How to Be Limitless? Limiting Belief Awareness and Destroying Them.

Have you ever been on circus? My grandfather took me to see one when I was little. Most circus have an Elephant that did some tricks and followed the command of a trainer with only a chain connecting them.  The chain is usually attached to the neck or on the leg of the elephant. Do you ever wonder why such a mighty gigantic beast follow a so much tinier being that is a hundred times weaker in strength than he or she is? I am sure that the elephant can break free with ease if he or she wanted to.

But why does it do not? You see it all started at an early age. When an elephant trainer plan to teach an elephant, it goes out to buy a young or baby elephant. This baby elephant would then be chained on the neck or leg and the other end of the chain will be pegged on the ground. Since the elephant is only a baby it cannot break free on the chain even how hard it tries. Day by day it will pull the chain but every time it will fail to break free. The trainer will just observe and feed the baby elephant. When the elephant stopped pulling the chain. The trainer will now know that the elephant is already convinced in its mind that the chain is unbreakable, and that the elephant is now ready for training. The elephant would no longer tries to pull the chain even though it grew up since it is already convincing the he or she cannot.

This sadly is also true for people. For sure everybody has an idea of their weaknesses. There are always things that we are so sure that we cannot do. We always have limiting beliefs. But why? When we were little kids, weak we were but nothing is impossible in our minds. We can be an Astronaut, a Doctor or even a Superhero. The world is ours for the taking.

Adolescent came and we then became teens. During this time, we have a perception of self-invincibility. We take risks, the more the merrier and we always perceive danger lesser than it usually is. We take actions.

For the best-case scenario. During this time, we became aware that we can be independent. We go to YouTube, Tik-Tok, Instagram, etc. and aim to be the next big star. We go on online classes and start businesses to aim to be the next Billionaire. Some even began to take greater social awareness. Aiming for social change. To the extent of even becoming an activist.  We aim to change the world. Why? Because we can. At least our minds tell us so.

For the worst-case scenario. We grow up with low self-esteem with more self-doubts than the “I Can” mindset. With this we take actions in a meeker approach or plain avoidance of what we think we cannot do.

Then we became adult. Our far out dreams slowly dies one by one and our self-invincibility slowly fades away. We are no longer Supermen and Superwomen we are only but simple men and women. Self-strengths are recognized, and self-weakness are all noted down in our brains. We know what we can do and what we cannot.

Some of the things in the “Weakness List” are helpful for self-preservation. Like for example, I cannot pursue my dreams to do this because my talents are in this field and that this is what support my family. Others are just self-limiting beliefs. Like for example. I cannot speak in public. I cannot learn new things because I am now old. I am unlikable and unlovable.

These limiting beliefs are destructive thoughts that are often rooted in the pass and reinforced by multiple life events.

Let me give you an example my friend. Let say Timmy is a young lad in his post toddler years. Self-confident and talkative he was but there are times that he would stutter in speaking. Due to this, some of his friends would make fun of him. Then Timmy grew up a little and was sometime misunderstood because he failed to speak his mind clearly. By this time, he already some doubts of his speaking ability. Now time for graduation, Timmy was smart, top 1 in his class. During graduation, he was assigned to do some public speaking. He prepared but as he slowly approaches the mic, flashback from his pass speaking failure one by one fills his mind. He failed to deliver the speech. Timmy grew up sure of himself that he cannot speak well, and he now tends to avoid public speaking all throughout every opportunity.

With the example above, when Timmy was just a little boy, he has no concept in his mind that he is not a good speaker. One by one, a life event that suggested to himself that he cannot speak well happened. These events conceived the idea that he is not a good speaker. The more of this life events happened, the limiting idea slowly solidify and became the truth in his mind.

But what if Timmy questioned this self-conceived truth in his mind. Yes, he stutters in his early years, but it did disappear as he grew. There are times that he was misunderstood but maybe it was just because the person he was talking too just have a vastly different life experience that they cannot see eye to eye. Was every conversation he did lead to him not delivering what was on his mind? I am sure not. Finally, do you think Timmy was still the same person as before? I am sure that as he grew older, he learned new things and probably observed a lot of good conversations. If so do you still think that he is still that little kid who failed to deliver some good conversation? Probably not.

How about you my friend? What are your self-limiting beliefs reinforced by pass life events? List them all down, indicate what are the possible events that reinforce it and assess if still applicable.