Photo by Vida Huang on Unsplash
Limiting beliefs are the rules you learned about yourself, usually as a child, that still decide what you’ll try, what you’ll ask for and how far you’ll let yourself go. They don’t feel like beliefs. They feel like facts. “I’m not a creative person.” “People like me don’t get that.” “If I stop, it all falls apart.” You can’t argue your way out of them, because they were never arguments. They were survival rules, and they made sense when you wrote them.
Maybe you know exactly which one runs you. Or maybe you only notice the pattern: you get close to something good, and some part of you quietly steps back.
When I was sixteen, the career guidance teacher at my school sat me down and told me boys like me do not go to college. He recommended I apply for jobs as an insurance clerk.
Boys like me do not go to college.
I went anyway. I got into Trinity College Dublin. But getting the evidence that they’re wrong doesn’t switch them off. I carried a secret shame the whole way through. I might have been in the room, but I wasn’t one of them. I wouldn’t play soccer at Trinity. There’s a very good chance I’d have made the team. But I didn’t dare. The pitch was the one place they’d be certain to find me out.
So the belief didn’t stop me getting in. It just quietly decided what I was allowed to do once I was there.
Before I explain any of it, try something. Read the next sentence slowly, let the out-breath go, and notice what happens in your body as you read it. You were never the problem. You were following the rules you were given. Don’t argue with it and don’t agree with it. Just notice where it lands, the chest, the throat, the belly, and whether something in you softens or pushes back. Stay with that one more breath. That’s the place we’ll work from.
What’s really going on
If something in you reached for the “yes, but” just now, notice it. That reach is the belief, live, doing its job. If something loosened instead, notice that too.
Your nervous system learned the rules long before you had language. It learned who was safe and who wasn’t, how to get love, how to disappear, how to protect you. All of that happened before you understood anything consciously. That’s why limiting beliefs feel so much like the truth. They’re older than your ability to question them.
In my book I call it the fine print on every vow a wounded child makes. Somewhere in me a boy who watched his father collapse vowed: I will never collapse like my father. That vow is a strength. It’s also a cage. It robs me of meeting moments in context, the ones that call for softness or stopping or being carried.
Every limiting belief has that shape. “I have to do it all on my own, because no one will ever be there for me.” “I have to be impressive to be lovable.” “I have to abandon myself to keep the peace.” Each one protected you once. Each one now charges rent.
Over time, limiting beliefs calcify into protector parts, the inner characters who enforce the rule, and then we believe those parts are our personality and character. The inner critic is the loudest of them. He sounds like he’s telling the truth, keeping you honest, keeping you humble, keeping you safe. But he’s only repeating the messages a small child learned a long time ago.
So you’re not weak, and you’re not broken. You’re loyal to rules that once kept you alive. You make sense.
Need to talk this through right now? Figlet is an AI coach that’s there at 2 in the morning, or right now. It runs this loop with you on the Self ground.
The loop, on your situation
Coaching is how we go from where you are now to where you want to go. We only address the past when it emerges in the present. So pick one recent moment when you held back, and walk it through this.
Get ground in your body first
Feet on the floor. One slow breath out, longer than the breath in. A belief is easiest to see from a body that isn’t bracing against it.
What happened
One plain sentence, the way a camera would have seen it. “I had an idea in the meeting and didn’t say it.” Not “I’m hopeless.” Just the moment.
Where it lands in the body
A grip in the stomach. A tightness in the chest. Heat in the face. Stay with it for one breath, with permission to stop any time. And now what do you notice?
Who’s driving
Which part spoke up? The critic, the careful one, the one who keeps you small so nobody can be disappointed? Ask it, kindly: what rule are you enforcing? Finish the sentence it’s been saying for years. “People like me…” “If I try and fail…”
Trace it
Only as far as today needs. Where did you first learn that rule? From a parent, a teacher, a playground, a culture that told you what someone like you could expect? Mine came from a man with a careers folder. Yours has an author too, and it wasn’t you.
