anything goes with emma chamberlain - limiting beliefs, a talk with emma

Episode Date: January 28, 2024

a few weeks ago, i was talking to a loved one, and they were talking about how easy it is to make ambient music. i said i wish i knew how to make ambient music, but there's no way i would figure it out. and they were like, emma, it's so easy, you can learn how to do it. and i realized, i have a problem. i have all these poisonous thoughts floating around my head about why i can't teach myself how to make ambient music. and i realized that that was a limiting belief. i've explored the topic of limiting beliefs a little, but i’ve never really dug into it until now. so that’s what we’re going to be discussing today.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm gonna start today out with a little story. So a few weeks ago, I was talking to a loved one and this particular loved one makes music. And they were talking about how easy it is to make ambient music. You know, music that's just pretty much sounds, right? Like no singing, just sounds, but like cool sounds, right? And I was like, oh my God,

I wish I knew how to make ambient music, like I can't play instruments and it takes a long time to learn how to play instruments. I wish I at least knew how to make ambient music because number one, I like listening to it. Number two, it would be so cool to put ambient music in my YouTube videos. I was like, oh my God, it'd be so fun to make a YouTube video and then make my own music for the video.

I was like, that would be so cool. And I was like, but there's just no way. Like there's no way I would figure it out. And the person I was talking to was like, Emma, it's so easy. It's so easy. You can learn how to do it. I was like, no, no, I don't think I can. And they were like, why? They were like, I literally Googled it and then focused on it for like 48 hours. And then I knew how to do it. They were like, I taught myself, you can just teach yourself, you can totally do it. And I was like, no, but I can, they were like, yes, you can. And it was like this back and forth for a few minutes.

And then I realized I stopped in my tracks and I realized I have a problem. I have a mental block. For some reason, I don't believe that I can teach myself something successfully, especially something that doesn't come naturally to me. I've never been naturally good at playing instruments. Actually, that's not necessarily true. I have good natural rhythm, which is very helpful when it comes to playing instruments, but what I don't have is the patience that it takes to learn how to play an instrument. So I've never

stuck to it and I've always quit early on. Anyway, I don't feel like I'm musically inclined. On top of that, I'm not confident in my ability to teach myself how to do something. And I had this sort of epiphany. I was like, I have all of these poisonous thoughts floating around my head about why I can't teach myself how to make ambient music. And I don't even think that these beliefs are true. I realized that that was a limiting belief. Now, I've heard about limiting beliefs a lot, and I've explored the topic a little bit, but I've never really dug into it up until now.

And I think it's a fascinating and important topic. So that's what we're going to dig into today. Limiting beliefs. Let's start out with what limiting beliefs are. I'm not going to lie, my definitions are not super reputable. Like I found the best definitions on websites that are not like scientific journals, okay? But I thought that these definitions were good. So just take all this with a grain of salt, okay?

I'm not pulling these from the top psychologists in the world as much as I wish I was. I liked these definitions that were easy to understand and they feel true to me. So yeah, take it with a grain of salt So I got these definitions from betterup.com and pushfar.com, both self-help websites. Okay, so a limiting belief is a thought or state of mind that you think is the absolute truth and stops you from doing certain things. These beliefs don't always have to be about yourself either.

They could be about how the world works, ideas, and how you interact with people. Limiting beliefs can change your life, but not always for the better. Do you like how I'm reading this? Is it entertaining? They create self-awareness that stops you from chasing after your dreams,

forming healthy relationships with people, and creating change in any area of your life. Having primarily negative beliefs puts boundaries and limitations on things in our lives and keeps us within our comfort zones. Limiting beliefs in most cases are unconscious thoughts, which appear as defense mechanisms to avoid possible frustrations, failure, and disappointment.

At a time in the past, you may have suffered from something specific, and now when you come face-to-face with a similar situation, your subconscious finds a way to try to block it. Limiting beliefs keep us in our comfort zone. They can greatly limit development and achievement in our goals both personally and professionally. It is these thoughts, whether conscious or unconscious, that we regard as absolute truths. However, these negative thoughts, which hinder our journey towards life goals, can be overcome and replaced with more optimistic messages. By changing your thinking, you can change everything too.

Wow. Thank you so much to betterup.com and pushfar.com for these incredible explanations about what limiting beliefs are. Explained it better than I ever could have. So I became hyper aware that I have this limiting belief about my ability to teach myself how to make ambient music. And this sort of realization caused me to realize how many limiting beliefs I do have. Because that's not the only one. I have a lot. Let me walk you through some of my limiting beliefs I do have. Because that's not the only one, I have a lot. Let me walk you through some of my limiting beliefs.

