21 Limiting Beliefs That Have Changed My Life

The Sunday Night Review #181

Back in 2019, I was a dweeb less confident version of myself today.

And in these past 6 years since leaving university, a lot of my internal narratives and beliefs have shifted. I wanted to compile a list of how things have changed.

Here are some things I’m so glad I’ve reframed in my mind:

1. Time is unlimited, and if I wait long enough, cool stuff will happen in my life and my dreams will come true → Time is limited. I never ever want to wait passively for things I hope will happen. Patience is important, but I want to actively build towards the things I want to have in my life.

2. There’s a right time to do something → With a lot of things in life, from small things like doing your laundry, to big things like quitting your job, there’s rarely a right time to do something. Defaulting to ‘right now’ instead of ‘someday’ is generally the better option over time, and also so much more fun. Sure, you’ll make the wrong decision sometimes, but making fast decisions means you can course correct quicker.

3. The world is controlled by people who know what they’re doing and are smarter than me → Literally everyone is making it up every day. Even now, I still can’t quite believe this is as true as it is. It feels like there should be more people who actually know what they’re doing. As Steve Jobs put it: “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people no smarter than you, and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”

4. Personal development is lame, I’ll figure stuff out by myself → Personal development is sick and can completely change your life.

5. Reading self-help books is a waste of time → Reading the right self-help book, at the right moment, is also sick and can completely change your life.

6. I can do everything, and I should aspire to do everything → Most of the best things in life are downstream of committing to fewer things, and investing in quality over quantity.

7. There is a future reality where I’ve solved all my problems → I’ll never solve all my problems, I can only upgrade my problems.

8. There is an eternal state of bliss that exists in the future, which I’ll reach at some point → There is no eternal bliss. Joy is in the present, and happiness is a skill that can be learned.

9. When I reach a certain level of personal financial security I’ll be able to relax → The feeling of having ‘enough’ money is more about my mindset and expectations than it is about numbers (Morgan Housel has convinced me of this).

10. My future is out of my hands, and I am at the whim of the world → I can build the future I want, day by day, and constantly adapt to the changing landscape of work.

11. I am limited to who I am currently and how I see myself → I can become whoever I want to become.

12. I need at least an hour to get into deep work → I can do useful work in a spare 5 minutes if I need to. This approach compounds over time.

13. I need a perfect setup to do deep work → I like a nice working setup, but if I need to, I can work anywhere as long as I have a laptop.

14. My career is something to be figured out once and for all, just like other people seem to have done → No one figures out their career. It’s not something to be solved.

15. Wanting money is bad (I really believed this at uni, but could not have told you why) and hard to get → Money is a useful tool that can be used for good, and learning how it works and how to generate it is one of the most powerful skills you can learn.

16. Success is about money, status and career milestones → Success is personal, and it takes time (sometimes a long time) to understand what a successful life looks like for you.

17. Taking no action means taking no risk (in careers, health, relationships, and day to day moments) → There is a risk to inaction, it’s just less visible. It shows up as a life full of regret.

18. Committing to one thing like a vocation, relationship or health routine means I’m closing the door on other opportunities → Commitment is where meaning is found. Relationships, work and health all benefit from deep commitment.

19. My energy is finite and it runs out during the day → If I think I will have no energy at the end of the day, I won’t have any.

20. To make money I have to get a job, building a business is too hard → Building a business is hard, but if you learn the right skills, from the right people, it becomes a lot easier.

21. Before I start step 1, I need to know how to solve steps 2-100. Then I’ll be able to properly start the project, business, hobby etc → Just start step 1, you’ll figure out steps 2-100 when you get there. Always start, then learn. You can’t steer a stationary ship.

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but these are some things that crop up in my mind on a day to day basis, which I try to remind myself of.

An interesting note is that actually typing stuff out like this is a very practical way for updating the beliefs you have in your mind.

I’d love to hear any limiting beliefs you’ve reframed in your life to add to my ongoing list :)

Have an epic week!

Tintin 🫡

P.s.

I miss writing and sending these emails.

I’ve not sent many this year, and they always help me get my thoughts together. And the process of publishing and sharing content with others is super fun.

I’m going to avoid making a grand statement about committing to writing this every single week again, but hopefully I’ll be showing up here more (if you follow along my journey at all, let me know if there’s anything you’d like to hear about).

Thanks for reading The Sunday Night Review!