Limiting beliefs have come up time and time again this week in my work and conversations with women. Beliefs that get in the way of your career confidence.
What do I mean by a limiting belief?
Limiting beliefs are beliefs that you hold, stories that you have experienced or been told, that hold you back from doing what you want to do.
Maybe you want to go back to work or you want to apply for that promotion or you want to change the direction of your business and work with a different market sector. Perhaps it’s something you’ve been thinking about for a while. It’s really important and yet you haven’t done it yet. Or even started. And you’re not really sure why. You’re procrastinating and putting things off.
Why? What’s stopping you? What’s holding you back? What is getting in the way of doing what you really want instead of doing what you feel you should do?
There’s often a big difference between what you want to do and what you should do.
I’m not good enough
This article is for you if you sometimes notice yourself saying or thinking “I can’t do that, I’m not good enough” . Or maybe your story is “I’m not experienced enough” or “I’m not rich enough“, “I’m not clever enough“, “I don’t know enough people“, “I don’t have enough time” or “I’m not well known enough” or “I’m too old”, “too young”.
One mum I spoke to yesterday had previously told me “my husband’s work is completely inflexible” and this was stopping her from finding work. Yet when I challenged her, and she talked to her husband, that ‘inflexible’ belief changed. Her husband’s work could be flexible.
Questions to tackle your limiting beliefs
Here are some simple questions you can ask yourself if you wonder you have a limiting belief getting in the way of your career confidence:
- What is the evidence for that belief? i.e. what evidence do you have that you are ‘not good enough’?
- How old is the evidence?
- How could others see that you are ‘not good enough’ or ‘not experienced enough’?
- If you have the evidence for the story or belief, what could another interpretation be for that story or for those actions?
- What else could those actions mean?
- How do you benefit from staying that way i.e. staying ‘not good enough’ or ‘not clever enough’?
If it’s about, for example, ‘not enough time’, how much time do you need? If it’s about experience, how much experience exactly do you need?
These are not easy questions to answer. You might not always have the courage to be honest and truthful with yourself. And that’s ok.
I deserve to be loved
I know that I held off for ages about driving my business forwards. I suspected that deep down there was a limiting belief. I’d tried self-coaching but it wasn’t coming out. It was so deeply buried and my mind wanted to protect me from knowing the truth. I didn’t feel good enough. I thought I didn’t deserve to be loved. The day that I figured that out was a real turning point. I wrote about it a few months ago when I realised that I deserve to be loved to the ends of the earth.
Even now, I still have to remind myself that I am good enough; that I am experience enough; that I deserve to be successful; to be loved. But it’s not always easy.
Don’t let your limiting belief get in the way of your career confidence
If you want courage, I’ll lend you mine. When you are honest with yourself; when you face the truth; when you figure out your limiting beliefs and what is holding you back; when you rewrite your story; your career confidence will be unstoppable.
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