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Writer's pictureSally Meyers

Reframing Limiting Beliefs


You’ve recognized that you have limiting beliefs and decided to overcome them. You’ve identified your limiting beliefs. What now? The next step is to reframe your limiting beliefs into empowering beliefs. You don’t have to work on all of your limiting beliefs at once; if you have identified several, it’s better to start with only one or a handful of them. Select one or more before you move on.


The Framing of Limiting Beliefs

Limiting beliefs can be identified by their framing, that is, how the belief statement is constructed. The sentence structure tells you what type of belief it is. All limiting beliefs start with something like the following:

“I can’t…”

“I don’t…”

“I could never…”

“I’m not…”

“It’s always been this way.”

These statements are disempowering; they take away your agency and make it seem like things can’t be changed or made better. You get to look at the limiting beliefs you’re working on and reject them as untrue. Then you can change each one into an Empowering Belief.


The Framing of Empowering Beliefs

Empowering beliefs are framed differently than limiting beliefs. They’re the opposite. Rather than using “can’t” or “never” statements, they use positive language that says you can do the things you want or be the way you want to be. They’re constructed in the following way:

“I can…”

“I am…”

“I’m working on…”

“I do…”

“Things can change…”


***The thing we want to be careful of is to avoid telling ourselves something we don't think can ever be true...yet. So for example, going from "I'll never have the body I want" to "I am a beauty pageant queen!" will be hard for your nervous system to swallow. Remember, our brains see things that are different from normal as being bad. So start with something you can accept, like "I am making progress toward a healthier me."


It may be helpful to start your reframed belief with "I am in the process of..." for this reason.


How to Reframe Your Limiting Beliefs

Now that you know the difference, you get to reframe each of your limiting beliefs. Don’t do this in your head; work it out on a sheet of paper. Feel free to play around with the wording until you find something you like. You can add extra words if you want to make the empowering beliefs clearer. These examples will give you some ideas for how to do it.

Limiting Belief: I can’t do this.

Empowering Belief: I can learn how to do this.


Limiting Belief: I’m not good at this.

Empowering Belief: I’ll get better with practice.


Limiting Belief: I’m bad at relationships.

Empowering Belief: I’m working on becoming a better person and partner and am becoming better at relationships as I do.


Limiting Belief: I could never do that.

Empowering Belief: Maybe I could. I’ll never know if I don’t try.


Limiting Belief: I’m not a likable person.

Empowering Belief: I am likable. Plenty of people like me. I’m a good person.


Notice in your body how this feels.

Take a minute to practice. Say the old belief to yourself. Close your eyes and observe your body. How does this belief FEEL to you? Jot down a few thoughts.


Now try on the new belief. Look in the mirror and say the new belief aloud 10 times. Close your eyes. How does this one feel? Jot down your response.


Take action.

When you know how you'd rather feel, you get to take action toward that feeling. Just little micro-actions. The more actions you take that make you feel the way you want to feel, the more evidence you give your brain that this is where you want to go.


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