If you want to live and attract your dream life, you must kill your old self. And that starts with the limiting beliefs from childhood you're still carrying subconsciously.
Not literally, of course. Killing your old self means letting an old identity die: the version of you built on stories you never chose. Stories like; "I'm not enough," "money is always a struggle," or "I must never let anyone down."
This post covers how these beliefs are built, how to find your own, why your old self fights so hard to stay, and how to start rewriting your story.
Understanding limiting beliefs from childhood
Every belief you have about yourself is true... until you change it.
Most of the beliefs we have about ourselves as adults were developed between the ages of 0-7. These are our core beliefs, and they're so deeply ingrained that we don't even know we have them most of the time.
Beliefs work in layers. The deeper you go, the older and more powerful they are.
This layered model comes from cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), developed by psychiatrist Aaron Beck, and it's one of the clearest ways to understand what's going on beneath the surface.
Automatic thoughts
Your beliefs show up first as automatic thoughts: the fleeting and habitual thoughts that pop into your head in response to situations throughout the day.
These automatic thoughts can be pleasant, unpleasant or completely neutral. Sometimes they come as images or specific memories.
Our negative thoughts in particular are so habitual that we tend to accept them as facts. But, after delving into them a little deeper (often with the help of therapeutic techniques), they may turn out to be distorted, or simply inaccurate.
These negative thoughts are also mostly associated with emotions such as:
- anxiety
- shame
- frustration
- sadness
- guilt
- anger
There are several ways to interpret what happens in everyday life. How we choose to interpret or perceive events has a consequence for how we feel and how we respond in our behaviour.
Rules and assumptions
Beneath your automatic thoughts sit your rules and assumptions. These are your own underlying instructions for how things are, how things should be done, and what you and others are allowed/not allowed to do.
They guide how you live, often just below your conscious awareness.
They can be rigid rules, such as:
- "I must never let anyone down"
- "I must always be strong"
Or they can be if-then statements, such as:
- "If I am criticized then it means, I'm a failure"
- "If others are disappointed in me, then I'm not good enough"
Rules and assumptions can also be cultural. For example, if you grew up in a family where working hard and being successful was of great importance, and laziness was frowned upon, then you may have developed a rule that says; "if I work hard, then I'll always be successful."
Whole cultures can hand down rules, too.
In Denmark, we have Janteloven or the Law of Jante, named after Aksel Sandemose's 1933 novel. Its message boils down to: don't think you're anything special.
Many Scandinavians learn this during childhood and carry it unconsciously and as an unspoken rule about not standing out and not being better than anyone else. You can often hear it in the way Danes speak about themselves.
You may or may not know how you developed these rules, but they consistently influence how you feel and behave throughout your life.
Helpful vs unhelpful rules
Certain rules may have worked well for you at one time. Most likely, they served a purpose: to protect or help you get ahead in some way.
But as your life and circumstances changed, they became outdated.
I used to have a rule that I must be perfect, otherwise I wasn't good enough, and I didn't deserve to be loved.
I learned this rule growing up. My father wasn't around much, but when he was, the only thing he cared about was how we were doing in school and what grades we'd got. If they weren't perfect every time, he's disappointment would be palpable and it would hang in the air until I got a perfect score again.
I learned and practiced this "rule" of perfectionism to protect myself from my father's disappointment. But it became increasingly difficult to maintain as I became an adult.
Eventually, I came to understand that all people make mistakes. That making mistakes is part of being human.
Powerful subconscious core beliefs
At the very bottom are your core beliefs: the fundamental beliefs you hold about yourself, others, and the world.
They usually form in early childhood and are fused with deep emotions. They influence your rules and your negative automatic thoughts, and usually sit below our conscious awareness.
Core beliefs often start with the statements of; "I am...", "others are...", "the world is..." They are the fundamental "when all is said and done" beliefs at your very core.
