Karleigh Lynne

You’re holding yourself back.

I know that seems like a harsh way to start a post, but this is important.

If you’re in the personal development world, you’ve already heard about limiting beliefs.

If you’ve heard of it, you either rolled your eyes or sighed, both of which are signs that you already know what’s holding you back.

If you haven’t, you’re probably wondering what the heck this is. In fact, it sounds a little woo and you’re ready to click away. Please don’t. I promise this will change your life.

What’s a limiting belief, anyway?

Limiting beliefs are things that hold us back. They’re things that we believe we don’t deserve, can’t have, or aren’t capable of getting.

For example, if I sign up for a marathon but truly believe deep down that I can’t run, I’m probably not going to train. Heck, I probably won’t even show up to the event.

Limiting beliefs on your recovery journey are the same thing. Recognizing and understanding your limiting beliefs is absolutely crucial.

Why? Because if you truly believe that you don’t deserve better, you’re not going to do anything to help your brain get better.
You’re not going to do anything to reach higher, you’re not going to raise your standards, because you don’t believe that you deserve it.

If you don’t believe that healing is possible, then you are not going to move forward on your recovery journey.

You can purchase all the courses, you can buy all the printable journals, you can hire me as your coach, but if you don’t believe healing is possible for you, your life won’t change. If you don’t believe it’s possible, you won’t do the necessary work that you need to do in order to cchange your life.

That is why limiting beliefs are so important, especially on your abuse recovery journey.

While it’s simple to explain, it’s not easy at all. Just because something is simple to understand does not mean that it’s easy to implement. Our brains are very, very stubborn. And they don’t want to change their current thought process.

Prefer to watch? Here’s the video!

How do I move past them?

The first step to busting the limiting beliefs is to realize what yours are.

Get out a journal, turn to a fresh page, and get ready.

Based off of what already came to mind, write down all of the limiting beliefs you can think of. You don’t need to do this for hours. Even just a few minutes of brain dumping will help immensely.

Then think about the things you want to do but haven’t yet. Whether that’s running a marathon hiring a coach, starting your recovery journey, going back to school, whatever they are, write them down.

Then ask yourself why you’re not doing those things. Begin to process through every reason you give yourself that you can’t or that now isn’t the right time. let it all out.

For example, if I want to be a bodybuilder, why am I not working towards it? Well, because in my mind, I truly believe that I’m going to be fat and overweight forever, and I’m never going to reach my goals. That’s what my family has always done, so that must apply to me, too.

That’s a limiting belief.

I want you to think about your limiting beliefs in regards to that goal. When you think about those goals, I don’t want you to get stuck on this whole brain dumping process. Pick one thing and dig into that.

Once you start recognizing your limiting beliefs, it’s not gonna be very comfortable. You’re probably not going to like it and there is a good chance you’re going to think very terrible things about me. And that’s okay.

Because once you recognize your limiting beliefs you’re going to find a lot of excuses. When you find those excuses, you’re going to get uncomfortable because you’re forced to call yourself out.

After you have these beliefs written down, I want you to dig deep and find the solution to those beliefs.

This where you’re going to call out excuses and blast them out of the water.

My limiting belief is that my whole family is extremely overweight, so I’m destined to be fat. But here’s my solution:

Is your whole family overweight because of genetics or are they like that because of how they choose to eat and they sit around all day?

Now I can call myself out.

If I change my behavior, I’m going to change my body.

Once you see those limiting beliefs out on paper, it becomes a lot easier to really see how ridiculous they can be. This is why writing it down and being able to look at it is so important. They’re no longer just swimming around in your head. But they become focused and tangible. When you do this, you’re able to pull the chaos out of your mind and make sense of it.

Write your responses to each belief below them and post a list up where you can see it every day. This will keep you accountable and help to call yourself out. You’ll see on a consistent basis just how capable you really are.

You won’t be able to think about every limiting belief you have in one try. But by doing a belief audit of your life every few months, it’s so beneficial. It will help you to recognize the beliefs as they come up. When they do come up, make note of it. Write it down in the Notes app on your phone, keep a journal in your car, maybe take a quick video of you saying it. That way you can come back to it later.

You’re teaching your brain that this is something it needs to pay attention to. The more it notices limiting beliefs on a conscious level, the more it can pull out of your subconscious.

When you can recognize those subconscious limiting beliefs, you are going to become unstoppable.

As difficult as it may be, consistency is key here. We struggle with consistency when it comes to our abuse recovery journey, our health, fitness, anything and everything. Consistency is hard. But it’s not impossible.

If you commit to consistency, you’re going to go further so much faster.

Can you see how limiting beliefs are holding you back? If you find yourself stuck and self sabotaging, take a second to come back to this exercise. Begin to call out your limiting beliefs one by one. They’re almost always in the excuses we have for why we’re not doing something.

If you truly don’t want to do something, that’s totally ok. But let it go. Stop stressing over how you should do it. If you don’t want to, don’t let it take up precious brain space. But if it keeps nagging at you, there’s probably a reason why.

Limiting and recognizing limiting beliefs is not all about focusing on productivity all the time. They allow you to free up brain space.

Imagine what would happen if you were consistently calling yourself out, letting go of things you don’t want taking steps toward the things you want.

There are 1000s of limiting beliefs in your brain right now. You can’t even recognize them all at the moment. That’s okay. But I want you to think about this.

Let’s say you have 100 limiting beliefs. And over the course of a year you recognize 50 of those limiting beliefs, and you were able to work through them and let them go. you legitimately took half the workload off of your brain.

Imagine how much energy you’ll have and how much clearer your thought process will be.

Your thoughts are extremely powerful.

You can’t choose or control what happens to you. But you can control how you think about and respond to these things. You can control whether you choose to keep or release a limiting belief. You can decide whether this is going to help you grow or it’s going to break you down.

If this speaks to you and you’re feeling and you’re starting to get a little frustrated, that’s completely normal. I’ve been there myself and there are times I still find myself struggling.

Okay, I felt the exact same way. I truly struggled with this, I was mad that I wasn’t taught this before. I didn’t truly believe in the validity of it.

But once you take responsibility for your life, it takes you from a victim to a survivor.

From victim to hero.

The hero was once a victim until they took responsibility for their future.

You deserve to feel like a survivor, you deserve to feel like the hero of your own story instead of the victim waiting for someone to save you. When you can recognize and call yourself out for your limiting beliefs, you’re doing that.

You’re taking your life back, your power back.

You deserve all of that and more. You’re worthy of every desire placed on your heart. You’ve got this, boo!

If you want to dive in deeper on this, be sure to check out my free Confidence Course! This is five day course gives you the exact step by step framework that I give to my clients. In less than a week, you’ll have the foundation you need in order to go after your best, most confident life. Click here for details!