Life Coaching thoughts: Limiting Beliefs

As I learn more about limiting beliefs through my life coaching study and practice, and my own self-awareness efforts, I’m struck by a few thoughts that are related but distinct from each other. Right up front, I’ll acknowledge that I’m in the midst of learning how to coach effectively, so this write-up may represent an incomplete or even erroneous understanding. I strive to improve my coaching every day, so this may merely be a point-in-time understanding.

What I mean by limiting beliefs are those thoughts or states of mind that you think are the absolute truth about yourself, yet they inhibit you from doing what you value and from what might be achievable in the absence of those limiting beliefs.

Here are the three dimensions or lines of thought regarding limiting beliefs that I have in mind. They’re related but distinct:

• Dimension 1 is your awareness of a limiting belief.
• Dimension 2 is what happens to a limiting belief that you’ve become aware of it.
• Dimension 3 is why you may forget about a limiting belief after you’ve become aware of it.

Each of these can be qualitatively assessed on a scale of 1 to 10.

Here’s a demonstrative example. Suppose someone has a limiting belief related to their ability to competently coach individuals that are already highly accomplished in some aspects of their life.

• A limited belief for the life coach is that they’re not good enough, that they don’t have sufficient experience or knowledge to do this competently. This awareness is on Dimension I.
• This new awareness alone may or may not help them, so they may continue to struggle or learn to mitigate the adverse impact of the limiting belief. Or, they might have it drop from their mind altogether. This dealing with a known limiting belief is Dimension II.
• Suppose the belief drops from their mind. This might be because they’ve resolved it, or it might be because it’s not a priority for them to deal with right now. Not a priority because they either avoid those situations or because it’s relatively unimportant in the context of other insights they’re dealing with right now. This is Dimension III.

I shared this short essay for several reasons, including:

• It was a useful thought exercise for me to learn more about coaching limiting beliefs.
• I think it might be of interest, if not helpful, to some others thinking about limiting beliefs in the context of life coaching.
• To see if it motivates any interesting conversations with people, such as coaches, that I wouldn’t otherwise have a chance to meet or interact with.

Thoughts?