Have you ever felt guilty whenever the number increases on your bank account? You’re not alone! Many people struggle with these limiting beliefs! Read this article to get my tips on how to overcome limiting beliefs about money!
What are limiting beliefs?
Limiting beliefs are subconscious programs that we are running that impact how we view the world or how we view particular subjects like in this case money.
And where they come from is generally from somewhere in our distant past, in our childhood. Most limiting beliefs are developed from the ages of 0 to 7 years old although sometimes they can be developed later especially if we have a really traumatic experience.
Essentially limiting beliefs come from being ensconced in a particular culture or society. We develop limiting beliefs from our parents, from our immediate environment, also from school, also from the society at large, TV can help us create limiting beliefs, movies, all sorts of things, anything that we have a deep engagement with overtime or any sort of traumatic, intense experience.
Common limiting beliefs about money
So, what are some limiting beliefs about money? Some of the most common ones and the ones that I see the most especially among entrepreneurs is that you have to work really, really hard and sacrifice yourself in order to make money, in order to be successful.
Now, this is a limiting belief that I got, I inherited mostly from my father. I witnessed my father going to work every single day hating what he did, coming home miserable, sometimes taking it out on us day after day, year after year my entire childhood and adolescence.
So, I learned, I believed that in order for me to be successful, I had to have a similar relationship with my career.
Another limiting belief around money, especially among healers and coaches and people who want to do good things in the world, is that making money isn’t spiritual or that if they make a lot of money then they’ll no longer be good people. They associate richness with badness, with not being good anymore, not being generous.
Another limiting belief could be that making money makes you a target. I have friends that grew up in Latin America and countries like Venezuela for example where there were lots of kidnappings and drug wars and things like that and having a lot of money or at least showing that you had a lot of money could be dangerous and unsafe, so that’s a limiting belief.
And another limiting belief about money that’s very common is that if you grew up in a family that didn’t have a lot of money and you make a lot of money, then maybe you won’t belong anymore and you’ll be rejected from your family.
Now again, keep in mind some of these beliefs are subconscious. They’re not necessarily aware of them, they’re operating underneath the surface.
Effects of limiting beliefs
So, limiting beliefs limit what’s possible for us. They can make it very uncomfortable to expand and grow and make a lot more money.
Why would you want to make money if deep down you’re worried that it would have you be rejected by the people that you love the most? Why would you want to make a lot of money if you had a limiting belief that it’s unsafe to be rich or that it makes you the target of violence?
So, these limiting beliefs can even prevent us from getting ahead and they can also induce a lot of fear and anxiety as we rub up against our edges.
So, if we’re starting to make more money in our career and we’re starting to have that vision of what we consciously want but this limiting belief under the surface is kind of pulling us back, that creates discord, it creates a disconnect, creates incongruity and that can feel like stress, anxiety, fear, it can create all sorts of physiological responses.
You might not even know where it’s coming from. It also can create situations where we sabotage our own success and our own progress by procrastinating.
If we’re on the edge of becoming way more successful and making a whole lot more money but we have a limiting belief that that’s gonna make us a target somehow, then we might start to procrastinate or not do the work or somehow sabotage ourselves from getting even further.
Identifying limiting belief
So how can you identify a limiting belief about money? Well, what you want to look for is patterns around money in your life. Look for what happens around money.
Are you someone who makes a lot of money and then blows it? Are you someone who always is struggling to make ends meet? Look for the persistent complaints around money, the things that happen again and again. Do you find yourself in relationships with people who steal money from you?
What are these patterns, what are the persistent complaints, and then start to go back and excavate your life and look for the limiting beliefs that might be underneath these patterns?
Overcoming limiting beliefs
Here is the kicker, this is what you’ve been waiting for, how do you overcome limiting beliefs about money? Well, I’ve developed, a little 4 step system.
1. Become aware
The first step to overcome limiting beliefs about money is to become aware, to excavate your life, as I said earlier, for your limiting beliefs to identify what they even are.
