Limiting Beliefs - A List of 100 Examples of Negative Beliefs

It happens that we really want something. So much so that they are ready to jump out of their pants at the mere thought of it. And everyone seems to say that true desires should come true, but they all do not come true. What's the problem then? Most likely in the negative beliefs that are in our head. They are firmly lodged inside and pulling back. How to detect these installations? What are they? Read the article to find out the answers to these questions.

What are limiting beliefs

A limiting belief is an attitude that stops a person’s development. This is a negative program embedded in the head or subconscious that affects our decisions and actions. Moreover, installations can be in completely different areas:

in money;
career, work;
family;
health;
friendship;
rest;
hobbies.

Attitudes often emerge from family and childhood. If your parents believed that you won’t earn a lot of money, then most likely you think the same way and earn little. If your mother has been saying since childhood that there are no real friends, people always betray you, then you most likely don’t have them. The fear of betrayal is so ingrained in the subconscious that you don’t want to make friends with anyone, and it’s scary.

If a person is an authority for you, then you listen to his opinion. So, in addition to your family, limiting beliefs can be placed in you by teachers, friends, bosses or relatives.

Sometimes a person creates such attitudes for himself. In a stressful situation, we cannot think objectively. And if a person feels guilty or anxious, then negative thoughts may arise in the head. And one such thought leads to a whole system of false beliefs. For example:

Well, I didn't succeed.
I never succeed.
Any business I undertake ends in failure.

Every person has limiting attitudes. And they are not evil. You just need to be aware of them and work through them. Typically, such beliefs make you feel helpless and drain your energy when you say them.

You can work with beliefs. They can both block and promote.

The problem is that in life there will be a scenario that matches your attitudes. Some beliefs interfere with life, prevent you from earning more money, building harmonious relationships, having a family and children, or climbing the career ladder. And if you have such negative attitudes in your head, then your life scenario may not be the best.

How to identify your negative attitudes

You have probably already discovered some of your limiting beliefs thanks to the list above. I propose to go further and “get” even more useless husk from your subconscious.

We will do an exercise with you called an “explanatory note.” It will require a sheet of paper, a pen and 30 minutes of time.

Execution order:

Consider one area of your life in which you cannot achieve what you want. For example, finance.
Write the phrase in the center of the sheet: “Why I DON’T WANT to earn 3 times more.” Yes, yes, you don’t want to. Limiting beliefs are limits that you set for yourself. We will remove them.
Now, within the allotted time (you can set an alarm), write everything to justify yourself. For example: “Then my relatives and friends will constantly ask for loans,” “To earn 3 times more, you need to spend 3 times more time, I simply won’t have time to do anything else in my life, my family will suffer,” etc. .

This technique can be used for a wide variety of areas and issues. For example: “Why I don’t want to get married” (for women who supposedly cannot get married in any way). The answers may surprise you. Someone will find that they are afraid of responsibility, someone is convinced that all men are the same, that they cheat and control, and they don’t want to experience all this. And so on.

Now you have a whole list of everything that limits you and does not allow you to achieve what you want. Look carefully at your notes and ask the following questions for each statement: “Who told me this?”, “Why do I think this?” and the like.

In most cases, your mind will not even be able to rationally explain the nature of your negative conclusions. And if something comes to your mind, they say, this happened to all my girlfriends/friends, this is statistics, then rest assured that this is pure self-deception.

List of beliefs from different areas of life

Let's look at a list of beliefs that may be preventing you from enjoying life and achieving your goals.

About money

Money is evil.
All rich people are thieves and bad people.
If there is a lot of money, there will be no time for family.
Money is earned only through hard work.
The price for money is the pain of work.
To make good money, you need to spend a lot of time and effort on work.
Having a lot of money is dangerous.
Big money brings big problems.
Taking money for your services is wrong.
Spiritual people don't think about money.
It's a shame to spend money on yourself.
I consider myself unworthy of big money.
Money is dirt.
You can’t have a lot of money, they can take it away.

You can read more about money settings here.

About relationships

Relationships are a cage.
All men cheat.
Love only causes problems.
Life without a man is impossible.
I'm fine alone.
A woman is incomplete without a family.
I must obey my man in everything.
The appearance of a family and children is the end of a free life.
The woman in the family bears everything on herself.
Nobody needs self-sufficient, smart, self-confident women.
There are no real men left.
Nowadays you rarely see a happy family.
Men do nothing but eat and sleep.
Men don't care about women's feelings.

About friendship

There is no such thing as female friendship.
Friendship between a man and a woman does not exist.
There are no real friends.
Friends are with you only in joy.
Being a good friend means sacrificing yourself.
A true friend is found in trouble.
Friendship only happens in childhood.
Adults do not know how to make friends, because they think only about their own benefit.
In this life, everyone is for themselves, no one will help you.
Friends shouldn't be offended.
It's dangerous to be friends with women.
It's difficult to make friends as an adult.

About health

I'm constantly sick.
My health depends only on doctors.
Everyone gets sick at my age.
They don't live long in our area.
I don’t have enough money for treatment; a good doctor is expensive.
If I don't take this medicine, I'll get sick.
A strong wind blew, and the sheets fell again.
My work will take me to my grave.
With my lifestyle it is impossible to stay healthy.
There is a flu at work, I will definitely get infected.
All doctors only need money, otherwise they will not cure.
I have a weak immune system.

