Every one of us carries a small collection of beliefs we have never quite examined. They sit quietly beneath the surface of our confidence, our relationships and our decisions — until a moment arrives that pulls one of them into the light. A comment that stings more than it should. A hesitation before a challenge we know we’re capable of meeting. A familiar knot in the stomach that seems to belong to a much younger version of ourselves.

These are the fingerprints of a negative belief — and the good news is that beliefs, however old and however deeply held, were formed. And what has been formed can be examined, understood, and re-formed.

Where Beliefs Come From

A limiting belief is rarely created out of nowhere. It is almost always the conclusion a younger self drew from a specific event — a moment of rejection, failure, fear or shame — at a time when there simply wasn’t enough life experience yet to interpret that event any differently.

A child who is laughed at for raising a hand in class may quietly decide, “my ideas aren’t good enough.” An employee overlooked for a promotion may conclude, “I’m not the kind of person who gets chosen.” The event passes, but the conclusion stays — and it goes on quietly running in the background, shaping choices decades later, long after the person who drew it has grown into someone entirely different.

The belief you carry today was formed by someone doing the best they could, with the limited information they had at the time.

— Gail Cameron

Why Willpower Alone Doesn’t Shift a Belief

Many people try to out-argue a limiting belief with logic: “I know it isn’t true, I’ve achieved plenty, I have nothing to prove.” And intellectually, they’re right. But a belief that was installed through emotion rarely dissolves through reasoning alone. Emotion is what makes a belief feel true, far more than evidence ever does — which is why the most durable way to shift a belief is to work with the emotion attached to it, not simply the logic surrounding it.

This is the foundation of a coaching technique sometimes referred to as belief-shifting or belief-clearing work, and it forms part of the toolkit I use with clients and teams at The IE Group. It draws on principles set out by Sandy Newbigging in his method for identifying and releasing the emotional root of a limiting belief, and I’ve adapted it into a practical, structured process I use in one-on-one coaching sessions.

The Process, in Broad Strokes

While the detailed technique is something I work through with clients individually — it involves a guided, reflective process and isn’t something to self-administer from a written outline — the overall arc looks like this:

1. Locate the source

We trace the belief back to its origin: the specific event, and the age at which it happened. This isn’t about assigning blame; it’s about understanding context. A belief formed at seven years old was formed by a seven-year-old’s limited toolkit for making sense of the world.

2. Name the emotion, and its intensity

We identify what was actually felt in that moment — shame, fear, abandonment, humiliation — and rate its intensity. Naming the emotion precisely, rather than leaving it vague, is often where the real shift begins.

3. Uncover the new knowing

This is the heart of the work: what does the person now know, as an adult, that — had they known it then — would have meant the event never had the power to wound them in the first place? This isn’t a borrowed affirmation. It has to come from the client themselves, in their own words, because a truth we arrive at ourselves lands very differently to one we’re handed.

4. Install the new knowing

Through guided relaxation and repetition, the old, outdated conclusion is gently replaced with the client’s own more accurate, more compassionate understanding — addressed not only to the belief itself, but to the version of themselves who first believed it.

5. Re-visit and re-write

The original memory is revisited, not to relive it, but to view it through the lens of compassion for both the client and the people involved — who, in almost every case, were also doing the best they could with what they knew at the time. The memory is then given a new, healthier outcome.

6. Test the shift

Finally, we test the work: how does the old belief feel now, on a scale of intensity? And, more importantly — when the client imagines a similar situation arising in future, how differently do they now expect to respond?

Why This Matters in Leadership and Image Work

In more than thirty years of coaching leaders across Africa, I’ve come to see that almost every ceiling a capable person hits is not a skills ceiling — it’s a belief ceiling. The executive who under-negotiates their worth. The talented professional who avoids visibility. The leader who over-prepares to compensate for a belief that they might otherwise be exposed as not enough.

Strategic image and personal impact work, done properly, was never only about what someone wears or how a room perceives them in the first fifteen seconds. It’s about closing the gap between how capable someone actually is and how capable they believe themselves to be. Shifting a negative belief is often the fastest, most durable route to closing that gap — faster, in many cases, than another year of skill-building alone.

You are not late. You are not behind. You are not too much, or not enough. You are simply carrying a conclusion that was never yours to keep.

— Gail Cameron

A Gentle Starting Point

If you recognise a belief like this in yourself, the first and simplest step is not to fix it, but to notice it — to ask, gently, “how old was I when I first decided this about myself?” Often, just asking the question begins to loosen the belief’s grip, because it reminds us that a belief is a decision that was made, once, by someone younger and less resourced than we are today.

The deeper work — tracing the belief fully, feeling it safely, and rewriting it — is best done with guidance, whether through coaching, therapy, or a structured process designed for this purpose. But the noticing can begin the moment you choose to ask the question.

Source concept: Sandy Newbigging, “Heal the Hidden Cause.” Adapted for coaching practice by Gail Cameron, The IE Group.

Gail Cameron | Founder, The IE Group | gail@iegroup.co.za | +27 82 379 8095 | www.iegroup.co.za | www.mypocketcoachapp.com