Now, here’s the thing. You might need a little bit of help with this. Very often it’s difficult for have for us to have that kind of perspective on ourselves.
Now, it helps to have a longer perspective so if you can like go way back into your childhood, then it’s easier to see what the patterns might be, what the limiting beliefs are.
But it’s harder to see at the moment when you’re in a situation right now, generally harder to have that kind of perspective so I highly recommend getting a really good friend, someone who’s pretty self-aware, who knows a little bit about personal development, maybe even a coach, somebody to help you excavate this.
2. Look for examples that disprove your limiting belief
The 2nd thing is once you’ve uncovered a limiting belief, let’s say I found that I have a limiting belief that I knew how to make money but I couldn’t hang on to it, right?
So then I want to ask myself is this really true? Is it true that I know how to make money but I don’t know how to hang on to it? And look for situations, look for examples that disprove that limiting belief.
So back to my example, I would look for situations where I have hung onto money, where I have put it away, where I have invested it, where I have been really responsible with money and actually there are quite a few examples of that.
There are examples of me being not so good with money but there were also examples of me being good with money and then I could look at the difference and say what was in that situation? What was different about it?
So examining and questioning, right, like digging in and looking for the truth because a limiting belief is a belief but it’s not necessarily and it usually is not the actual truth.
Let’s say you have a limiting belief that everybody always wants something. You can’t get something for nothing. So you have a belief that everybody’s always trying to sell you something or get something out of you and that kind of creates situations where you can’t trust.
So, you want to examine that, is that really true? Is it true that you can never trust people? Is it true that somebody always wants something from you or can you point to examples of people who’ve been generous and given to you without wanting something in return?
So really looking to disprove and challenge those limiting beliefs.
3. Feel what it’s costing you to live your life with that belief running
The 3rd thing to look at is to feel what it’s costing you to live your life with that belief running. What is it costing you to believe or what would it be costing me in the example I gave earlier, what does it cost me to believe that I’m not good with money? Self-confidence, self-reliance, self-trust.
How does it feel to not have self-confidence, self-reliant, self-trust? What is it costing you to believe that everybody wants a piece of you and you can’t trust anybody because everybody’s always trying to get something from you?
What is that costing you? It’s costing you intimacy most likely, it’s costing you the ability to trust people and be in a closer relationship with people.
So, not just intellectually recognizing what it’s costing you but also emotionally to like feel what does it cost you to not have that kind of intimacy with others, that’s the 3rd step is to feel the pain and the loss of what this belief is costing you in your life.
4. Replace the belief with something new
The 4th thing to overcome limiting beliefs about money is to replace the belief with something new. Now, this might take some work. This is about claiming a new belief. I believe I am responsible for the money. I can be responsible with money, I can be trusted with money.
A belief that you might claim if you had that belief that we talked about earlier about not being able to trust people, I believe that there are generous, wonderful people out there that can be trusted, that don’t want anything from me, and that just want to give and be a part of my life.
So, claiming a new belief and then this is the challenging part, looking for evidence of it everywhere you go. Claiming that new belief and then noticing when you see evidence of a generous person.
For me, it would be noticed when I see evidence of me being responsible. Wow, I just put another thousand dollars into my 401k. How responsible of me.
So, celebrate the moments where you actually see evidence of the new belief. You’ve got to start looking for the new belief and this is actually easier than you think it might be.
It’s kind of like when you start looking at purple cars, right, and then all of a sudden you start seeing them everywhere. When you give yourself that claim of like this is my new belief, you will start to notice that belief popping up everywhere, you’ll start to see evidence of that belief showing up in your life.
The power of hypnosis
Another little strategy that I’ve used in my life to help install new empowering beliefs is hypnosis. I’m a big fan and believer in hypnosis. In fact, I’ve been wanting to get trained in hypnosis myself because it’s so powerful but if you can find a great hypnotist, they can help you to cultivate these new more empowering beliefs.
I hope that this article about overcoming limiting beliefs about money has been powerful for you.
