Breaking Free from Limiting Beliefs: Steps to Unlock Your True Potential | Taiwanica Podcast

Can the internalized voices from our childhood really dictate our life's possibilities? Join me on Taiwanica Podcast as I unravel the powerful grip of limiting beliefs and how they shape our daily lives. Drawing from my own journey, I share the poignant story of battling the pervasive belief of "I am not enough," and how it has affected my roles as a parent and professional. By shining a light on these hidden constraints, we can begin the process of breaking free and discovering our true potential.

Discover practical and actionable strategies to distance yourself from these self-imposed barriers. From the therapeutic benefits of journaling to the profound insights gained through discussions with friends or professionals, this episode provides a roadmap for redefining your mindset. Learn how a simple shift in language, like replacing "I can't" with "I could," can unlock new opportunities and transform seemingly impossible goals into achievable milestones. Visit ericananitacom for more resources and join our collective journey towards a liberated and empowered life.

Chapters

• 0:00 Understanding and Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
• 11:19 Understanding and Overcoming Limiting Beliefs
• 18:55 Recognizing and Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

This is episode 83, talking about limiting beliefs. What are they, how are they affecting me and what can I do about them? What's up everybody? My name is Eric, one of your hosts today on Taiwanica Podcast, and with me is no one, it's just me once again for the Friday solo. So I'm going to tell you one little thing about Anita once again. One of Anita's favorite things to eat is spicy food, and so anytime you hear her in a happy mood, probably it's because she just ate something spicy. So there you go Now.

Speaker 1: 0:42

In today's episode, we're going to be talking about something that is very interesting and something that a lot of people are now starting to become aware of in their life, but not really sure what to do about them. Those are limiting beliefs. Now, what are they? Well, limiting beliefs are something that everybody learns while they're growing up. For example, you're one of your parents, and when they're raising you, they're doing their absolute best to teach you, from their point of view, what is good about the world and what is bad about the world. So this is a good thing. Definitely try this, or this is a bad thing. Be careful of this. So, parents and other close people in our lives when we're growing up, they do the best they can to teach you everything that you need to know so that you can live the best life that they see you possibly having you possibly having. The only problem is that you notice that some other people in the world they are doing really well in their life. Maybe they are happier, they're more joyful, or you see them having different success from you. Maybe they are achieving more, or they are harder working Something along these lines, and you're noticing that they're capable of doing things that you would like to be able to do, but for some reason, when you think about doing them and start taking action, something gets in your way. This something is a limiting belief. Okay, the very first place where we always start, when we're trying to do something new, is coming from who do we perceive ourselves to be? So if I perceive myself being a hard worker, then I will do things that are related to being a hard worker and, as a result, I will have things from my hard work. Be do have. My favorite three In that order, never get it confused Be do have.

Speaker 1: 2:54

So if we want to become somebody else, we have to first become less of who we were before, and that is what the limiting belief comes from. Now there are many limiting beliefs. There is even science that has proven that there could be up to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of limiting beliefs that every single person could have. So if you are aware of that, it becomes very easy for you to know that, okay, I am not perfect. Right, I'm not a perfect person. So thinking that you are a perfect person automatically is a limiting belief because it's keeping you from growing. But thinking that you are an imperfect person that's how I like to think about it I am imperfect it actually gives you the truth about being human. It's that all of us have our faults. We have our parts that need to grow and improve and change. That's about being human, learning and growing. And so, with these limiting beliefs, knowing that we have them helps us start doing things to become different people. So we need to look at some of the most common limiting beliefs that exist out there.

Speaker 1: 4:23

There are many, but I'm going to bring up a couple today that are common for most people. Okay, so I'm going to bring up one that I have personally experienced, and then I'm going to bring up one that I definitely know that I've experienced sometimes, but it might be something more relatable to somebody else. So, not all talking about Eric today. I want to make it so that it's a universal conversation. So the first one that I'm going to talk about is going to be personal. It's going to be about what I've experienced, and that is this limiting belief.

Speaker 1: 4:59

Right here, quote I am not enough. End quote Okay, I am not enough. End quote Okay, I am not enough. This phrase says a lot. Okay, it doesn't look like it does, saying I am not enough. It could mean a lot of things, but that's the reason why it's so powerful and a root limiting belief, a limiting belief that can grow from and it can grow into many different limiting beliefs.

