This is the last episode for 2024. Stay tuned for new episodes, which will be released in January!
In this episode, Minaa shares how limiting beliegs can impact our mental health and tools for reframing the negative scripts we tell ourselves.
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Episode Transcript
Welcome to Mindful with Nina, where we explore how mindfulness
can enhance your relationships and well-being.
I'm your host, Mina, VA, licensed social worker, mental
health educator, and author. Through insightful discussions,
I will guide you towards self-awareness and self
efficacy, empowering you to effectively manage your
(00:25):
relationships, reduce burnout, and be more present with
yourself. So let's jump into today's
episode. What's up Mindful community?
Welcome back to another episode of Mindful with Mina.
This is going to be a bittersweet episode because this
is actually my last episode of the year.
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I am going to be taking the restof the year off, but I will be
back in January. So don't worry, more episodes
are indeed coming. But I am going to close out with
this episode this year. And I want to talk to you about
limiting beliefs. Because as the end of the year
comes around, I find that this is a time where people tend to
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feel a lot of sadness, a lot of depression, general unhappiness,
especially when you add the layer of seasonal depression,
when you incorporate those emotions.
This is a time when people startto become reflective of their
year or even of their life. And sometimes if life didn't go
the way you hoped it would go, it can bring up a lot of grief,
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it can bring up a lot of sadness.
And sometimes it can distort ourreality.
It can make us view ourselves ina very negative way.
I want you to take a moment right now to be reflective and
think about how you feel now that the end of the year is
here. I want you to think about
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general themes that have come upfor you this year.
What are some things or challenges you had to face or
even navigate? And I want you to think about
the general consensus that you've come to when it comes to
what you achieved for the year of 2024.
It was a hard year for many people, and I'm going to go
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ahead and say that every year has a sense of hardship
somewhere sewn into the fabric of our lives.
And so you overcame 2023, you overcame 2022, you overcame
2021, and you also overcame 2020, which was a big year for
all of us. And so here we are at the end of
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2024, and I want you to think about the many ways you also
have overcome adversity and hardship and different
obstacles. And I want you to take a moment
to really think about the stories that you've been telling
yourself regarding some of the hardship that you faced.
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And I also want you to take a moment to think about the story
that you're telling yourself as you prepare to enter a new year.
Because this is also a time where people start to think
about their new year resolutionsand the new person that they
want to become and the new things that they want to start.
Because we've told ourselves that we can't start in June.
We can't start in September. For some odd reason, we have to
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start everything in January. Why?
What are you waiting for? So for today, I want you to
think deeply about the stories that you are holding on to that
are interfering with your ability to have a sense of joy
or a sense of meaning and fulfillment in your life.
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Maybe you've been telling yourself for the past few weeks
or even throughout this year that you're not good enough.
Or maybe you've been saying things like I'll never succeed,
or even it's too late for me to start.
And so now you're telling yourself I have to wait until
January 1st. I want you to think about how
these beliefs make you feel. Because here's the thing, we
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tell ourselves these stories as if they're facts, but here's the
truth, they're not facts at all.They're literally stories that
we make up. And we don't realize that those
stories are actually impacting our sense of self, they're
impacting our self esteem, and they're ultimately impacting our
mental health. So as I dive into today's
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episode, I want you to be thinking about the limiting
beliefs that you've placed on yourself this year and how you
can go into 2025 reframing some of those beliefs.
But first, let me define what I'm talking about.
A limiting belief is an assumption or conviction that we
hold about ourselves, the world,or even our abilities.
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They're often rooted in past experiences, cultural
conditioning, or even our deepest fears.
These beliefs act like invisiblebarriers, and they shape our
actions and decisions, sometimeswithout us even realizing it.
So, for example, if you believe I'm not smart enough, you might
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avoid opportunities that could challenge you or lead to growth.
Or if you think, for example, relationships always end in
heartbreak, you might actually self sabotage when you start to
get close to someone. The tricky thing about these
beliefs is that they often feel so true because they've been
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with us for so long. Another thing is they start to
feel true because we engage in acognitive distortion called
generalization. So we say, well if it happened
once, it will most likely alwayshappen.
So maybe there was a time where relationship ended in extreme
heartbreak, but that doesn't mean every relationship is going
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to end in heartbreak. It is possible that you may
actually enter into a healthy, nurturing, loving relationship.
But just because you have had failed relationships in the
past, that doesn't define your future.
You may also have experiences where maybe you really weren't
the smartest person in the room.And that's also OK because
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there's a time in life for you to be a teacher.
And there's also a time in life for you to be a student, for you
to learn, for you to consume, for you to take things in.
And by learning and nurturing your intellectual health, you
can now take on new opportunities with the new found
language and knowledge that you have around a certain topic or
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thing. And so we have to be very, very
mindful of the negative scripts that we tell ourselves because
those negative scripts tend to be the beliefs that we hold on
to. And I want you to understand how
these limiting beliefs can influence you and impact your
mental health. The first thing is limiting
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beliefs can impact yourself perception.