About work and career

To get a job, you need connections or money.
There are no good bosses.
You can’t be “the smartest” in a team; no one likes that.
It’s better to consistently earn 30 thousand in the office than to step into the unknown.
For many years now I have not been able to get a good job.
Nobody needs my experience.
There are plenty of more successful and knowledgeable people around.
You cannot admit your mistakes, otherwise you will be deprived of your bonus or fired.
Work is not a wolf; it will not run away into the forest.
The boss will never praise you.
The work is never interesting.
Working for yourself is too risky.

About hobbies

You can't make much money from a hobby.
Hobbies are a waste of time and money.
You can't make money from creativity - it's just a hobby.
I cannot create - this is the lot of the chosen few.
Work is for money, but hobby is for the soul.
Nobody needs my hobbies.
A hobby cannot be turned into a job or business.
An adult does not need hobbies.
Hobbies have no practical use, so there is no need to engage in them.
First you need to get a normal specialty, and then you can engage in a hobby.
Hobbies don't bring any results.

About rest

Only the lazy rest.
To rest, you first need to work hard.
I have no time to rest.
Vacations are not for everyone.
If you're going to relax, then do it in style.
Rest must be earned.
Idleness is not rest.
While you are relaxing, others are busy doing useful things.
The best rest is a change of activity.
Time for business, time for fun.
When I rest, I waste time.

Methods of influence

How to understand that you are guided by a psychological attitude:

in your speech the words “must” and “must” prevail instead of “want”;
you react emotionally to everything that happens (in a positive or negative way);
you resort to generalizations (putting everyone under the same brush);
you are carried away by value judgments and talk in stereotypes and sayings.

If you understand that the learned and habitual patterns of behavior are not leading you where you would like, then you need to change your beliefs. Remember that the quality and standard of your life, as well as your happiness and satisfaction with your life, depend on them. There are special methods or types of influence on oneself or another person in order to change attitudes.

Classification

In psychology, neutral beliefs, resourceful and limiting, are considered. The first represent a set of scientific concepts accessible to people. Resource includes the capabilities on which beliefs are created. The last group includes negative resources.

The entire procedure of persuasion consists of 4 types of influence:

Informing. Before a person is encouraged to act, he must be convinced why he should act. This is necessary because no one will start doing something without realizing why it should be done. Polish psychologist T. Tomaszewski derived a formula based on this. It reflects a simple idea: in order to motivate a person to the desired activity, he should be informed about the goals and the likelihood of achieving it. Informing in the process of persuasion is carried out in various ways, the main one is a story that follows an inductive and deductive path.
Explanation. This is a persuasive influence in which all the arguments “for” and “against” the subject of persuasion are used.
Proof. This is a technique for establishing the truth of a statement using facts, arguments and various related judgments. Evidence is usually based on scientific data and social practice.
Efficiency. This is the basis of persuasion, in which numerous techniques of the persuasion system are used. Techniques are selected depending on the circumstances and personality traits of the person being convinced.

Definition

In the Middle Ages, in European universities, persuasion (rhetoric) was one of the main liberal arts that any educated person had to master. From the times of Imperial Rome until the Reformation, rhetoric was elevated to a fine art by preachers who used the spoken word to inspire any number of actions, such as virtuous behavior or religious pilgrimages. In the modern era, persuasion is most visible in the form of advertising.

Belief in Psychology

Political scientists and psychologists who study the process of persuasion in the field of communication studies trace the history of this discipline back to the ancient Greeks.

The heated debate between Plato and the Sophists regarding the merits and place of persuasion in society is very much alive today. Plato hated what many consider to be the dark and dubious part of the faith—greatly exaggerated statements. The Sophists, on the other hand, accepted this side of the faith, arguing for its practical basis and ubiquitous presence in everyday life.

A generation after Plato and the Sophists, Aristotle saw the merits of both schools of thought and saw rhetoric as a tool for understanding the power of persuasion. Aristotle's description of artistic proofs (ethos, logos, and pathos) defined much of the research on persuasion for a millennium after him, and these proofs are still used today. Aristotle's influence on persuasion and, indeed, on communication studies is very great.

Persuasion is also defined in psychology as a skill that requires a lot of practice to master. Understanding people's psychology helps you deliver information more effectively and have a greater impact in your personal and professional lives.

Studying this concept is essential to understanding human communication, and modern research continues to bring new ideas and concepts.

Some theorists emphasize the similarities between education and persuasion. They believe that persuasion is very similar to learning new information through informative communication.

A person's response to persuasive communication depends partly on the message and largely on how the person perceives or interprets it. Words in newspaper advertisements may be more persuasive if they are printed in red rather than black.

Goals and objectives

Intelligence and culture developed as a way to accelerate human development - not on the physical, but on the mental level. Cultural evolution occurs much faster than biological evolution. Belief systems evolved as part of this development to ensure human survival.

Beyond this ultimate goal of achieving survival, there are also subgoals of belief systems in various aspects of life.

Beliefs about effective decision making, negotiation, and business conduct exist to help achieve a certain status in the social hierarchy.
Beliefs about how to cope with things like uncertainty and anxiety exist to help maintain mental health.
Beliefs about sexuality and dating behavior are intended to ensure that a person's genes are passed on to the next generation.

In other words, subgoals of belief systems exist to ensure that a person is able to satisfy certain needs, to develop self-esteem.