A Guide to Core Beliefs: Changing Self-Limiting Beliefs for Success

Do you have any self-limiting beliefs like:

• “I’m not good enough” 
• “I don’t have enough time”
• “I can’t become successful” 
• “I’m going to fail anyway” 
• “I don’t have enough …”

Most of us do have some of these negative core beliefs. And these types of beliefs have a big impact on the amount of action you take to get to your goals.

Once you change your psychology, you feel better and improve your chance of success. That’s why in this guide, you’ll learn how to identify and change your core beliefs.

What are Beliefs?

Beliefs are the truths you hold about the world and help you to navigate in your decisions. 

From a young age, you learn to attach meaning to certain events. Through your parents, you learn the basic framework between what’s good and bad.

For example, as a child, you like to test everything by putting it in your mouth. But soon you learn (often through correction by your parents), that not everything in the world is edible.

Bummer. 

Then you grow older and more independent. Other factors, like your environment and your social circle, start to have a bigger influence on your beliefs.

You’re the average of the five people you spend the most time with.

– Jim Rohn

Now, if you’re lucky enough to grow up with great guiding, you’ll hold beliefs such as:

• “Failure is a necessary stepping stone to success”
• “Whatever I focus my attention on, I can achieve” 
• “Enjoying the process is more important than end-results” 

But for some reason, most of us don’t grow up with these beliefs.

Parents don’t let you fail to protect you out of love. In schools, you learn to compare yourself to others through grades and popularity. You become scared to fail and the judgment that follows afterward.

If you’re unlucky you lose most confidence during your time in school. Self-limiting beliefs take control of your life. And you’ll do anything to steer away from discomfort.

Yet, if you were popular and got good grades, there’s another trap. Because how many people get stuck in a job that they don’t like – yet can’t quit because it gives status and earns good money?

Comfort is the enemy. Yet, your mind is exactly wired to keep you in a place of comfort. Don’t take too many risks, stay safe, and cruise along. 

But what’s the cost you pay?

What if…

But there’s hope! By focusing on developing the habits for success, taking constant action, and learning to lean into fear, you can ignite your fire. 

A Deep Understanding of Self-Limiting Beliefs

Negative core beliefs are the invisible forces that prevent you from taking action. So how do you identify these kinds of self-limiting beliefs?

Before we can answer that question, you need to understand how those beliefs got their power in the first place. 

Belief formation, including negative beliefs, work through a loop. 

You’re confident you can do something. You do it with success. And your confidence gets an extra boost that inspires you to take more action.

But the opposite is true as well for negative loops.

You’re hesitant to do something because it scares you. You decide to do it anyway. Then you fail. What do you most often say to yourself when this happens?

“See you couldn’t do it.” 

Which then strengthens your belief that you can’t do it. 

Even though you understand very well that failure is the price you must pay to get better. Yet, it cripples most of us. Especially because we judge ourselves or feel judged by others.

And it’s this emotional intensity that strengthens a belief faster.

This concept is what they call a feedback loop in biology. It helps you to stay in ‘ homeostasis’. Not too warm nor too cold. Not too hungry or tired.

And your mind uses the same concept to keep you within your comfort zone.

Not a great thing if you want to develop self-confidence.

What’s extra frustrating is that it’s only the emotional side of your brains who calls the shots here. Often, your logical part knows very well that failure is a natural part of growth. 

Identifying Negative Core Beliefs

Now that you understand how self-limiting beliefs get their power, it becomes easier to identify them.

Challenging situations that make you emotional is the first thing you can look for. Find the moments when you feel scared and how you feel after trying it anyway. 

If you succeeded, how did you feel? And if you failed, how did that make you feel?

An exercise to create more awareness is to keep a daily or weekly journal. Write down what made you feel scared that day, if you did it, and if so, how it made you feel.

Another effective way is to identify themes. For example, I notice that my beliefs are challenged during sports because I’m not a great athlete. 

Try to identify a theme for yourself. Perhaps it’s in certain social conditions? And if so, when exactly? Try to pinpoint the theme if possible.

Keep in mind that fear isn’t the core belief itself. Fear arises in response to a limiting self-belief. But the negative core belief lies a layer deeper.

Take your time to sit down and write how you feel about events. Bring curiosity to why you feel and act in certain ways, but don’t judge yourself for it. 

Ask questions like: why did that happen? And why did I feel that way?

With curiosity, I’m sure you’ll discover the self-limiting beliefs that are holding you back from your ideal life. If you need a little help with that, here’s a list of 36 common negative beliefs.

How to Change a Belief?

You’ve come to the transformational part of changing core beliefs. It’s time to destroy your self-limiting beliefs so that you can be more self-confident.