Let's start with the one that we've already discussed. The fact that I don't believe that I can teach myself things. Now, this is hypocritical because I always preach that we can teach ourselves anything. There are so many resources out there. You can Google shit. You can go to the library even though no one does that anymore. And you can read a book about it. If you don't want to go to the library, open up your iPad, download a book onto your iPad,

ask someone in your life who knows how to do something. Like we have endless resources. Okay. We can teach ourselves anything we want to teach ourselves All the resources are there. I'm all about spreading that message because I believe that it's true But yet I didn't realize until recently that I had a limiting belief about my own Personal ability to teach myself things. I believe that the rest of the world can teach themselves things, but for some reason I don't believe I can teach myself things. I've been subconsciously telling myself that it's too hard for me because I'm not smart enough and I'm not capable enough to figure it out and that it's too hard to find adequate

resources like, oh, you know, how do I know that my resources are good? How do I know that I'm learning something the right way? Oh, it's too hard. I subconsciously tell myself that I don't have enough discipline and motivation. I'm just not a focused enough person. No, I'm not. Also, I'm lazy. I convince myself that I'm lazy because a lot of times with my free time, I tend to relax. Like when I'm not working, I'm relaxing most of the time. And I've convinced myself that that's lazy. So I just think I'm lazy in general. And lazy people can't teach themselves how to do new things. Now can they? I've subconsciously told myself that I don't have enough time. And not only that, but it's not worth my time.

This sounds so dark, but if it's not work and it's challenging, it's not worth my time. I've subconsciously convinced myself that there's no use in challenging myself outside of my work life, because what's the point? Like it's not paying the bills, you know? It's, that's terrible. That's so dark. And it's crazy to me how different that perspective is

from the message that I spread to the rest of the world. You know? It's a weird moment to have when you realize that your beliefs about the world are different than your own beliefs about yourself. And when I was digging into all my limiting beliefs, I noticed that that was a recurring theme. Like, I believe that the world and the people in the world have endless opportunities and

anything is possible and dreams can come true. But for some reason, I don't believe that about myself because I have so many limiting beliefs about myself because I have so many limiting beliefs about myself Another example of a limiting belief that I have is that I'll never be enough for a man Sorry, I know it's so sad But I definitely have that belief subconsciously and again, it's hypocritical because I will tell Everyone I'll scream it from the rooftops. there are so many fish in the fucking sea, you will find someone.

There's someone out there for everyone. Like I genuinely believe that, except for myself for some reason. Just sort of dissect this limiting belief. Like why do I think that I'll never be enough for a man? It's because I have the limiting belief that there's always someone out there who's better than me, prettier than me, smarter than me, funnier than me, cooler than me. Of course. I also have the limiting belief

that I'm not attractive enough, feminine enough to be satisfactory for a guy. I also believe, subconsciously, that guys only like me when they want something from me. Like they can gain something from me. Now I know that that's not true. Like in my conscious mind, I know that that's not true. I know that I can absolutely be enough for a man. I know that. I know that in my conscious mind. I know that, I know that in my conscious mind, I know that, I know that it doesn't matter that there are always gonna be, you know, girls out there who are better than me.

I know that I'm attractive enough and feminine enough for a man to like me. I know that there are guys out there who like me for me and don't wanna gain anything from me. But alas, I have those limiting beliefs. And so even though in my conscious mind, I know the truth, those subconscious voices are still there. And it's so confusing.

I also have this about rejection. I have the limiting belief that I can't handle rejection, so I shouldn't try anything that will lead me to being rejected. This is especially prominent in romantic situations. I definitely avoid being emotionally vulnerable at times out of fear of being rejected. You know, I might want to be sappy and sweet, but I'll never be the first one to do it because I have the limiting belief that if I get rejected, I won't be able to handle it.

