How to Reframe and Dismantle Your Limiting Beliefs

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“I am useless at writing exams. I fail every time I sit an exam. I always have to rewrite. It always happens. This is not a belief so much as an established fact. What can I do?”

Life coaches are specially trained with tools and techniques to help their clients dismantle limiting beliefs, or beliefs that disempower them or don’t serve their interests.

And yet, here was a trainee life coach whose own belief was clearly so ingrained that – tools and techniques notwithstanding – she was unable to see any prospect of shifting it!

“The only limits you have are the limits you believe.”

– Dr Wayne Dyer

 

Read with empathy

I read the post with a great deal of empathy. It’s hard to think of anyone who hasn’t at some stage in their life believed, with great conviction that:
“I am useless at ABC.”

I’m pretty certain that nearly all of us have or have had an ‘ABC’ that we regard as a serious achilles heel, or ‘weakness’, as we have no doubt been conditioned to refer to it.

Weakness, or ?

Before I share some ideas on how to deal with deeply ingrained limiting beliefs, let me come back to that unfortunate but common term, ‘weakness’.

It’s a term that we humans have readily embraced to describe areas of lesser capability, as opposed to areas of greater capability that we like to call ‘strengths’. But it is also a term that carries a lot of baggage and one that can sometimes be psychologically quite damaging.

Every human being is different and yet, as a common species, we share pretty much the same capabilities. For example, we all have the capability to think and reason. It’s just that in some, that capability is more developed than in others.

Likewise, we all have the capability to move our bodies to a musical rhythm. Some, however are more adept at this skill than others.

That doesn’t mean my inability to dance like Fred Astaire makes dancing a ‘weakness’ of mine. It’s just not a capability that is well developed in me.

Developed and developmental capabilities

I think you get where I am going with this. We all have what I would call developed capabilities and less developed or ‘developmental’ capabilities.

Developed capabilities can arise thanks to natural talent or sheer hard work or – in most cases – a bit of both. Developmental capabilities are not weaknesses, they are simply capabilities that don’t come that naturally and/or those that we have not chosen to work hard enough at.

Let’s get back to the subject of limiting beliefs.

I’d like to start with a story from some time ago in my corporate life.

The limiting belief and the pig

For a great many years, I would happily tell anyone who would listen how utterly hopeless I was at drawing or artwork.

Then, one day, I found myself attending a leadership skills workshop with about a dozen other people. Believe it or not, one of the exercises involved having to draw a pig, of all things. And there was a prize attached!

I completely forget the rationale for the exercise now, but that matters not.

My first thought was to throw in the towel and own up to the instructor that I had absolutely no clue how to draw anything, never mind a pig.

But my ego reined me in … this was a leadership skills workshop after all!

So I grabbed an unlikely form of assistance from my briefcase – a ruler – and set about crafting what was a very geometric, industrial looking, pointy pig!

My efforts and the resulting (truly whacky) ‘pig’ won me the prize of a box of chocolates.

Sweet!

A welcome realisation

Far sweeter, though, was the later realisation that I was, perhaps, not so totally useless when it came to drawing. It was simply more of a challenge for me than for most others … and I could rise to that challenge by leaning on a steady hand and what I had learnt in engineering design 101!

Hopefully, my story offers a neat segue back into the topic of dismantling limiting beliefs by reframing or ‘reinventing’ them.

Subtle reframing

As I explained on The Forum to the lady with the limiting belief about her ability to write exams, a great way to start the dismantling process is to simply and subtly reframe one’s belief.

By adapting one’s thinking from: “I am useless at writing exams” to something a touch more accommodating like: “I find writing exams challenging,” you immediately open the door to possibility. An irredeemable weakness is suddenly reframed as a capability development challenge.

And, as we all know, humans are particularly good at rising to challenges!

Self fulfilling prophecy

A disempowering conviction like: “I am useless at writing exams” is more often than not a self fulfilling prophecy.

Such a mindset leads to negative expectations, which bring about self defeating behaviour with a resultant poor outcome that simply serves to reinforce the negative belief!

However, the belief “I find writing exams challenging,” though only subtly different, encourages the subconscious mind to search for ways to overcome the challenge – like seeking out advice, techniques and support to improve or develop one’s exam writing ability.

A few chinks to start the dismantling process

Ultimately, as I found with my pig, all it takes is a modest improvement or a small ‘win’ to create a few chinks in a limiting belief – that you once thought was a fact of life – for the dismantling process to start!

11 thoughts on “How to Reframe and Dismantle Your Limiting Beliefs”

  1. Nolufefe Maya

    Hi Bill, Thanks for this empowering writing on Reframing and Dismantling limiting beliefs.
    The mere changing of the statement
    ” I am weak at doing ABC ” to ” I find doing ABC challenging” sets the inner latent energies in motion at speed. One begins to explore his/her inner resources which he had allowed to go untapped and engages them into action to overcome the challenge. After a positive outcome, one begins to wonder what was difficult with this in the first place. This has a bearing on how you express your thoughts – remedial action resides in you !

  2. I concur the above teaching. Basically believing in your own ability takes you to such spheres beyond

  3. Thanks Bill,
    Helping Coachees to learn the power of these steps in the New Insights Life Coaching programme and witnessing the empowering moments they experience, is truly rewarding for both Coach and Coachee.
    I recently worked with a Coachee who started the session saying “I don’t really have limiting beliefs, I just don’t have any confidence” 🙂 What happened next was not short of a few a-ha moments.
    Just acknowledging limiting beliefs is powerful and imagine what can happen when we learn how to dismantle and reframe them.

    1. Thanks Jan – I had to chuckle at your example! Let’s face it – we all have limiting beliefs!

  4. That makes so much sense now and can see clearly where I have been going wrong. “writing exams is challenging”. This will be my new mantra.
    Thanks

  5. An invaluable piece of writing, Bill. Thank you for helping us to see things differently. Mastering this skill brings lasting benefits and enhances the quality of our lives.

  6. Coralee Bzuidenhout

    Hi Bill, this really encouraged me very much. You gave me very good advice in how to actually change my weakness into a challenge and just yesterday i was looking at new ways to overcome this belief of the pass.
    T hank you.

      1. Affirmation is the self fulfilling prophecy. The best thing is to support my affirmation and accelerate its manifestation. If my affirmations are negative I must turn those self – fulfilling prophecy to positive one. To say examination is a challenge will help me overcome this negative belief that I am not good at writing exams and also indicate that I am willing and determined to tackle the challenge head-on and sure if victory . Thanks Bill for your encouragement.

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