If you believe you're not good enough, you'll likely see every
challenge as proof of your inadequacy, even when it's not
true. This is happening a lot in our
current society where a lot of people are walking around
feeling powerless. People are allowing external
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circumstances to define their locus of control.
So instead of saying this is a challenge that I can overcome,
what I see happening, especiallyon social media, is this is a
challenge. Somebody move it out of my way,
please. Because I am inadequate.
I do not have the skills or the capability to problem solve.
Problems should not exist. I do not have the ability to
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deal with problems. And so people, systems,
institutions, those things have to fix the problems for me
because I, I am so powerless, I am so inadequate.
I am not smart enough, I am not good enough.
There is no way you can expect me to be able to problem solve,
to be able to come up with solutions.
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Let me tell you this, the more you move through life perceiving
yourself as a powerless person who is not capable of finding
solutions or problem solving or even having the capability to do
something better for yourself, you are going to be unhappy.
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You are going to have chronic anxiety, you are always going to
be in a state of depression and you are not going to be happy
with your life. As people, one of the number one
things we have to understand is there are so many things that we
cannot control in life. But you as a person, you have
choice and you get to figure outwhat choices you want to make
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for yourself. Are there things happening in
our society that are bigger thanus?
Of course there is. But what we're not going to do
is sit here and paint a picture and believe that we are so
powerless that our happiness andour mental health and our
ability to cultivate joy is no longer a choice that we have.
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That is not true. So what I want you to do is I
want you to start thinking aboutthe negative scripts you keep
telling yourself about your own self perception.
How do you view yourself? I really want you to take a
moment to think and ask yourself, on a scale of one to
10, where does my level of self efficacy fall on this spectrum?
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According to the American Psychological Association, self
efficacy refers to an individual's belief in his or
her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce
specific performance attainments.
Self efficacy reflects confidence and the ability to
exert control over one's motivation, behavior, and social
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environment. So on a scale of one to 10, do
you feel like you have high levels of self efficacy where
you believe in your ability to attain certain goals?
Or do you feel like you fall on the lower end of that spectrum
where you tend to feel inadequate and you often find
yourself feeling very helpless in difficult situations?
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That might be a sign that you have low levels of self efficacy
and I want you to do the work offiguring out how you can get
yourself efficacy up to the number 10.
So that is going to be your homework assignment.
Now, the second way limiting beliefs can impact your mental
health and your sense of self isit can impact your decision
making. Limiting beliefs can lead to
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fear based decisions. You might avoid taking risks or
trying new things because you'vealready convinced yourself it
won't work out. How many times have you failed
before you even started? And what that means is you have
a goal, you have an idea, there's something that you want
to achieve, but already you're telling yourself I'm not good
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enough for this or it's not going to be successful.
And you ruminate so much on how this thing is not going to
workout that you don't even start it.
And as a result of that, well, the business failed before you
could even launch it because youdidn't even put it out in the
world. Or that project didn't come to
fruition because all you did wastalk badly about yourself before
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the project could make it out into the world for other people
to see it. So I want you to be thinking
about how you can be carrying these negative scripts that are
often rooted in fear based thoughts.
And those fear based thoughts now interfere with your life.
It interferes with your livelihood, it interferes with
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your dreams and your ambitions and the things that you want to
accomplish for yourself. So I want you to be thinking
about different risks that you can start taking as you enter
the year of 2025. The third thing is our
relationships. Limiting beliefs can show up in
how you connect with others. For example, if you think I'm
not lovable, you might settle for unhealthy relationships or
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you might even push people away.This goes back to self sabotage
behaviors. We don't realize that the
beliefs that we carry impact ouractions.
And so if you think you're not alovable person, there's a strong
likelihood you might show up in a relationship as someone who is
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difficult to love. And what I mean by that is
because you fear connection, youdo things that self sabotage
connection and therefore it makes it hard for people to love
on you. It makes it hard for people to
even want to be in relationship with you because you display
certain characteristics that honestly some people may not
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want to deal with or even be around.
And so this is not to induce a feeling of shame.
This is for you to really digesttruth and be self reflective
enough and mature enough to say to yourself, you know what?
When I think about that past relationship, these are some
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things that I did and those behaviors were attached to these
negative thoughts that I was having.
And I need to forgive myself. I need to show myself
compassion, but I also need to do some work on reframing the
way that I think because I can see how it's manifesting in the
friendships or even romantic relationships that I'm trying to
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form with people. And at the end of the day, your
healing is your responsibility. I cannot crawl into your mind
and change those negative beliefs for you.
And at the end of the day, when we're trying to form connections
with people, you have to remember your actions are going
to land on someone else. So the more you are living in a
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sense of self sabotage, somebodyelse is going to get impacted by
that. And remember, all relationships
require consent. And so if you are coming into a
relationship with someone and you're projecting and you're
engaging in just behaviors that are really, really hard to sit
with and handle, people have a right to decide if they want to
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be in a relationship with you ornot.
And so I want you to be thinkingabout how your beliefs and those
negative scripts are impacting your ability to form healthy
connections with people. Now, here's something I want you
to understand about negative beliefs.