It'll destroy me or something. Upon reflection, I avoid trying new work endeavors sometimes that I'm not 3,000% certain that I'm good at because I believe I will be rejected and I believe that I won't be able to handle that rejection. When in reality, I know I'm capable of handling rejection. I'm certain I'm capable of it. I've been rejected before and yeah, it sucked,

but it's always ended up being worth it. I've never regretted in action that led me to being rejected. It's always taught me something, or it's always allowed me to speak my truth in one way or another. Like, I've been rejected by guys. I've been rejected in the workplace, and I've always handled it just fine. I know I can handle it. So I don't know why I avoid putting myself in situations where I'll be rejected because I know I can fucking handle it. But it's this subconscious limiting belief that prevents me from doing these things. And

again, I'm a hypocrite because I will scream from the rooftops once again, that it's so worth it to put yourself in positions where you could be rejected because that means that you're being yourself. And it means that you're doing your best and it means that you're doing what you want to do. It's always better to try and get rejected than to not try at all. I know that, but it's these limiting beliefs. Last example, I have the limiting belief that I'm not working hard enough unless I'm overwhelmed and stressed out. Okay. I have convinced myself

subconsciously that the sign of good work ethic is misery, is pain, is agony, is exhaustion. agony is exhaustion. For some reason, I believe that having a healthy work-life balance is lazy. Now, again, again, you're probably thinking to yourself, like, Emma, this is insane. These are all things that you've openly said. Like it's so crazy how my beliefs towards the world and other people in the world are so different than my beliefs towards myself. Like I treat myself so differently than I treat the rest of the world and other people in the world are so different than my beliefs towards myself Like I treat myself so differently than I treat the rest of the world the advice that I give the rest of the world is not always aligned with

The standard that I uphold for myself the advice that I give myself. I'm far more toxic with myself I mean it's because of these limiting beliefs so those are just a few examples of my limiting beliefs. I definitely have more. Like I'm already thinking of more. Like when I have tried to quit nicotine in the past, I've been filled with limiting beliefs. I've told myself it's going to be too hard. I'm not going to be able to mentally handle it. I've told myself, I don't have to quit because it's not showing any negative signs yet that I'm addicted. You know, like I've told myself that it's fine because I don't consume nicotine in the form of cigarettes and cigarettes are much

more unhealthy than a vape or, you know, like, do you get what I mean? So all of that to say, I'm very hyper aware of my limiting beliefs right now. I think that's very clear to all of us, right? That's very clear to us. Emma is hyper aware of these. I'm kind of at a loss about how to get rid of them because I'm aware that they're there now and I also know that they're not true. Like, as I've mentioned this whole time, I give advice to my friends, my family, to you listening to this podcast that contradicts

all of my limiting beliefs. And I mean that advice when I say it to my core, but yet these limiting beliefs are still present and they still impact me and I've not been able to fully shake them. Now, when I reflect on my past, before I was super conscious of these beliefs, I have many memories of me combating these limiting beliefs without even realizing that I was doing it, but it wasn't clear to me like it is now.

And I wanna get rid of them all together, but I don't know how. So you wanna know what I did? I fucking Googled it. I Googled it. And so let's go through the internet's advice, specifically betterup.com and pushfar.com. Let's go through the internet's advice for me

on how I should get rid of my limiting beliefs. And maybe these will be helpful for you too, because I don't think there's a human on this planet who doesn't have limiting beliefs. So first, it's important to learn where the beliefs came from. It could have come from your family, growing up, your parents and other family members,

impact the way that you see the world before you even are conscious. You know, these are the first people that you encounter in the world. And we're very susceptible to the people around us. We're very malleable, especially when we're young. Our core beliefs start with our family. Whether our family intentionally pushes those beliefs on us or not, could be life experience. Any experience that we have in life gives us a distinct

feeling that we remember. And vivid experiences cause us to come to conclusions about the way that life works. And that impacts what we do in the future. If we have a good experience doing something, then we'll do it again. If we have a bad experience doing something, we won't do that again. I mean, sometimes, I mean, it's not like that always, but you get what I'm saying.

Could be education. When it's someone's job to share information with you and beliefs with you, you naturally are inclined to absorb them because there are certain people in our lives, teachers, mentors, doctors, et cetera, et cetera. We're sort of trained to trust these types of people. And so when they tell us something,

we take it as fact a lot of time. I feel like especially when we're young, we look to these authority figures like God in a way and everything that they say is Bible. Society can also impose standards that generate limiting beliefs. Religion can sometimes spread limiting beliefs because there's always a set of rules with religion. This is good, this is bad. And sometimes those things are obvious, like, yeah, don't go and kill someone. Obviously, that's bad. But sometimes they're a little bit more opinion based. And that's where it gets a little bit tricky. Okay, so the first step apparently is to figure out where the limiting belief came from.

Then you need to go in to your brain and identify your limiting beliefs. So I already did that with at least a good chunk of my limiting beliefs. The internet recommends that you reflect on your behavior, figure out when this belief formed and why. Then write everything down on paper. It's easier to organize your thoughts when they're outside of your messy brain. Trying to organize things like this just in your head is so, it's so challenging. It's just messy, at least for me.