Feel it and tell someone
Under most limiting beliefs is shame: the old sense of not being enough, or being too much. Let yourself feel it for a moment instead of obeying it. Then say the belief out loud to someone safe. Rules that run in the dark lose a lot of power in the light.
One creative action
Break the rule once, in a small way you can survive. Say the idea. Send the email. Put your hand up. You’re not trying to prove the belief wrong forever. You’re giving your body one new piece of evidence.
How to overcome limiting beliefs, honestly
You’ll read that you should identify the belief, challenge it, reframe it and replace it with an affirmation. The first step is right. The rest often fails, because you can’t talk a body out of something it learned to survive.
Catch it in the act. Most of us live in a two-step world: something happens, and we react. The work is adding the middle step. Something happens, then you notice how it actually affects you. What story just got activated? Which part showed up? Is this the old belief again, that you’re on your own, or that you have to perform to be wanted?
Thank it before you overrule it. A belief you attack digs in. A belief you understand can stand down. “You kept me safe when trying was dangerous. I’ve got this one.”
Collect evidence in your body. Small, repeated experiences of breaking the rule and surviving do what positive thinking can’t.
Let other people in. Limiting beliefs were written in relationships, and they mostly get rewritten in them. Someone who sees you underneath the rule is worth a hundred affirmations.
Expect to slip back. You’ll catch yourself obeying the old rule again. That’s not failure. Noticing it is the practice working. Begin again.
One thing to do tonight
Write your belief down as one sentence, exactly the way it speaks to you. Then underneath it, write who first said it, or who made it feel true. Then write one more line: “I’m the one who decides now.” Read all three out loud, slowly, and notice what your body does on the last line. Don’t force it to feel true. Just notice.
Would therapy help with this?
If your limiting beliefs are mostly about what you’ll attempt at work or in your life, coaching is often the right size of help.
But if the belief is “I’m worthless” or “everyone would be better off without me,” if it comes with weeks of flatness, or if it grew out of abuse or trauma that still floods you, please talk to a licensed therapist where you live. That’s more than a belief to work around, and you deserve real care with it. If you’re thinking about hurting yourself, call or text 988.
The path
What I’ve just walked you through is the Empathi Method. For an individual, it’s built on my Proof of Work of Being Human protocol: building sovereign ground inside yourself. On the Self ground, that means footing steady enough that you can notice the old rule fire and still choose.
There are two ways to keep going. You can start now with Figlet, an AI coach that’s there at 2 in the morning, on the Self ground, the moment the old rule starts talking. Or you can get on the list for the book and the live program with me, where we do this work together.
Figs O’SullivanFiglet Life Coaching
Get help now
Figlet is an AI coach, there at 2 in the morning or right now. It runs this loop with you on your actual situation, as often as you need. It’s coaching, not therapy. The list hears first about the book and the next live program with me.
Proof of Work, Greenleaf Book Group Press, February 2027. Not sure which ground is hurting? Take the two-minute Ground Check.
A boy who was told he wasn’t college material, who couldn’t recite the alphabet until his twenties, went on to build a software company and, with his wife, one of the largest independent relationship advice sites on the internet. You don’t need my permission, or anybody else’s.
I go deeper into this in my book, Proof of Work (Greenleaf Book Group Press, February 2027).
Common questions
What are examples of limiting beliefs?
“I’m not smart enough.” “I’m too old to start.” “People like me don’t get that.” “I have to do everything myself.” “If I rest, I’ll fall behind.” “I’m only lovable when I’m useful.”
Where do limiting beliefs come from?
Mostly from childhood: what your family rewarded and punished, what a teacher or a playground told you, what your culture said someone like you could expect. Your nervous system recorded those lessons before you could question them, which is why they feel like facts rather than opinions.
How do you identify your limiting beliefs?
Watch where you hold back, go quiet or talk yourself out of something, then finish the sentence underneath: “I can’t, because…” Your body usually knows first. A grip in the stomach or a drop in the chest right before you stop is a good sign a belief just fired.
The practice of reflexive participation comes from the teaching of Aftab Omer at the Institute of Imaginal Studies, where I trained.