Speaker 1: 5:32

So let me give you some examples. I am not good enough at being a teacher. I am not good enough at being a father, I am not good enough as being a successful person in society. And then, okay, I'm looking at these things and so what's going to happen with this belief? Well, my mind is going to start finding ways to prove that. So if I say, oh, I'm not a good enough father, well, my mind's going to start searching in my memory ways of proving that. So if I say, oh, I'm not a good enough father, well, my mind's going to start searching in my memory ways of proving that. Oh, maybe one time I yelled at my son too harshly, too intensely, or one time maybe I forgot to do something important for my wife and my son, or maybe there's another moment that proves this okay. And this can happen with anything else related to this limiting belief. If I say I'm not successful enough, well, an easy way for me to prove that is maybe looking at my bank account, or looking at the things that I have in my life, or looking at the people I have in my life. Okay, and noticing these things helps me reconfirm in my mind, oh, this is actually true in the current life that I am experiencing, who I am being right now.

Speaker 1: 7:01

But that's what the limiting belief is. You have basically put yourself in a limited space and you've grown inside that space to its capacity. So, for example, let's say you live in a circle and you're, there's nothing outside of this circle, and you have grown as much as you can inside of that circle and now you're, you're stuck, and that's not how life is supposed to be. Life is consistently growing. If you leave a forest untouched for a hundred years, you'll see, from year one it might not have much, but if you see from then to year 100, the entire landscape will look completely different because so much has grown, died and grown over it. So that's what life is all about is to continually grow. But if we give ourself a limited space that has no possibility of growing further, then that's what creates this limitation. That's why we call it a limiting belief.

Speaker 1: 8:09

Okay, so when we look at that and we know that this is a limiting belief, now we're looking at okay, well, what do I do about this limiting belief? How do I first of all, get stuck in this situation? And then, how do I get unstuck? Well, getting stuck is very simple because it happens to all of us at a young age, all the way until we're 18 years old. Okay, from a young age, our parents, our teachers, our coaches, all the people that we really respect from a young age, are influencing our way of thinking, and so if they think something about us and they tell us, a lot of times as young kids, we just accept it without any thought about it, and when that happens, we're literally shaping our brain in a specific way and that gets us stuck in that specific shape.

Speaker 1: 9:07

The good news is is that when we know that this exists, that this is happening to our brain, we can start to learn how to release the intensity related to the belief. This is the most important part, is trying to release the intensity about that belief, because everything that we have created a limitation about is similar to a phrase in english, which is you create your own cage but at the same time, you are behind the cage, only not realizing that right behind your cage is an open wall. You can walk right out of it. So the reason why we cannot see another phrase, which is the forest through the trees, or noticing that there is so much more going on than what we can see in front of us, is because we're too close to the situation. We're noticing it way too intensely, that it creates this focus that makes it impossible for us to see outside of it, and that can be a limiting belief in itself, no thinking that anything is impossible. Uh, so what we're trying to do here is simply go and step a little farther back from this limiting belief and say okay, I know, I have this limiting belief. This alone is powerful because you're now giving yourself the energy back to say I recognize this is happening in my life. And when you admit something like that or when you state that out loud, you automatically make the intensity on that limiting belief weaker. It's just you just became a little bit less because you're starting to create that distance that we were talking about here. The next step to create further distance is to know any technique to help yourself separate even further from that intensity.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Okay, so what can I do to help me get a little farther away from what's going on in my mind about a limiting belief? This can be a variety of things. You can look at this. Write down in a journal that this is happening in your life. Tell a story to your friend, talk to them about this. If you're seeking therapy or you're talking to a life coach, this is a great time to talk to them about this. If you're seeking therapy or you're talking to a life coach, this is a great time to talk to them about this limiting belief, because just talking about it or writing it down will help you start to look at this limiting belief from different points of view, but the most important point of view that I want to share with you today and I'll share this with the other limiting belief is how is this limiting belief teaching me something? Because all limiting beliefs are designed in our life from other people's point of view, that life is a specific way. Okay, they learn that somehow. Right, there's a lesson inside of this belief, but there's something more to this belief besides that that we're just not aware of. And so if we start looking at the limiting belief that we have and we ask the question what is this limiting belief teaching me?

Speaker 1: 12:45

Usually, you're going to see a positive point of view from this. In fact, almost I think I could even say always find a positive point of view from this, and that is something that you're noticing is, for example, oh, noticing that I am not enough as a father for my son because I spoke to him too harshly or too intensely that one time. What am I learning from this? Well, the next time I talk to him, I'm going to try to find a different way to talk to him that is more of a loving way. Oh well, there you go. That's more positive, right? So every time you have a limiting belief that you notice and you're starting to think, oh, how can I be different in this situation? Well, you're going to do something different next time, and then guess what? You have a different result, right Be do have. Having this kind of process going on is going to relieve a lot of that intensity that's connected to the limiting belief. So this is a very easy way to process this stuff.