And then make a list of your challenges. Write down your challenges and look for any patterns. This will show where your specific problem areas are and can help you sort of connect the dots and figure out, okay, what are my limiting beliefs? Where are they showing up in my life, et cetera? And then last but not least, it's time to eradicate the limiting belief.

Get that shit out of your head. Now this is where it really gets interesting because I feel like I personally have done the first two, but I've yet to fully get rid of them. So this is where I'm getting excited. Whoa, I'm on the edge of my freaking seat. Ooh, I can't wait. How am I gonna get these out of my stupid little head?

Start out by realizing and recognizing that your belief may simply be a belief founded on falsities. It's likely to be completely untrue and just a belief, not a fact. This is so huge. Actually, it sounds simple, but it's such an important reminder. I think now that I'm aware of my limiting beliefs, every time one comes up, I can tell myself, hey, this is not a belief rooted in reality. This is a belief rooted in a mini little trauma or a dumb idea that you picked up a long time ago.

And I think that that will help me, but we'll see. I'll have to give you guys an update later after I implement these things. Another helpful step would be to recognize that it's just a belief, not a fact, and then to question it. Like let's say you have the limiting belief that you're lazy. Question that, be like, what does lazy mean to me?

What does it mean to be lazy? Let's define that in our heads. Then look at your life and be like, am I really lazy? Is that actually true? And you might find that it is true. Then you can be like, okay, well, why am I lazy? It's going down a rabbit hole of asking why and why and why and why.

Next step is to determine the consequences of holding on to a limiting belief. I think making yourself aware of how something is hurting you can weirdly motivate you more to get it under control. If you're not aware vividly of how it's harming you, then you might just let it stick around. But if you're so aware of how damaging it is, you're more likely to put a plan together to really make it stop. Next, choose something new to believe in, something that will improve your life. If you've had a certain belief for a long time, there's a chance that you have a strong

emotional bond to the belief. Even if it's negative, you can still have a strong connection to that belief. We build a foundation of beliefs that we stand on. And if you have a limiting belief that's a huge chunk of your foundation, taking that out makes you feel uneasy. But I guess what this piece of advice is saying is it's helpful to find a new belief to replace the old one with so that you don't have this gaping gap in your foundation. I think that that is really helpful to not only just get rid of the old belief, but to also replace it. That makes a lot of sense to me, because if you don't have anything to replace it with,

then you're so much more likely to just go back to that limiting belief. But if you believe I'm unlovable, and then you change that belief to I'm very lovable. It's kind of an obvious example, but now every time you say to yourself, I'm unlovable, you immediately are like, no, actually, that's not true. I am. And I know that because that's my new belief. Whereas if you just decide, I don't

believe that I'm unlovable anymore, but you don't have this new belief to cling on to, then you're left with this empty hole. The unlovable example was actually horrible and awful and I regret it because it's such a simple example. Like you either are lovable or you're not, but I can't go back in time, can I? And give another example. So I'm just gonna hope that you're patient with me today. You get what I'm saying, okay? You get what I'm saying.

Next piece of advice is to take action and start implementing things that support your new belief. If your limiting belief told you that you were too old to start a new hobby, instead, adopt the belief that it's never too late to start and then spend 15 minutes that day working on that new hobby. I do think taking action is so crucial. You can start to prove yourself wrong.

You can show yourself through action that your limiting beliefs were wrong. And that helps you to solidify your new belief. But if you're just trying to convince yourself in your imagination, it's much harder because a lot of times our limiting beliefs come from life experience, you know? Things that we've been told by people that we respect,

good or bad experiences that we've had, et cetera, et cetera. It's like we learned our limiting beliefs through vivid life experience. We need to teach ourselves new beliefs also through vivid life experiences. To get there, we have to put ourselves out of our comfort zone a little bit, but if we can do that, then it's good.

And last but not least, conditioning yourself to your new beliefs means creating the reality you want for yourself in your mind, visualizing the results that you want to achieve. Visualization is a great way to create anticipation. You will mentally experience the result you want to achieve. With this, you'll be sending congruent signals to your brain, making it work for you. That's a really abstract piece of advice from the internet, but I'm going to try to analyze it anyway. I feel like what it's trying to say is, when you visualize the life that you want to have, you'll attract the life

that you want to have. So if you visualize a life without limiting beliefs and you can figure out what that looks like, like, oh, if I got rid of all my limiting beliefs, this is what my life would look like, then it's much easier to work towards that because you have a clear vision of what your life would be like without those limiting beliefs. And not only will that motivate you

to get rid of the beliefs, but it also gives you a clear thing to work towards. You know, it's hard to sort of work towards an abyss. I don't know. OK, all right. I'm going to try this shit and I'll let you know how it goes. Not that you care, but I thought that it might be fun for me to go through my limiting beliefs and figure out how I'm gonna eradicate them. And I thought maybe you'd wanna sit here with me and listen to me figure it out.

