The Art Of Breaking Free: 5 Simple Steps To Challenge What You’ve Been Taught To Believe
If your beliefs feel more like a cage than a compass, it's time to challenge them.
Avdalyan | Unsplash Do you know what limiting beliefs are? They're the invisible scripts that quietly tell you what you can or can't do, often inherited from parents, teachers, or the people who raised you. These beliefs — whether about love, money, success, or worth — become mental roadblocks that hold you back from the life you actually want. They might sound like, "I’m just not good with money," or "People like me don't get lucky breaks." The problem is, you start living by those rules as if they’re facts instead of hand-me-down opinions.
If you want to break free from what you've been taught to believe, you have to question where those ideas came from — and why you still carry them. This process takes honesty and patience, but it's the only way to grow past your old limits. The key is awareness: when you can see your beliefs clearly, you can choose which ones stay and which ones go. Here are five simple steps to help you challenge those beliefs and start creating a mindset that truly fits the life you want.
Here are 5 simple steps to challenge what you've been taught to believe:
1. Figure out where your beliefs came from
It’s important to understand that your parents, teachers, and other mentors are the ones who gave you the knowledge base that formed your beliefs. They helped build the foundation for how you think today. Address what limiting beliefs you may have internalized based on what they taught you.
Take, for example, a bad belief. Perhaps you believe something doesn’t exist, because it makes you uncomfortable. Does that mean it’s not real? Of course not!
It's like closing your eyes because you're afraid. The object of your fear still exists; you just can't see it. It doesn't solve any problems — in fact, it can create more.
2. Notice how your beliefs shape the questions you ask
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As you grow, your beliefs form the questions you begin to ask yourself. But these beliefs can limit your potential. Research shows that beliefs act as a filter for how we interpret information, which influences the questions we ask and the evidence we seek, often leading to confirmation bias.
You can’t ask a question and get a better answer if you’re limited by the question you ask. After all, you know what you know from what you were taught! But if you move into a growth mindset, you begin to ask better questions.
Einstein said, “You can’t solve a problem at the level it was created.” If you find yourself with a problem, you need to get above it in order to look down at what you truly believe.
3. See how your questions influence your decisions
If you ask the same questions you always have, you’ll be stuck where you are. But if you ask better questions, you can make decisions that lead to the quality of life you want — one that is positive and fulfilling.
You're holding yourself back by believing, speaking, and even internally repeating these limiting beliefs to yourself. Research has concluded that asking questions instead of making statements can lead to greater action and better outcomes, because it prompts more deliberate processing of information and can align with one's authentic self.
4. Use your new perspective to take action
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Wonder why you always date the same kind of guy? Or why do you never get the promotion? The decisions that you make are based on what you believe.
When you grow into making good decisions, you can take real action. You move out of the loop of circling and no longer fall back on what you’ve always done or known. Positive beliefs are more likely to lead to attitudes and actions that attract positive results, research has shown.
Instead of believing, "I may as well give up on finding true love because no one could ever love me," you can change the way you speak to yourself, and therefore start changing what you accept as "true."
5. Pay attention to how your life changes
The results you want are all based on your belief system. You need to take action in order to change your quality of life. Once you do, you can get the results you want: The life you were born for.
Your brain believes everything you tell it, so if you're always saying how you'll never be happy, don't be surprised if you're never happy. But once you start changing how you address yourself, by removing those emotionally blocking, limiting beliefs, you'll discover a world of possibilities is available to you.
What you put out there, you get back. It’s true! So, challenge the beliefs you hold and see what happens.
Many of these are simply not fact-based beliefs, and in some cases, are just what you were taught as you grew up. They may not even make sense for you to continue believing them today.
Limiting beliefs can hold you back in all aspects of your life: Love, wealth, happiness... So, you must challenge them to change it.
To challenge a belief, consider where it originated. Where did it begin? Is this belief helping me or sabotaging my plans?
If it’s dragging you down, it’s time for a change. After all, your underlying beliefs can be your limitation.
I grew up thinking the number 13 was unlucky because of my stepfather's fear. But I know now I was holding on to a faulty belief, so I no longer let that belief define me. You can do the same.
Hilary DeCesare is the Founder and CEO of The ReLaunch Co. She’s appeared on ABC’s The Secret Millionaire and on major news outlets such as CBS, ABC, Fox, and Huffington Post.