Speaker 1: 13:58

Now, the big thing that I want to connect to is that this is just one limiting belief. Now there are others that are happening all the time and we are not aware of them. So what I would like to do now is to express one that is almost universal to everybody, and not simply believing that anything is impossible. Okay, anything is impossible, that's impossible. I can't do that. I can't do anything like that. Why would I even consider doing something like that? Because I've never done it before.

Speaker 1: 14:42

Okay, well, let's look at this. Let me ask you a question really quick. Can you stand up? Well, sure, maybe I've done it before in my life, maybe I haven't if I have crippled legs, but if you know, most people who are listening to this probably can stand up. Well, let me make it even easier. Can you hear my voice right now? Well, yeah, you can hear my voice. You've done it before. You just heard my voice a second ago. Your ears can hear me. Okay, you can hear my voice. You've done it before. You just heard my voice a second ago. Your ears can hear me. Okay, you can do these things, okay, well. Can you eat? Can you breathe? Well, sure, yeah, I can do those things, okay well. Can you fly Well? Well, well, I don't think I can right, it's impossible. I don't have wings.

Speaker 1: 15:36

Well, the only reason why you're saying you can't, it's impossible is because you've never done it before and you also never saw anyone do it before well, besides superman, probably. And so this belief alone is keeping you from achieving whatever it is that you want to achieve, and flying is a pretty extreme example. If you're a very spiritual person and achieve greatness, who knows, maybe you will be floating off of your pillow one day when you're meditating, or something like that. That can be possible for you. But let's talk about it on a more simplistic level. Like, maybe you want to buy a house or an apartment, but you think it's impossible because it costs too much money, Okay, well, don't you think that this belief that it costs too much money, it's impossible is actually the reason that's keeping you from doing anything about it To actually have the apartment? The answer is yes.

Speaker 1: 16:42

This limiting belief that it's impossible is your mind having a good enough reason to say I'm not going to do anything about it because I can't be someone with an apartment, because I already believe that it's impossible for me. You see what I'm saying here. You have a circle around you saying it's impossible to have an apartment because it's too expensive. Now, if we were to change that a little bit, let's change it to something like instead of saying the word impossible, we'll just simply add the word could to something Okay, so I could have an apartment like that, or I could have a car like that, or I could have a career like that. You're opening the possibility that they're no longer impossible.

Speaker 1: 17:37

Anything becomes possible by simply changing. This can lower the intensity with this one about impossible. So all limiting beliefs will have something to teach you. There is something to learn from it, and your perspective of being someone will start to change and become different, and then you'll start to automatically do different things, without even realizing it.

Speaker 1: 18:09

Maybe someone says to themselves oh, I can, it's impossible for me to lose weight, okay. But then they start saying to themselves I could lose weight, I could lose weight. And a month later they don't notice. But they start to lose weight. They just look down and they're five kilos less and they don't realize what they've done. And then they ask you know, someone close to them, like their best friend or their spouse, say how did I lose this weight? I didn't do anything. And the other person will look shocked and say, well, yes, you have. You've been doing more running, you have done more yoga, you've been watching what you eat. You eat less.

Speaker 1: 18:55

So simply changing the way you want to be will help. Doing and having the things that you want become so natural that sometimes you don't even notice the change. Sometimes you don't even notice the change. So this is the power of realizing a limiting belief, and there are many ways to tackle limiting beliefs, and some of the things I taught you were very specific to the limiting beliefs that I shared with you today. But there are many other ways to tackle many limiting beliefs at once, and that's something that Anita and I like to share on our website, ericananitacom, and you can check out more of the information over there on our blog if you're looking to learn more about limiting beliefs or even have a coach guide you through techniques that can help you improve yourself on a much faster pace.

Speaker 1: 19:59

So I hope you found learning about limiting beliefs helpful. If you did, please definitely share it with a friend, because this is something that everyone needs to learn about, and that's one of our goals here is for everyone to learn about what limiting beliefs are, and you can definitely have more opportunities to learn more about these in the future. But ask yourself from time to time what is my limiting belief? And, if you feel willing, definitely share one of yours in the comments or in the description down below. We would love to hear about them and bring them up in the next episode. That's. Our goal is to help everyone understand what else is out there for us to improve, because the closer we improve ourselves, the better world we can live in. So hope you enjoyed today's episode. This is Eric, and we'll see you in the next one.