As another personal example, I grew up with a mother that worked incredibly hard. But no matter how much she worked, there never seemed to be enough money to cover everything. Her worries were usually about finances, debt, and paying the bills on time.
As a child, I didn't understand the details. I just felt the worry. And from that worry, I concluded that money is always a struggle. That there will never be enough, and that I'll have to work extremely hard just to survive and pay rent.
That core belief followed me into adulthood. However hard I worked, some part of me expected money to slip away, because that was how the world worked as far as I knew.
It's not a helpful belief to have. If you believe money is always a struggle, you'll keep finding evidence that it is. Eventually, I had to start working through it.
Common inner child limiting beliefs
Some of the most common core beliefs are:
- "I'm not enough"
- "I'm not lovable"
- "I'm not worthy"
These are inner child limiting beliefs: conclusions we drew as children, long before we could question them.
In adult life, they rarely announce themselves. They show up as patterns instead:
- "I'm not enough" can look like overworking, overachieving, or never feeling finished.
- "I'm not lovable" can look like people pleasing (both at work, in relationships, with friends and with family), or staying in relationships that don't treat you well.
- "I'm not worthy" can look like struggling to ask for help, receive compliments or charge what you're worth for services you're offering.
Most of our work as adults is rewriting these beliefs so that we can lead ourselves to a different result. There is no way you'll ever become a millionaire if you believe you're a 50K-a-year salary earner.
Recommended: What is Inner Child Healing? Carl Jung and the Child Within
How to identify limiting beliefs
You can't change a belief you can't see. Here are three ways to brings yours to the surface.
Notice your patterns and triggers
Look at the places in your life where you keep ending up in the same spot: the same kind of toxic relationship, the same money stress, the same burnout.
Then ask yourself: What would I have to believe for this pattern to keep happening?
Strong emotional reactions are clues too. When something stings more than the situation deserves, an old belief has usually been touched.
Meditation
There are many different forms of meditation, but meditation is one way to go inward and identify the beliefs and principles we hold.
In stillness, they have room to resurface so you can work with them.
Journaling prompts
Write freely, without editing. Choose one or two prompts at a time:
- What did I learn about money, love or success in the house I grew up in?
- What did I have to do or be to feel safe or accepted as a child?
- Finish the sentence: "I am..." Write the first five answers that come.
- Which rule do I follow that I've never questioned?
- Where in my life do I keep hitting the same wall?
- Whose voice do I hear when I criticise myself?
If a prompt brings up more than you can comfortably hold, stop, breathe and come back to it another day, or with support.
Why your old self fights back
"The strongest force in the human personality is the need to be consistent with how we define ourselves" - Tony Robbins.
Robbins popularised this idea, but it goes back further, to psychologist Prescott Lecky's theory of self-consistency. In short, we're driven to act in line with how we see ourselves, and we resist anything that contradicts that self-image, even positive change.
That's why changing a belief can feel so uncomfortable. Your old self isn't the enemy. Those beliefs formed for a reason: often to protect you as a child, the way my perfectionism protected me from my father's disappointment (sometimes).
So when you start to change, part of you may panic. It's not because the change is wrong. Simply because it's unfamiliar.
Expect that resistance. It's a sign that you're touching something real.
So how do you change limiting beliefs?
How do you become the person that is worthy of this dream life, or dream partner, or dream business, or dream job?
Change your language
First, you have to start paying attention to your language.
Let's say you're a smoker who is trying to quit. Someone offers you a cigarette, and you will likely say something along the lines of; "no thanks, I'm trying to quit."
Versus saying; "no thanks, I don't smoke."
In the first version, you still identify as a smoker. It's going to be incredibly hard to quit, because this person is still using language reinforcing that story and those beliefs. Research on quitting smoking supports this: how people see themselves, as a smoker or a non-smoker, is considered an important part of whether they stay quit.
The same is true every time you say:
- "I'm not a morning person"
- "I'm not a runner"
- "I can't remember people's names"
You're being consistent with how you define yourself.