Keep in mind that beliefs that take years to build, don’t take 10 minutes to destroy. It’s a process. But the process of changing your belief has many sweet fruits for you to pick along the way. 

Note: this isn’t a quick fix. Self-improvement requires deliberate effort, consistency, and a bit of patience.  

There are 6 steps to this process and every step is as important as the next. This idea comes from the book from the legendary Tony Robbins: Awaken the Giant Within. 

To make these steps concrete, I’ll take you through my process of challenging myself in sports. 

Step 1: Increase Awareness

If you haven’t yet taken your time to sit with a pen and paper, do it now. Awareness is always the first step in making change happen. 

Also, write down all the supporting evidence you can find for that belief.

For me, I don’t believe I’m a great athlete.

What supports this belief? Well, It took me years to figure out how to break the 10 pull-ups mark. Another reference is through comparison, as I always progress much slower than others.

Step 2: Create Uncertainty

To change a negative core belief, you must create doubt around your old beliefs. You can change your mindset by evidence that doesn’t fit your old belief. A great way to start doing this is by questioning your limiting beliefs.

Here are some questions to start that process:

• Why is the supporting evidence for this belief ridiculous?
• What are the reasons why it can’t be true?
• What opportunities did you miss because you believe this?
• How does this belief limit your success right now?
• What is the cost of believing this moving forward? 

For my pull-ups, I’ve to admit I wasn’t always as consistent. Besides, I do progress if I compare my results to my previous results.

Change your perspective and you can change your beliefs.

Step 3: Associate Emotion

You’ve started to question your self-limiting belief. The best way to knock out this belief for good is by increasing the emotional intensity.

Painful emotions in this case.

Because these emotions are a call to action to get away from the pain. You can use that power to create the emotional leverage you need to change the belief.

Repeat the questions in step 2 and attach emotion to each answer. The more you can amplify your experience with emotion, the bigger your chances to make a change. 

The cost of my belief would result in me turning my back to sports. The consequences of that are getting out of shape and having less energy.

Step 4: Fill the Gap

Your self-limiting belief is shaking on its foundation. But your work isn’t done yet. If you don’t fill the gap with a positive belief, the self-limiting belief will try to make a comeback. 

Find a positive core belief that will benefit you in achieving your goals.

Have you got one?

Great job! 

Now it’s time to reverse the steps. Start by backing up the positive belief with some positive emotions. Use questions like the following:

• How does your life change with this new positive belief?
• What are some exciting things you can do after implementing this belief?
• What positive emotions do you experience as you think about this change? 
• How would this change make a positive impact on the people around you?

Notice how you start to feel more positive and how it boosts your self-confidence too as you’re going through this exercise. 

Step 5: Find Powerful References

In this step, you’re going to find supporting evidence to create a rock-solid belief.

Look for reasons why your new belief is true. Find supporting evidence in your personal experiences and observations. Also, look online for inspirational supporting evidence.

Then raise your emotions so it transforms your beliefs forever. A good way to find evidence if it’s applicable for the belief you want to break is through documentaries. These often combine research with emotional intensity.

After examining why I couldn’t progress with my pull-ups, I realized 2 things. The first one is that I didn’t do much progressive overload (stimulating growth by increasing the difficulty). And secondly, I didn’t understand the importance of switching up exercise routines. 

Step 6: Stay Patient and Consistent

Consistency is a core principle that determines your success in any aspect of life.

No matter what you want to achieve, consistent action combined with patience always wins.

And as I mentioned before, changing your beliefs is not an overnight thing. 

It requires some time, effort, and energy. But changing self-limiting beliefs that are holding you back is worth the effort.

It’s how I’ve stayed consistent with my workout practice, despite slow progress. And it’s how I’m overcoming my fear of public speaking too. 

Because I can improve, get better, and push my boundaries. And so can you.

When you develop a growth mindset, you’ll find it much easier to change your limiting beliefs.

Final Note on Self-Limiting Beliefs

Would you eat junk food and expect to become fit? Not very likely. Yet so many of us do this with our minds. We let every piece of negativity enter it, yet expect happiness.

Decide what you let into your mind.

To solve my limiting belief that I’m not a great athlete, I’ve found evidence as to why I wasn’t progressing. Not because I’m a bad athlete but because I didn’t overload my muscles and switch up my exercise routines enough.

The second important step is to take action. You only build up your confidence by going through the motions.

Learn to become comfortable with short-term discomfort to achieve long-term success and happiness.

This requires you to change your relationship with failure. Because failure is the necessary stepping stone towards achieving any type of goal.

If you need some additional help to improve your beliefs, I recommend this book from Gary van Warmerdam.