10 (Limiting) Beliefs That Made Me Waste My Precious Years

Read and learn from it

While reading the book Unlimited Power By Anthony Robbins, I was challenged to list down 5 of the beliefs that have limited me in the past.

At first, I thought, “There were no limiting beliefs I had in the past. I had always been an optimist person”.

It wasn't until I decided to calmly look for some limiting belief in me. And to my surprise, I found plenty of it that my one full page ran out with it.

So I thought, let's share it with you so that you can also benefit from it. And overcome it if you have any of it.

Here are, the beliefs that limited me in the past:

1. I have to mold myself as others’ beliefs around me:

While growing up I was always asked to adjust myself according to my surroundings. Later on, I realized that this is only good for people around me and I am losing my true self in adjustment. Don’t change yourself so much that you start losing yourself in the process.

2. I have to make others around me happy:

You can’t make others happy and the same way other people can’t make you happy too. Happiness is a choice that you make for yourself. If your happiness depends on surroundings situations and surrounding people then you will mostly remain unhappy.

Now I understand that I can’t make others happy or unhappy. It is their state of mind, understanding, and maturity that make them happy or unhappy. So a big burden goes off my shoulders with this wrong belief.

3. I have to fear what others will say or think of me:

I always have been different in terms of career choices or any other life decisions. I used to fear what others would think of my choices. Like being a lady (as per the general belief) I must have an interest in pieces of jewelry and nice clothing. But such materialistic things never interested me and I never was part of a competition of being extremely presentable than other ladies.

However, I was fearful of what other people would think of me, that such beautiful materialistic things didn’t interest me but what more interested me was career options and how I make my career shine. But I accepted myself and didn’t fear what others thought of me and chose my options accordingly. People will keep judging me for one or the other reasons, but that is not my problem, I must not fear it.

4. I can’t speak what is in my mind, as others will get affected:

I always used to suppress my real emotions for others. Before saying anything to anyone I used to think what if they get offended, so I was always been careful of my words. But due to this people, used to take me for granted and hurt me. But my self-talk can suffocated me, as I never responded them with the required words.

Later on, I changed my approach. People who care for me, I care for them. People who don’t, I don’t care for them too. This saved me from suffocating self-talk later on.

5. I don’t have to be myself or trust myself:

Whatever you do people will always have differences of opinion with yours. And they never stop criticizing you. But this should not be your reason to stop being yourself and stop trusting yourself.

6. I can’t give priority to my goals, as I have to try to fit within others' agendas for me:

This was the big one. I have always been career-oriented, but at a certain point in time, people around me were not. So I really tried to adjust to their agenda. In order to do that I used to forget my life goals and my self-worth.

But later on, I realized that I was not here to adjust my goals, however, I am here to win my goals. Others may have different agenda of me but I can’t forget my goals for their agenda. I have to focus on my capability that is naturally coming to me and not bother about what is others' agenda for me.

7. I have to explain and prove myself to others:

As my choices and chosen options were different from others, I kept on explaining and proving my decisions to others. But later I realized that my task is not to keep explaining myself and my decisions to others as they might never understand those as their journey is different than mine.

8. I am not doing enough for others:

People often make you realize that you are not doing enough for them. But I learned later on that it is never going to be enough for them whatever you do. So I stopped feeling guilty about it and did that much that I thought was good enough for me to do.

9. I have to befriend and be nice to everyone:

You can’t be friends with everyone. Since you are different and so do your choices. And due to that some or the other will be upset with you. And you should be totally fine with that. If you try to be nice and friendly with everyone you will end up making yourself miserably unhappy.

10. I have to let all kinds of people surround me:

Not all people deserve your company, since they will end up changing your mindset. So surround yourself with people who uplift you in your life and help you achieve your goals. Don’t let the wrong people surround you or your mindset.

These were some of my limiting beliefs that kept me from achieving what I wanted in life for years. If you also have such a limiting belief, then break it as fast as you can. You have only one life so live it to the fullest and make the most of it. Life is too short to cage yourself in such a belief.

Trust me, I only could realize my limiting belief, once I took pen and paper to write it down. Till that time I was in the mindset of ‘everything is good with me’. Take out a pen and paper to think and write your limiting beliefs. And see the magic of changing yourself for good.

I highly recommend you read the book Unlimited Power By Anthony Robbins.

Follow me (Poonam Bhatt) for more such stories on self-improvement, reading, non-fiction books, and writing.