Many of them were taught to you,and they were taught to you
either by society, your family, or even past experiences.
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However, as an adult, you have the power to examine them and
rewrite the narrative. So I'm going to give you some
tips on how you can start reframing these limiting
beliefs. Because reframing is the process
of challenging a belief and replacing it with a healthier,
more empowering one. And the goal here is to remember
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your power. As I always say, you are not a
powerless person. So the first thing I want you to
do is identify the beliefs. This is the first step to
everything. You need to ask yourself what's
holding me back right now? Write it down.
For example, I'm not talented, I'm not good enough, I'm not
smart enough. Whatever that belief is, don't
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be shy. Be real with yourself and write
it down. Or even engage in audio
journaling, which is you just talking out loud so that you can
hear some of these beliefs and you can start pinpointing the
discrepancies in your thinking. The next thing I want you to do
is examine evidence. This is really important.
It's important for you to question your beliefs.
Where did this come from? Why am I treating it like truth?
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What evidence do I have that it is true?
Often you'll find that it's based on either fear or one time
experience. You'll realize it's not a fact.
Even if it happened in the past,it does not mean it will happen
again. I'm going to say this one more
time so that you can be picking up what I'm putting down.
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Even if it happened in the past,that does not mean it will
happen again. We have to stop believing our
past is going to determine what happens in our future because
too many times people will say, well, I know it's true because
it happened to me before, OK, and it happened to you before.
How do you know it's going to happen again?
You cannot tell the future, so the only way for you to know
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what is going to happen is for you to exercise your power by
walking into certain situations with confidence and a high self
esteem and a high sense of self.Even if something bad does
happen again, guess what? This is why we have resiliency
and This is why we have self efficacy so that you can learn
how to bounce back and start allover again.
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The next thing I want you to do is challenge the belief, replace
I'm not talented enough or I'm not good enough with a more
balanced statement like I may have areas to learn.
This is a part of life that I'm still trying to grow in.
And so one of the things that you have to remember is that
you're not perfect. And sometimes you're having a
particular belief because you'realso believing that you're a
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perfect person. And This is why you constantly
find yourself struggling becauseyou're not perfect.
You're going to mess up, you're going to make mistakes.
And so when you do make a mistake, the answer is not to
say I'm not good enough, I'm nottalented enough, I'm not smart
enough. No, somebody with a growth
mindset says, oh, man, I have a lot to learn.
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That's all you got to do. Now, the last thing I want to
share is the importance of actionable steps because action
helps reinforce new beliefs. So for example, you might say
I'm really awkward and that's why it's hard for me to make
friends. And maybe what you need to do is
actually attend some sort of community event or volunteer or
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just be in a space where you canconnect with people and use that
as an example to show yourself that, oh, people like engaging
with me. People enjoy talking to me.
I can actually be in an environment and not feel awkward
or perceive myself as awkward because there's evidence in the
room that people actually enjoy speaking to me.
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So actions again can help reinforce new beliefs.
So I want you to be thinking about some actionable steps that
you can take to write healthier,positive scripts about yourself.
Now, the last thing I'm going toshare, as always, is the
importance of seeking help because sometimes our beliefs
are so deeply rooted that we need help untangling them.
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And a therapist can be a great resource to help you untangle
some of those thoughts that you're having about yourself,
get to the root of that and write new scripts for moving
forward. So before I wrap up, I want to
share that one of the most important tools in overcoming
limiting beliefs is self compassion.
Because like I said, a lot of the things that you think about
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yourself might be influenced from society messages your
family told you. And like I said, past
experiences. But remember, past experiences
do not define your future. When you notice yourself falling
into old thought patterns, don'tbeat yourself up.
Instead, acknowledge the belief,remind yourself that it's
normal, and then gently guide yourself back to a healthier
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mindset. OK, we're not going to be
beating ourselves up here. That is not how we move forward.
Think of it like this. You wouldn't yell at a friend
for doubting themselves. You'd most likely encourage
them. You'd remind them of their
strengths. You would even help them see
what's possible. So start treating yourself the
same way. Be as compassionate to yourself
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as you would with a friend. So today, I challenge you to
identify one belief that's been holding you back, especially a
belief that held you back in 2024.
I want you to write it down, examine it, and start reframing
it. Growth happens one small step at
a time, and you are more than capable of taking that step
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because you are not a powerless person.
So if this episode resonated with you, please share it with
someone who might need a little encouragement.
Also, please don't forget to rate and review this podcast
wherever it is that you're listening to your podcast.
Also, if you're listening on Spotify, please leave a comment
and let me know how you're goingto be reframing some of your
(20:18):
limiting beliefs this year. Lastly, if you want to stay
connected with me, please sign up for both of my newsletters,
Mindful with Mina and I'm So Mature.
All of that information is LinkedIn, the description box.
Also, if you want to get a greatgift for someone this Christmas
season, you can order my book, Owning Our Struggles, which is
available everywhere books are sold.
(20:39):
Lastly, I am wishing you a wonderful holiday season and
Please remember to be kind to yourself.
I am so excited to see what 2025brings for both of you and me.
Until next time.
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