Have you ever been in a situation where you saw someone who had just become successful or made some breakthrough and you thought to yourself, “I can never do that.” Most of us probably, even successful people, at some point in our lives experience this feeling. This is the result of something called self-limiting beliefs that have become ingrained in your mind.

So what are self-limiting beliefs? Self-limiting beliefs are mental blocks, negative thoughts and beliefs, psychological obstacles, or even internal monsters stored in your mind. They tend to have negative effects on you, greatly limiting your ability and programming your mind to dismiss all chances of achieving your goals and ultimately your success.

There are numerous harmful self-limiting beliefs, but I will mention the top seven that I personally believe have the worst effects on people. Let’s explore them first before we get into the negative effects they have on you.

1) Believing that you are not good enough to achieve anything

This is probably due to the fact that he first thought that he was not smart enough and that he did not have special abilities or qualities and since he does not have them, then he is not worthy or cannot achieve anything great.

2) Believing that people generally don’t like you

Before I address this, I need you to understand that I am explaining this in terms of a naturally normal and maybe even educated person and not in terms of a nasty, rude, insensitive, and ill-mannered person who deserves to be hated by people. Even then, there are rude people who are liked by others. Anyway, back on topic. This belief leads you to think that no one likes you or wants to befriend you because of a flaw or flaws that you have. He usually accepts that he will never be wanted and therefore imprints that belief on his mind.

3) Believing that you will be rejected

This is a very common self-limiting belief that exists in many different types of people from different walks of life. It exists in a student who is afraid to ask his teacher for help, a worker who asks his colleague for help, a disciple who seeks his mentor’s advice, a child who desperately wants his parents to get him a new toy, and especially a person. trying to ask another person of the opposite sex a question or a quote. People with this belief are primarily driven by fear; the fear that the other party will not reciprocate in the way she intended and immediately say no.

4) Believing that certain tasks are impossible to achieve

It’s prudent to note here that I’m not talking about universally/psychologically impossible tasks, such as humans flying, a child being older than its parents, or a fan turning on and off at the same time. Rather, the tasks that I am focusing on are those that have been shown time and time again to be very possible to achieve, but people with these beliefs limit themselves by saying that they simply cannot achieve these tasks because they lack the skills. qualities, knowledge, tools, resources and etc. In fact, this self-limiting belief can be considered as a complement to self-limiting belief #1).

5) Having a one-sided belief

People with this thinking believe that there is only one solution to a particular equation or simply say that there is only one way to perform a certain task or do things. A very apt example here is the current employee mindset that is ingrained in most salaried people. However, please note that I am not attacking the employees nor do I have anything against them. In fact, I sincerely admire your determination, perseverance, and fortitude. Anyway, let’s go back to the example. Most employees believe that the only proper and “ethical” way to earn money is to work long, hard hours, sacrificing their energy, time, interests, family just to be able to earn a monthly paycheck from their employers. What they don’t understand is that there are many alternatives to making money, such as running a business and investing.

6) Believing that you are destined to fail

This is one of the most damaging self-limiting beliefs anyone can hold, and sadly, it exists in a large percentage of us. People with this belief deeply believe that whatever they do will end in failure and because of this, they either do not set out to try anything beneficial or stop halfway when trying and ultimately fail. They fail not because it was their destiny to fail but because they believed that it was, they did not take the pertinent effective actions and consequently they fail.

7) Believing that you cannot succeed

This belief basically encompasses all of the other 6 beliefs mentioned above and all other self-limiting beliefs that are not covered in this post. Ultimately believing that you cannot achieve success is the springboard into a chain reaction of events that will lead you away from your fundamental desires, cause you not to take effective action, and prevent you from seeing favorable results and consequences.

So there you have it, the top seven harmful self-limiting beliefs according to my book. Now, knowing that these self-limiting beliefs are good, it is imperative that you be aware of the harmful effects they can have on you.

In a nutshell, self-limiting beliefs can have these effects on you:

1) lead to procrastination and laziness,

2) destroy and snuff out their hopes and aspirations,

3) tear down their morale

4) cause you to lose full focus of your goals, dreams and aspirations

5) divert you from your intended successful path and goal.

And tons of other negative effects that aren’t covered here. Surely all this information has been enlightening for you. But what do you do next to ensure that you are armed and ready to counter and protect yourself from these self-limiting beliefs?

There are many methods but the ones I recommend are the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and the Sedona Method. They are free, easy to implement, and can be deployed in less than a minute. In fact, I came up with a hybrid technique using both EFT and Sedona that you can check out in my resource box below.