Why Limiting Beliefs Literally Change How the World Appears to You
When I met Kevin Lin from Twitch in 2011 I felt very lucky. He was the person I wanted to meet because I wanted to work for Twitch. We were in a bar in Cologne on an evening during gamescom 2011, and I told him about my dream to work for his company.
He challenged me with the question ‘what can you do?’ or ‘what do you want to do?’. At the time I thought of my qualifications in the academic or work-experience sense, which were non-existent. Therefore I felt like I could not sufficiently answer the question, and, at that moment, resigned from driving the conversation further into territory where we would start a concrete conversation about what I could do for Twitch.
This was a limiting belief. Let me explain: I was convinced that I would work for Twitch at some point, but that point was later in the future. Therefore, it was like many dialogue options were not available for me, like grayed out in a video game, because you don’t have the “confidence”-skill at the right level yet.
Bottom line: The limiting beliefs you hold have a very real impact on what comes your way in life.
Let’s look at how this conversation might have gone without that limiting belief in place:
Kevin: What can you do for Twitch?
Simon: (acknowledge lack of academic status) Well, I don’t really have any formal education, BUT I know your platform extremely well, I know the people that are working on the partnerships team, and I love content creators and connecting with people in general.
Kevin: Ok cool! Yeah you seem like you already are well connected to the company. And you’re also bilingual.
Simon: That’s right, I didn’t even think of that! So maybe I could help creators in Germany as well.
Kevin: Yeah, we don’t have anything planned for localized staff yet, but it wouldn’t hurt. Can you come out to SF to work?
Ok! Now we’re a lot further into a collaborative conversation, thanks to me not sabotaging and closing the conversation with my limiting belief. Instead, I’m staying open and just stating what I’m interested in. I’m thinking: “But can I really come out to SF to work? I don’t have money for a plane ticket. I don’t really know where I would go… but actually my uncle lives there. Hm… difficult situation.” Do you notice the next limiting belief creeping in?
A lot of people have limiting beliefs about money. What if you just believed that the money you need will come your way? There is a good argument to be made that money is just a form of energy, that flows where it’s needed or where it can be used well. Check out the book recommendation at the end of the article to find more about this!
Pragmatically speaking, if I had been dead set on going to the US, would my uncle have borrowed me the money for a flight and let me crash? Probably! Or maybe I could’ve struck a deal to address my living situation with Kevin if he was indeed inclined to hire me.
So in my fictional conversation with Kevin, I could have gotten even further (further than I didn’t get in the first place lol), had I not been limited in what I believed about my ability to raise money to get started in my dream job at 20 years old, which thinking about it now, actually seems like something that’s quite likely!
Bottom line: The limiting beliefs you hold have a very real impact on what comes your way in life.
I mean this literally. Jordan Peterson explains that you only see what you aim at. According to him, the world shapes itself around what you’re aiming, or even looking at.
Have you ever read or heard about something, and then seen it everywhere? It’s called the Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon. It works, because it literally enables you to see something that was there before, but that you couldn’t see, because you had no awareness of it.
But what if you only aim at things that are bad for you? You will make your aim work against you. You complain all day about how poor you are and that “the rich” are evil, or indulge a comparable narrative. This is the reality you shape for yourself. What if you instead focused on the ways you could improve your life, even if they are small?
You consider doors closed without even having touched the door handle. The moment where you let go of the limits, you will dare to try to open a door. No doubt it might indeed be closed! But maybe you will be surprised and the door will fly open and whoever or whatever is inside will be celebrating and showering you with love — because they have been waiting for you all along. Either way, you will know for real what is possible right now, and what might have to wait.
This is also a tale of rejection. It is difficult to feel external rejection after asking for a raise or a date or an opportunity. But I suggest going out and getting that rejection, instead of taking care of it yourself. Self-rejection and limiting beliefs cause each other, and they will keep you in a cozy comfort zone, safely tucked away from your wildest dreams, which can totally come true. Believe the thing that gets you closest to where you want to be.
In Love Money, Money Loves You, Sarah McCrum helps the reader to understand “Money” from a new perspective. She challenges the common understanding of money as “the root of all evil”. Instead, she suggests, that money is a type of energy, which speaks to you in a kind and benevolent manner. You can speak back to it and ask what you need from it. I highly recommend this book, it might just change what you believe about money. Buy it here: EN DE
