What if the reason you can’t do what you want was… your own mind?
What if your whole life was the result of what you believe you can (and can’t) do?
I’m not suggesting the external world doesn’t exist, or has no importance — that would be very naive.
But once you become aware of your limiting beliefs, you’ll be amazed at how much they can prevent you from being the best you can be, and living your best life.
Here is a list of 33 quotes about limiting beliefs to help you realize how common they are, and to help you challenge them.
If there is a quote that resonates with you in particular, please let me know by leaving a reply at the end of the post.
Best limiting beliefs quotes
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer
Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, you can achieve.
Mary Kay Ash
The tragedy of too many people is that they cannot allow happiness just to be there; they cannot leave it alone. Their sense of who they are and what their destiny is cannot accommodate happiness.
Nathaniel Branden
Self-doubt does more to sabotage individual potential than all external limitations put together.
Brian Tracy
Do the uncomfortable. Prove to yourself that your limiting beliefs die a quick death if you will simply do what you feel uncomfortable doing.
Darren Rowse
You begin to fly when you let go of self-limiting beliefs, and allow your mind and aspirations to rise to greater heights.
Brian Tracy
I won’t get upset at you about a mistake. I’ll get upset at you for the next mistake that comes from still thinking about the last mistake.
Doc Rivers
Ours is the one ever-present voice in our lives. Therefore, it is crucial that our self-talk instill confidence within us and is supportive, not submerging, and that our attitudes toward ourselves help keep our spirits afloat through acceptance and trust.
Sue Thoele
We need to ascend beyond our own petty resistance, our own negative self-judgment and self-sabotage, our own “I’m not worthy” mindset.
Steven Pressfield
All forms of self-defeating behavior are unseen and unconscious, which is why their existence is denied.
Vernon Howard
The biggest disabilities are when you sabotage yourself mentally, those personal demons that get on your shoulder and you can’t shake them.
Zach Anner
Ask for what you want. Believe that you deserve it, and then allow Life to give it to you.
Louise Hay
I’ve spent most of my life in prison. I was a prisoner of my fear and low self-esteem.
Gerry Cooney
You have considerable power to construct self-helping thoughts, feelings, and actions as well as to construct self-defeating behaviors.
Albert Ellis
Limiting beliefs about success quotes
Fear of success is far more dangerous than fear of failure, because the subconscious mind works to prevent that which it fears. People may fear success because of low self-esteem and feeling of not deserving it; because it will increase what others expect of them.
Joe Tye
The inner speech, your thoughts, can cause you to be rich or poor, loved or unloved, happy or unhappy, attractive or unattractive, powerful or weak.
Ralph Charell
Procrastination is fear of success. People procrastinate because they are afraid of the success that they know will result if they move ahead now.
Denis Waitley
This is why people recklessly spend their money or don’t work as hard as they could or do things that they know are wrong. They are hindering their own success on purpose, because they don’t think they deserve it.
Lisa Bedrick
Nothing will sabotage our happiness and success more thoroughly than the fear that we are not enough.
Bill Crawford
I’m doing everything I can to sabotage my career. It’s a little thing called “fear of success”.
Jon Stewart
Turn off any self-talk that tells you that you are destined to live a small life. You’re not.
Loral Langemeier
I’ve never known a person who was successful that didn’t at first establish a mindset of success. You can’t be that which you can’t believe.
Byron Pulsifier
When we are succeeding — that is, when we have begun to overcome our self-doubt and self-sabotage, when we are advancing in our craft and evolving to a higher level — that’s when panic strikes. When we experience panic, it means that we’re about to cross a threshold. We’re poised on the doorstep of a higher plane.
Steven Pressfield
Our limitations and success will be based, most often, on your own expectations for ourselves. What the mind dwells upon, the body acts upon.
Denis Waitley
Short limiting beliefs quotes
I don’t fix problems. I fix my thinking. Then problems fix themselves.
Louise Hay
Whether you think you can, or can’t — you are right.
Henry Ford
I am the greatest obstacle to my greatest dreams.
Craig Lounsbrough
Learning too soon our limitations, we never learn our powers.
Mignon McLaughlin
Low self-esteem is like driving through life with your handbrake on.
Maxwell Maltz
Anything is possible if you believe you deserve it.
Shirley MacLaine
Be mindful of your self-talk. It’s a conversation with the universe.
David James
If you accept a limiting belief, then it will become a truth for you.
Louise Hay
Life has no limitations except the ones you make.
Les Brown
How to challenge limiting beliefs
The hardest part isn’t to challenge, or get rid of, your limiting beliefs. The hardest part is to become aware of them.
If you believe you currently have any thoughts or thought patterns that hinder your growth, success, or happiness — then you first need to become aware of them.
Consciously become more aware of your own thoughts and beliefs; notice them; pay attention to them, and feel free to write them down.
When you write down your own negative or limiting beliefs, it’s much easier to challenge them. Just like it’s easier to let go of your fears when you write them down.
You’ll find that some of your limiting beliefs are so absurd you won’t even need to challenge them. Awareness itself will make them gradually disappear.
Others, you may need to work on them, and it may take a while to overcome them.
You could do this on your own, but I always recommend therapy — it helps immensely, and there’s no need to do it for years. Sometimes a few sessions are all you need.