So with my limiting belief about my inability to teach myself things, I think what I need to do is I need to go and teach myself something successfully. I need to make time to teach myself how to make that stupid ambient music. I need to go and myself how to make that stupid ambient music. I need to go and learn how to make that stupid ambient music, and I need to prove to myself that I can. And then once I teach myself how to do that, I need to continue to prove to myself that I can teach myself things, especially things that I don't believe I'm naturally

good at, because that's a limiting belief within itself. Oh, I'm not naturally good at that. That's like we say that type of shit when it's not even true. For the limiting belief that I will never be enough for a man, I need to replace the thought that there will always be someone out there who's better than me with, there's no one else out there like me. There's only one me. There's only one Emma. You know, well no, there's actually a lot of people named Emma. Excuse me

There are a lot of people named Emma. It's actually a very popular name, but There's no one else out there like me. There's one of me and that's special I need to replace the belief that I'm not attractive enough. I'm not feminine enough blah blah blah blah with Again, I'm exactly who I am. And that's special. And that's exciting to some. I need to replace the belief that people only like me to gain something from me with, there are a lot of people out there that just like me for me. And I know those people.

I've met those people. They exist in a romantic and non-romantic setting. Have I also been in a romantic situation where somebody wanted to use me for the guy? Sure, sure. But I've also experienced romantic situations where that wasn't the case. So I know it's possible,

but for whatever reason, my brain has chosen the limiting belief. You know what I mean? So I need to remind myself that that's not always the case and I know that. When it comes to rejection I need to replace my fear of being rejected with the belief that I'll never regret speaking my mind Doing my best and being myself

If I'm scared of being vulnerable in a romantic situation because I think I'll be rejected I need to tell myself. Yeah, I might be rejected, but you know what, it's okay, because at least I said what I wanted to say. If I'm anxious about trying a new work endeavor because I think I'm gonna be rejected, so what if I get rejected? I won't know if I don't try. And last but not least, I'm replacing my limiting belief

that I'm only working hard if I'm overwhelmed and stressed out with working hard does not have to be a horrible thing. You can work hard and have a healthy work-life balance. That's what I'm replacing that with. You can work hard and still have a healthy work-life balance. Okay, we'll see how it goes then. We'll see how it goes then. I don't know, it was really unsettling for me to become hyper aware of all these beliefs. And it was hard for me to admit to myself

because I didn't wanna believe that the advice that I give to the world could be so different to the beliefs that I hold so close to my own heart that are negative. It was unsettling to see the difference between the way that I see the difference between the way that I see the world and the way that I see myself. And this is how my limiting beliefs present themselves,

but everybody's different because some people have more limiting beliefs about the world or about how life works. Mine are very self-centered. When it comes to limiting beliefs, I'm a narcissist. Okay? It's all about me. No one else exists. But I don't know.

I'm excited to see how eradicating these beliefs impacts my life. And maybe at some point I will update you on that. But anyway, I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if you did, tune in Thursdays and Sundays. Video episodes are exclusive on Spotify But you can stream anywhere you get podcasts You can follow anything goes on Instagram and anything goes you can follow me on Instagram and Emma Chamberlain You can check out my coffee company Chamberlain coffee. We might be in a store near you

Go on Chamberlain coffee calm and go in the store locator and see if we're in a store near you And if we're not or if you just don't want to go to the store order Chamberlain coffee online. We have coffee We have matcha we have cute mason jars. We have cute straws. We have cute cups. We have cute tote bags We have it all we don't we don't have it all but you know what no one does And that's all I have for today. Thank you all for listening and hanging out. It's always my pleasure I love getting to chat with you. for listening and hanging out. It's always my pleasure. I love getting to chat with you. I love getting to hang out with you.

And if you do too, then I'll talk to you soon. And if you don't, then I won't talk to you soon. And I hope that all goes well for you. It's totally fine. Okay, I love you all and appreciate you all. And I will talk to you so, so soon. Bye for now. Bye now.

Okay, bye.