitor your thinking and your actions.

When you gain control of your mind, you can create gaps before reacting blindly, control what you think and how you feel, and more.

So, the first step to challenging a limiting belief is becoming aware of a situation that is triggering, upsetting, or holding you back.

For example, instead of going for a run to become fitter and feel better in your own skin, you are watching Netflix.

(Honestly, who hasn’t done that? It’s all good. Just become aware.)

2) What is the underlying belief

Explore what the underlying belief is in this situation.

It may be, “I am not good at running” or “I have to go for a long run in order to achieve my goal”.

And because you believe you are not good enough, you avoid going for a run, or if you believe that you need to do a long workout to achieve your goal, you decide not to go at all because you don’t have the energy for a long run.

3) Question the belief

Ask yourself, “Can I be 100 % sure that this is true?”.

Can I be 100 % sure that I am not good at running?

Can I be 100 % sure that I need to go for a long run in order to achieve my goal?

Your inner critic or limiting beliefs often use black-or-white language. It’s one or the other, there is no grey area. “I am not good enough, so I stop”. “Only a long run will help. Either that or I don’t go at all”.

Question the belief, take it under your microscope and look at it as a scientist. “Can I be 100 % sure that this is true?”.

The answer to this question is usually, “No”.

4) What is the good intention of that belief?

The limiting belief is still part that wants you to be safe and sound in your comfort zone.

This part has done a lot of hard work in the past to get you to where you are.

It’s got good intentions! It may just not be using good strategies.

So, ask yourself “What does this belief want for me?”.

The answer may be, the belief wants me to be happy right now. The belief wants me to not have sore muscles. The belief wants me to feel comfy. The belief wants me to feel safe and not have random strangers look at me while I am running. The belief wants me to not get judged by “better runners” on the track.

What is the belief’s good intention?

5) Gift yourself compassion & kindness

Beautiful. Now, it is time to give.yourself.some.grace.

You can think to yourself, “True, yes, I just want to feel comfortable. I just want to feel beautiful - and therefore not be judged by other runners - and therefore I don’t go running.”

Or you can say to yourself, “It’s okay that I want to feel that way. It’s entirely natural. It is okay that I resisted going for a run because I just want to feel good about myself.”

If you step over the point of giving yourself compassion, you may instead fall into the trap of judging yourself for self-sabotaging. But when has that ever helped?

You want to soften the layers of blocks and criticism with compassion and kindness, not add additional layers.

I will even challenge you to thank your belief. “Thank you that you are trying to keep me safe. Thank you that you want to make me feel beautiful.” And then see what happens.

6) Find a logical statement to replace the belief

Come back to the initial limiting belief and ask yourself - is this working?

Is the belief, “I have to go for a long run in order to achieve my goal” helping me to reach my goal of really feeling fitter and healthier in the long run? Pun intended.

The answer will most likely be (again), “no”.

Now, find a logical statement. For example, “It is helpful to go for long runs to improve my stamina and to lose fat. Right now I don’t feel like going for a long run. That is okay.”

7) Lean in with curiosity

Instead of judging yourself for not going for a run, or for judging your inner criticism, lean in with curiosity.

— Always replace judgment with curiosity. —

In this scenario, curiosity may lead you to ask, “Well, if long runs are helpful but I don’t feel like going for a long run right now, what else can I do to reach my goal of feeling healthier and fitter? I could go for a short sprint. Or I could simply go for a short jog. I could do 10 minutes of yoga in my living room. I could do one of those YouTube videos for core strength for 10 minutes. I could go for a walk in nature or in my neighbourhood.”

See how curiosity can turn an “all or nothing” mindset into a more productive, compassionate and creative one?

8) Flip the belief on its head and find evidence that this is true also

Our mind searches for evidence of our beliefs and assumptions. It will choose certain memories that confirm it, it will see events in the world and social media that confirm it, it will hear what it wants in order to prove that the belief is correct.

But it also works the other way round.

When you flip the belief on its head and say “I don’t need to go for a long run in order to reach my goal (of feeling healthy and fit)”, what evidence of that can you find in your life?

“Drinking a green smoothie can also make me feel healthy”, or, “the other day I went for a walk in nature and it made me feel healthy”, “last week I danced to my favourite song and that felt like a little workout and it made me feel good”, “yesterday I read that walking 10,000 steps a day can strengthen my heart and have my body store less fat”.

Surround yourself with proof (because there is a lot) that shows you that the opposite of your limiting belief is also true.

9) Sit with that energy

Sit with the energy that you feel when you list all the (or at least a lot of) evidence of the opposite of your limiting belief being true.

See how it opens opportunities, how it changes the way you look at the world.

The more you do this, the more your senses will even focus on more recent and current evidence in your life and so you may notice possibilities right in front of you that you may have missed all this time.

— Energy flows where your focus goes. —

This works for many kinds of limiting beliefs. Some other favourites are, “I need to work hard in order to be happy/deserve a break/be successful”, “I need to prove myself in order to be loved”, “I must be perfect”.

Try it out with a number of your limiting beliefs and explore the openness that comes with challenging them.

10) Take action

Don’t leave it with accepting the opposite of your belief. Take action.

Find an action you can do right now based on your new understanding. That’s called taking positive action, or aligned action, or even surrendered action. “Surrendered” because you will never know what the outcome of your action will be.

Important is to not be attached to outcomes and to be able to go with the flow and to see the outcome as a new beginning to something else.

When you discovered for yourself that you don’t need to go for a long 1-hour run in order to feel healthy and fit in the long term, but that you can also take a 10-minute sprint, do that now. Put on your shoes and do it.

If your resistance comes up, go back to step 5).

If your limiting belief’s intention was for you to feel safe and happy, you can reward yourself with a warming cup of tea and a cuddle up in a blanket after your shower.

You don’t need to push through.

Challenge the belief, meet your belief and fears with compassion and kindness, take action and also find a way to honour your fear and its deeper desire for you.

BONUS TIP: Swap out “I can’t”, “I must”, “I have to”

Language plays a gigantic role in your life.

The way you speak to yourself and others, the words you read and hear, the words you think.

By simply choosing powerless and limiting phrases like “I can’t”, “I must” or “I have to”, your image of the world, your options and your agency become limited.

Instead, you can say “I can”, “I want to”, “I don’t want to”, “I choose to”, “I choose not to”, “I prefer to”, “I prefer not to”.

Try it out and see how it feels!

Take our running example of this post. What if after all the belief-challenging you still just don’t wanna go for a run? Then, instead of saying “I have to go for a long run in order to achieve my goal” (and as a result you don’t go), you say “I choose not to go for a run today”.

That’s powerful.

The Takeaway

I truly know that this can change your world. I have done this process with an array of my very own beliefs and it has changed a lot for me. It has allowed me to take action in a way that is kind and sustainable for myself.

And I know you can do the same.

I believe in you!

I can’t wait to hear what you take away from this! Let me know in the comments!

References & Inspiration include

Change Your Thinking – Positive and Practical Ways to Overcome Stress, Negative Emotions and Self-Defeating Behaviour Using CBT by Sarah Edelman PhD

Playing Big by Tara Mohr

Teachings by Alyssa Nobriga