This week’s question from our portal “Ask Us Anything” comes from Brodie.
I’m starting to see that I have a lot of limiting beliefs that are holding me back. But I don’t know how to get rid of them. Like, I know intellectually that they’re not true, but I still feel them. They still affect my decisions. How do I actually eliminate a limiting belief instead of just knowing it’s limiting?
You don’t eliminate a limiting belief. You replace it with a more empowering belief.
Here’s why: you can’t get rid of a belief by fighting it. The more you fight it, the stronger it gets. Where attention goes, energy flows. If you’re constantly focused on not believing the limiting belief, you’re still giving it all your energy.
Instead, you choose a new belief and you give that belief all your energy instead.
So if you have a limiting belief that says “I’m not good with money,” you don’t sit there trying to convince yourself that belief isn’t true. You choose a new belief—”I’m excellent with money”—and you start acting from that belief.
Every time the old belief shows up, you acknowledge it and choose the new belief instead. You don’t fight it. You don’t argue with it. You just choose something different.
And here’s what happens: the more you act from the new belief, the more evidence you create for the new belief. And the more evidence you have, the easier it becomes to believe it.
Eventually, the new belief becomes your dominant belief. Not because you got rid of the old one. Because you starved it of attention and fed the new one instead.
It’s like walking through a forest. If you keep walking the same path, that path gets deeper and easier to walk. But if you stop walking that path and start walking a new path, the old path grows over and the new path becomes the easy one.
That’s how beliefs work. You don’t eliminate the old path. You just stop walking it and create a new one.
So stop trying to get rid of your limiting beliefs. Start acting from empowering beliefs instead. And over time, the limiting beliefs will fade simply because you’re not feeding them anymore.
That’s how you actually change a belief. Not by fighting it. By replacing it.
