How to Identify Your Limiting Beliefs
To identify your limiting beliefs, look for places where your behaviour does not match your goals, then ask what you would have to believe for that behaviour to make sense. Limiting beliefs are usually unspoken rules, such as 'I must not get it wrong' or 'people like me do not get that role', that once protected you. Written down and tested, they lose much of their grip.
Limiting beliefs are hard to see because they do not feel like beliefs. They feel like facts about yourself, other people or how the world works. You rarely state them out loud. Instead, you see their effects: the role you did not apply for, the idea you kept to yourself, the delegation you never quite managed.
Identifying them is the first and most important step. You cannot change a belief you cannot name.
A limiting belief is a rule, not a fact
A limiting belief is an assumption that restricts what you think is possible or acceptable for you, held as if it were simply true. It usually formed for a reason: a past experience, a message from family or school, or an early career setback. At the time it may have kept you safe. Now it may be keeping you small.
Limiting beliefs tend to fall into three groups. Recognising the group helps you notice them in your own thinking.
| Type of belief | What it is about | How it can sound |
|---|---|---|
| About yourself | Your ability, worth or identity | 'I am not a strategic thinker.' 'I am not leadership material.' |
| About other people | What others think, want or will do | 'If I push back, they will see me as difficult.' 'Senior people do not want to hear from me.' |
| About how things work | The rules of work, success or your context | 'You have to wait your turn.' 'If I delegate, it will not be done properly.' |
Five ways to surface beliefs you cannot see
Follow the avoidance
List three things you know would help your career or team but keep putting off. For each, ask: 'What do I expect would happen if I did it?' The answer often contains the belief.
Finish the sentence
Complete quickly, without editing: 'Leaders like me cannot…', 'If I make a mistake, people will…', 'To be respected, I have to…'. Your first answers are usually the most revealing.
Listen for your shoulds and musts
Notice the rules in your language: 'I should know this already', 'I must be available', 'I cannot ask for help'. Each one is a belief about what is required of you.
Notice strong reactions
When you feel a sharp reaction to feedback or a situation, ask what it seemed to say about you. The strength of the reaction often points to a belief being touched.
Ask people who know you well
Ask a trusted colleague: 'Where do you think I hold myself back?' Others often see the effects of our beliefs more clearly than we do.
Test a belief before trying to change it
Once you have named a belief, resist the urge to replace it immediately with a positive affirmation. First examine it honestly. A belief that has been questioned properly is much easier to loosen. Use these questions:
- Where did I learn this, and was it true in that situation?
- What evidence supports it today? What evidence contradicts it?
- What has this belief cost me in the last year?
- Who do I know who does not hold this belief, and how do they act?
- What would I do differently tomorrow if this were not true?
- What would be a more accurate version I could genuinely believe?
Beliefs shaped by family, culture and career
Some limiting beliefs come from personal history; others are absorbed from the environment around you. In Gulf workplaces, beliefs about seniority, such as 'you do not speak until you are senior enough', can hold back capable younger leaders long after the organisation would welcome their voice. Professionals who joined through national talent programmes can sometimes carry a belief that they need to prove they earned their place, while experienced expatriates may believe their influence has a ceiling.
Women leaders may also carry beliefs about what is expected of them at home and at work. The book I co-authored with Amal Kooheji, Seen Yet Silent: Coaching Arab Women to Lead, looks at the challenges Arab women face in leadership and how coaching can help them lead.
Identifying where a belief came from is not about blame. It helps you decide whether it still deserves a vote in your decisions.
Common mistakes when working on limiting beliefs
- Relying on affirmations alone. Repeating 'I am confident' without testing the underlying belief rarely changes behaviour.
- Blaming yourself for having them. Everyone has limiting beliefs. They are learned, not chosen, and they can be unlearned.
- Tackling all of them at once. Pick the one belief that costs you most right now and work on that.
- Confusing beliefs with values. 'I believe in fairness' is a value. 'If I am not liked, I will fail' is a limiting belief. Keep your values; question your rules.
- Expecting insight to be enough. Naming a belief is the start. It changes most when you act against it and see what happens.
Worked example: a manager who never applies for senior roles
Take a hypothetical high-potential manager who has been encouraged three times to apply for director roles and has declined each time, citing timing. Using the sentence completion exercise, she writes: 'Leaders like me cannot… lead people who are older and more experienced.'
When she tests the belief, she finds the evidence is thin: she already leads two people older than her, and their feedback is positive. The belief came from an early manager who told her she was 'too young to be taken seriously'. She rewrites it as: 'I earn respect through how I lead, not how old I am.' She applies for the next director role.
She is a composite invented for this guide, not a client.
Changing a belief usually needs more than insight
Some beliefs loosen as soon as you see them. Others are deeply rooted and return under pressure. Coaching helps by giving you a structured space to surface beliefs, test them, and design small experiments that build new evidence. Tools from NLP and mental fitness are useful here, alongside questions that help you see your own patterns.
Limiting beliefs coaching is built around this process. For related reading, the guide on quieting your inner critic addresses the voice that often carries these beliefs, and the glossary entry on cognitive distortions explains the thinking errors that keep them in place.
Rula Husseini is an Executive Leadership & Mindset Coach (ICF PCC) based in Manama, Bahrain, with 26+ years in leadership, HR and talent development and 4,500+ coaching hours. She coaches executives, emerging leaders and teams in Arabic and English, in person and online.
Credentials and training →Frequently asked questions
Where do limiting beliefs come from?
They usually form through experience: messages from family, teachers or early managers, a painful setback, or patterns in the culture around you. They often made sense at the time. The question is whether they still serve you now.
Can I change a limiting belief on my own?
Sometimes, especially once you have named it and tested it against evidence. Beliefs that are deeply rooted or tied to identity often change faster with support, because it is hard to question your own assumptions from the inside.
Are limiting beliefs the same as negative thoughts?
Not exactly. Negative thoughts are passing reactions. Limiting beliefs are the underlying assumptions that produce those thoughts again and again. Working on the belief tends to change many thoughts at once.
How do I know if a belief is limiting or just realistic?
Test it against current evidence and against people who act differently. If the belief rests on an old experience, ignores contrary evidence, and keeps you from things that matter to you, it is likely limiting rather than realistic.
Related
Limiting Beliefs Coaching
Limiting beliefs coaching for leaders held back by old rules about success, worth or risk: find the inherited belief, test it and act differently. Online too.
How to Quiet Your Inner Critic
How to quiet your inner critic at work: notice the voice, name it, question it and redirect your attention, plus a five-minute daily routine for busy leaders.
Cognitive Distortions
Cognitive distortions explained: the common thinking traps leaders fall into, where the idea came from, and how to notice and test them at work.
Growth Mindset
Growth mindset meaning for leaders: Carol Dweck's idea, how it shows up in feedback and setbacks, and the common misreadings that make it a slogan.
NLP Coaching
NLP coaching with a certified NLP Master Practitioner: practical language and state tools for leaders, used within ICF-standard coaching. In Manama or online.
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