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Wellness Coaching: Transforming Limiting Beliefs

How a Coach Can Help Overcome Limiting Beliefs and Unlock a Person’s Potential.

The best years of your life are the ones when you decide that your problems are connected to you. You don’t blame your mother, society, or the president. You realize that you can control your destiny.

Albert Ellis, psicologo statunitense

According to Ellis, most emotional distress stems from a distorted interpretation of reality, which occurs primarily due to certain limiting beliefs, also referred to by Ellis as “irrational ideas.” Everyone, at times, experiences feeling “stuck” when trying to reach a goal, as if something were holding them back from taking that decisive step, even though the rational part wants to move forward. Often, what holds us back are our own limiting beliefs—opinions, ideas, and concepts we hold about ourselves and how the world works. These are so deeply ingrained (even at an unconscious level) that our mind perceives them as “absolute truths.” They derive from multiple factors: personality, childhood, education, family, school, social and cultural environment, experiences, or trauma. While they may contain some degree of truth, they are still interpretations of reality. The “limiting” aspect is that they influence our thoughts, moods, expectations, and behaviors, ultimately shaping negative habits in our lives.

How to Recognize Limiting Beliefs?

They manifest through that inner voice that says: “I can’t be/do/have x”; “I’m not capable/I’m not good enough to…”; “I’ll never make it.” To recognize them, you need to listen to yourself and identify the voice every time it appears, noticing “what it says,” in which situations, and what emotions it triggers.

An Example:

Statements like: “I’d like to get back in shape and feel less tired, but I don’t have time”; “Every time I decide to do something, something else comes up that stops me”; “I started the diet, but I can’t lose weight and I lose motivation. It’s always the same story…” reveal conditionings that prevent the desired action from succeeding, sometimes shifting responsibility for the outcome externally (such as time or obstacles). They reflect a person’s limiting beliefs and, in a way, are indicative of their behavior.

Is It Possible to Work on Limiting Beliefs?

Yes, it’s possible! There’s good news and bad news… The bad news is that limiting beliefs are automatic and follow “pre-set” pathways in our brain, so we are often unaware of them. The good news is that they can be intercepted and changed through restructuring techniques and other coaching strategies. To do this, the first step is becoming aware of them, then intentionally deciding to act in order to create new, more functional “pathways” in our mind.

How to Break Free from or Transform Limiting Beliefs?

To break free from limiting beliefs and replace them with new, “empowering” ones, you can learn, with the support of a Coach, some techniques from NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming) and Positive Psychology. Below are some highly effective strategies, both on a “practical” and “emotional” level:

REFRAMING – a technique based on the ability to look at events from different perspectives. Changing the initial image (and point of view) allows you to change the perception, the emotion, and consequently the limiting belief. Seeing things differently to think differently and act differently.
PARTS NEGOTIATION – a technique based on recognizing which parts of us are in conflict and making them “dialogue” (negotiate). Reaching a functional collaboration between these parts facilitates the change of the initial belief and is useful for dealing with events/situations.
LINGUISTIC RESTRUCTURING – changing the words we say to ourselves (our inner dialogue) in order to change their meaning. The more functional our inner dialogue, the closer we get to our goals.
ABC-DE MODEL – created by American psychologist Martin Seligman, founder of positive psychology. It consists of constructively reworking limiting beliefs.

Greater awareness of what we think, combined with the ability to reframe it in a positive way, can radically change our lives. Developing the “mental flexibility” needed to challenge negative thoughts is a skill that can be learned.

Through a Coaching program, it is possible to acquire this and other skills, as well as new perspectives and new ways of acting. Everything starts with change, which first takes place within oneself and then expands outward.

With the support of a professional Mental Coach, it is possible to work on multiple aspects: limiting beliefs, emotions, focus, goals, performance, limits and potential, organization, communication, leadership. In general, Coaching can be described as a methodology that works through specific techniques, within a defined timeframe, and with the goal of improving one’s mindset as well as the quality of life and relationships.

The duration of a coaching journey varies depending on the goals, the context, and the individual or group; likewise, the techniques used by the coach are never standardized. Every individual is unique and has their own way of experiencing life, so their uniqueness will always be placed at the center and respected.

Polispecialistico Paradiso

The Polispecialistico Paradiso Center brings together a team of qualified professionals in the healthcare and rehabilitation fields. Thanks to an integrated and personalized approach, it offers tailored therapeutic programs to promote health, prevention, and lasting well-being.