Identity-based habits: act like who you're becoming
James Clear calls this identity-based habits in his book Atomic Habits: focusing on who you want to become rather than the outcome you want.
When you're ready to become a runner, tell people that you're a runner. Put your running shoes next to your bed. Put your running clothes out the night before.
Take action in the direction of the person you want to become, and do it more than half the time. Be as consistent as you possibly can with mini-steps and actions until you get to where you want to be.
Because the most powerful story in the world is the one that you tell yourself.
Recondition your subconscious beliefs through your environment
You can reverse engineer anything you want by placing yourself in an environment that makes it easy.
If you're a runner, you probably have friends that run, or you go to a running club.
If you want to make a living as a content creator, you spend time with other people who already are. They create every day, and you embed yourself in that environment.
Compare that to the person who says she wants to become a content creator but doesn't make it easy for herself. She relies only on herself and her discipline.
The right environment removes most of the need for discipline and lets you be influenced by people already doing what you want to do.
It can be as subtle as setting up your home to have good habits. For example, your bedroom is just for sleeping, your kitchen is just for eating, your desk is just for working. So when you sit down at your desk, you mind goes; "ooh, it's time to work now."
A spiritual practice to let the old self die
Simply put, a spiritual practice is an act that's practiced often and allows your mind a moment of stillness. It takes you out of your busy, thinking mind and into the present.
Meditation and breathwork exercises are some of the more obvious ones. But a spiritual practice can also be walking barefoot outside, doing the dishes and focusing on the feeling of the water on your hands.
You can also give the old self a proper goodbye. One simple letting-go ritual:
- Write the old belief on a piece of paper, exactly as it sounds in your head.
- Read it aloud once, and thank it for what it tried to protect you from.
- Burn it safely (in a fireproof bowl, away from anything flammable), or tear it up and burry it in the earth.
- On a new piece of paper, write the belief you're choosing instead. Keep it somewhere you'll see it.
When it's more than a belief
Some limiting beliefs are tied to painful or traumatic experiences. If this work brings up strong emotions, old memories or feelings that don't settle, please reach out to a therapist or counsellor. CBT therapists work with exactly these layers of thoughts, rules and core beliefs.
This post is not a substitute for therapy. It's a starting point.
Conclusion: kill your old self, rewrite your story
Just by shifting your language, consciously choosing your environment, and having some sort of spiritual daily practice, you can rewrite your subconscious beliefs and create the life of your dreams. Whatever that means for you.
Your old self got this far. You can thank her, and let her go.
FAQ
Can you change beliefs formed in childhood?
Yes. Beliefs formed in childhood can feel like facts, but they're learned, and what's learned can be relearned. Cognitive behavioural therapy is built on this idea.
How long does it take to change a limiting belief?
There's no set timeline. Some beliefs loosen quickly once you see them. Deeper core beliefs can take months of repeated new experiences. Consistency matters more than speed.
What are examples of limiting beliefs?
Common ones include "I'm not enough", "I'm not lovable", "I'm not worthy", "Money is always a struggle" and "I must never let anyone down".
Are affirmations enough to change limiting beliefs?
On their own, usually not. Words help most when they're backed by action, environment and repeated experiences that prove the new belief true.
What does "kill your old self" mean?
It's a metaphor for letting an old identity end: the habits, rules and beliefs you learned to survive, but no longer need, so a truer version of you can grow.
Sources
- Beck, J. S. Cognitive Behavior Therapy: Basics and Beyond (3rd ed., Guilford Press, 2020).
- Fennell, M. Overcoming Low Self-Esteem (Robinson, 1999).
- Lecky, P. Self-Consistency: A Theory of Personality (Island Press, 1945).
- Clear, J. Atomic Habits (Avery, 2018).
- Penfornis, K. M. et al. "My future-self has (not) quit smoking", Leiden University: https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A3641537/view
- Sandemose, A. En flygtning krydser sit spor (1933).
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