Feel Stuck, Unhappy And Unmotivated? The Answer Is Crushing Your Limiting Beliefs. Here’s How!

In this episode, April Shprintz discusses how limiting beliefs can hinder one’s success and happiness. She gives examples of common limiting beliefs and offers practical tips for overcoming them, such as reframing them and challenging yourself in new ways. This episode will inspire and motivate you to break free from limiting beliefs and pursue the life you truly want.

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Feel Stuck, Unhappy And Unmotivated? The Answer Is Crushing Your Limiting Beliefs. Here’s How!

Thank you for joining me. Did you know 9 out of 10 people suffer from limiting beliefs? I made that statistic up but stick with me because it is that number or higher. You have no idea how many times a limiting belief can keep you from doing the things that matter the most to you or can keep you from being happy because limiting beliefs work both ways. Let me explain what they are.

Let’s say for example, in your family, the belief is only people who have professional white-collar careers are successful. Let’s say you’re someone who does electrician work or plumbing work and you build a big huge business. You may even have more money than anyone else in your family but a limiting belief that you were brought up with could leave you feeling like you are not successful. That’s not even your belief. It’s one that you inherited from them.

Here’s another one from the family. It’s not as predominant in this generation as it was in mine but you have to have a family, be married and have kids by X age. It’s a limiting belief because it says it has to happen by a certain time. If you are happy and enjoying your life and excited at that age but don’t have those things, you are somehow wrong.

Those beliefs limit us from pursuing the things that matter the most and being happy. Here’s one I get a lot. My company needs to be a multimillion-dollar business or a billion-dollar business. That also is a limiting belief because keep in mind, there could be a company that makes millions of dollars in top-line revenue and only has about a 5% to 7% profit margin.

 

The person who’s running that business isn’t making near as much or having near as much of a flexible lifestyle as someone who had a company that made significantly less but had a much higher profit margin. However, sometimes we will drive ourselves based on these beliefs that we’ve developed or inherited from other people. We won’t pay attention to how that impacts us or if it’s what we want. What about if you’re looking for a job?

I was talking with someone who is looking for new employment. She cares about culture in a company and she’s been very successful. She made the statement to me that finding a company with a great culture is hard. I reframed it and said, “Finding a company with a great culture is special.” Do you see how changing that limiting belief a little bit could ease someone’s worry about doing something and make it easier for them to then find what it is that they want?

I’ll use myself for years because I didn’t play sports when I was in school. I thought I’m not an athlete and because of that, I sometimes wouldn’t go do athletic-type things that I enjoyed until I happened to share that with someone else and they said, “You’re crazy. You’re an athlete. Look at how you do this. Maybe you don’t play organized sports but you do Taekwondo. You’ve run races and things like that.”

A lot of times when you have this limiting belief, the best thing you can do is say it out loud to someone that you like, trust and respect because they will tell you that is not the case. It’s a little bit like little kids and a monster in the closet. As soon as they tell you there’s a monster in the closet, you can turn on a light and show them that there isn’t. We can do that for ourselves and others with our limiting beliefs.

 

Last example, because the more examples I give you, the more you’ll see where this plays in your life. I remember talking to someone and this was a business owner who said, “I’ve never been that smart.” That limiting belief I know from spending more time talking to her came from the fact that she learned differently in the conventional school system and teachers had made it seem like she wasn’t that smart.

Here’s the thing. She was very smart unconventionally. This is a woman who when she was in college, started a business because she wanted to pay for a new car that grew into an international multimillion-dollar company. Yet that belief when she’s looking to try something new still follows her around, that limiting belief.

I don’t want you to let any limiting belief keep you in a box anymore. Here’s what I want you to do when for some reason you think you should do something or you shouldn’t do something or you can’t do something. I want you to bring it out and share it with someone. Show that monster in the closet to someone who can show you that there isn’t a monster there.

Don’t let any limiting beliefs keep you in a box. Challenge yourself in new and different ways. Share on X

The second way that you can get rid of these limiting beliefs is to challenge yourself in new and different ways. I talked about doing a deliberate discomfort challenge which had six domains to push yourself in, which from a time perspective was a huge challenge. Some of those domains were things that I’m not naturally good at. There were two tough workouts a day. Remember, I didn’t think I was an athlete. It pushed me in unreal ways there, which was fantastic.

I’m not someone who is incredibly social outside of my work. I had to call and have a chat with someone every single day and the other domains supported that idea of putting yourself in uncomfortable situations. What was so great about doing that was that it challenged some of my limiting beliefs about what I was capable of doing at once and what I could do as an athlete.

 

Finding those challenges that inspire you and excite you but may push you out of your comfort zone is the best way for you to start to realize you don’t even have to have any limiting beliefs. I will tell you that anything that occurs to you that you want to do, 100% is possible for you. I’m not saying it’ll be easy or it’ll happen quickly but it would not occur to you. It would not enter your mind if it wasn’t possible for you.

The more you want it and get irritated that other people have it. The more possible it is for you. Use that FOMO in a way that works for you. First, work on eliminating those limiting beliefs and remind yourself it is possible and then watch as opportunities, ideas and ways for how to do it start to take care of themselves. Here’s to your success.