Limiting Beliefs
Salutations,
Hope you had a good day.
For me, it was extremely chaotic. I think the only time I have used the phrase “hope you had a good day,” it was either because I could not find a nice opening and I did not want to seem rude and get straight to the task at hand, or when there is something wrong with me. In the latter case, I am making that foundation before I make it about myself and how my day was not good, so your hope for my good day is unnecessary.
Either way, a promise is a promise, and I still have some hot takes in the back of my mind that need to escape the space they are occupying to become more shared opinions and to be stored “elsewhere” (sorry, Medium team).
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Now, the topic for today is limiting beliefs. I used to feel quite strongly about this topic as it makes sense in a way; beliefs that limit your growth may not be essential to existence. However, I have recently realized that it has become much more difficult to point them out and also more difficult to work on them.
To give some tangential context, there was a “peer-reviewed” article on a scientific study, and it took a decent effort to figure out that it was a product of AI slop. Now, our first assumption for that is hallucination. However, given that AI is being utilized to write articles on articles and posts on posts, always asked to be factual and such, the “dead internet theory” is becoming more and more apparent. The product of AI slop mentioned in the beginning followed the proper protocols and did have references and citations from sources. The issue was just that the sources were articles of other AI slop, and that makes it more difficult to properly research and validate credentials.
The reason for that context and why it was called tangential is that knowledge and experimentation have become more accessible. Be it through multiple portals that provide surveys for people to complete and are monetized, increased efficiency, people being more up for research participation, or just the change in times, there is a “research” for everything.
Now, to connect everything, I had a conversation with a friend of mine, and I was sharing my opinionated thoughts on limiting beliefs. I shared the fact that if you are doing something regularly that is hampering you, you should figure out the limiting aspect and work on changing it. There are material reasons, but there still are mental aspects that can be worked on to improve the journey.
The response I received was, “there is this research,” and I realized I have done the same before. If a pointer doesn’t make sense to me, I can always find a study that correlates with my experience and gives me ammo to affirm my belief. Essentially, biases have become more difficult to work on because most ways to target them have become a part of them.
Either way, what I am trying to do is just take a limiting belief in isolation. I am not looking at if there is something that supports it or something that doesn’t support it, just the limiting belief and our existence. Look it in the eye, face to face, and just figure out how to circumvent or remove it. As its name suggests, it is limiting you, so growth will lead to change. Change can be good or bad, but defaulting to action and the acceptance of change can always bring better times and will always keep things interesting. That is the point.
