You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.
Gautama Buddha
It is one of the quietest sentences a person can carry, and one of the heaviest: I am not good enough. I am not significant, and I feel small.
It rarely arrives as a shout. It arrives as a hesitation before you speak, a reason not to apply, not to ask, not to begin. Over time, the hesitation starts to look like personality. It is not. It is a belief — and a belief can be questioned.
The Keystone Belief
Lack of self-esteem and self-belief are the most damaging and pervasive limiting beliefs. Self-esteem is the keystone limiting belief around which many other beliefs rotate, gaining their momentum.
That is why this belief comes first in my book. Doubt your worth, and love becomes hard to receive. Doubt your worth, and success feels like something meant for other people. Doubt your worth, and even a compliment can feel like a mistake you need to correct.
I have seen that regardless of race, nationality or sex, this belief keeps rearing its head. Perhaps that is because we believe there is something imperfect about ourselves — and that idea often forms when we are the most impressionable. For many of us, this is in childhood, when we have the least power and the greatest believability in what others think and say to us.
A child does not argue with the verdict. An adult can learn to.
Why Thinking Alone Is Not Enough
Here is the reality check at the heart of this chapter: stop believing that you are not good enough — but understand that this is not a cerebral attempt to enhance self-esteem.
Thinking your way into higher self-esteem or belief usually fails, because this belief operates on a much deeper level. Repeating a sentence you do not feel may help for a moment, but it rarely changes the belief underneath.
What helps is consonance. Bring your thoughts, feelings and actions into agreement. Think high-self-esteem thoughts. Feel great when you think about those thoughts. And then back them up with actions that take care of you.
While insights can happen in a flash, it takes structure and work to sustain a new belief. That structure can be simple: one honest thought, one feeling you allow yourself to trust, and one small action that agrees with both. Repeated, those small agreements become evidence. And evidence is what a deeper belief understands.
If you want the full chapter, with its action tips and a notes page for your own progress, you will find it here: Let Go of Limiting Beliefs on Etsy.
Start Believing That You Are Worth It
The first action tip in the book is direct: start today towards believing that you are worth it and you deserve the best that life has to offer.
Start today — not when you feel ready, and not when someone else confirms it. Do your thing, in the spirit of the line I included from Tina Fey: do not waste your energy trying to change opinions. Do your thing, and do not care if they like it.
That does not mean ignoring everyone. It means refusing to hand the verdict about your worth to the nearest audience. Your worth is not a vote.
Try This Today
Write down the new belief from this chapter, and read it slowly:
I am worthy of the best. I believe in myself. I will feel good about myself and take actions to prove my worth and efficacy.
Then take one action that agrees with it. Rest when you need rest. Speak when you have something to say. Take care of yourself in one visible, concrete way. A belief grows stronger every time your actions stop arguing with it.
Get the Book
Let Go of Limiting Beliefs explores twelve beliefs — from “I am not worthy of love” to “My life will not change” — each with reflection, action tips, a new belief to practise, and a Notes & Current Progress page. It is available as an instant-download ebook at its launch price of $3.49 (reg. $6.99):
👉 Get Let Go of Limiting Beliefs on Etsy
And if you are new here, start with my free book, 12 Amazing Life Lessons From Rumi — twelve timeless quotes and the lessons I found inside them, free to download at launchyourgenius.com. 🌿
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