How many “stories” have you told yourself over the years? How many of these actually supported your goals, and how many ended up holding you back? You might be thinking that you don’t have these “stories” because you honestly believe them. They are your truth.
Exactly – they are your truth and not necessarily the truth. And the more we believe them, the more they hold us back … without us even realising.
No need to worry – we all have them. And as I say to my clients, anyone who genuinely doesn’t have them probably needs bigger goals.
In leadership, we have stories about ourselves, and we have stories about others too.
At NEP we hear them all the time…
“Markets are going down – we aren’t likely to hit our targets”
“I’m just a glass half empty kind of guy”
“That person doesn’t have leadership skills”
“I won’t take the promotion because I’d probably end up with less time with my family”
“I’m not disciplined and I need to be more disciplined”
“Of course I’m tired – that’s just how it is when you have a big job”
Etc, etc, etc
So in good news…
When we understand more about these “stories” we can start to work out which ones are good and working for us, and which ones are evil – working against us.
So let’s understand what a belief is first. We like to roll with the definition:
“The belief that something is true – especially without proof”.
This sounds harmless enough – but we need to compare these with our goals (outcomes that are meaningful to us). If the belief is aligned to the goal, then it’s completely harmless. If the belief is not aligned, well, that’s what we call a limiting belief, and that’s where we need to make a choice.
The brain is like a muscle so the way we think changes the shape of our brain, and the shape of our brain informs the way we think.
Or put another way – the more we think a certain way, the more we think a certain way.
So what’s an example of a limiting belief?
I work a lot with high performance sales teams and belief work is absolutely crucial here.
Let’s say a sales team has a particular target it’s working towards for a 12-month period. And then let’s say financial markets take a significant beating such as the global financial crisis (yes this situation is close to my heart as I was actually leading a sales team during this time.)
Some people with less psychological capital may start to believe that due to market events, it’s becoming less likely that they will make their target. Given that they don’t know the outcome yet, this is a belief and not the actual truth. And since it’s a belief which doesn’t support the goal of getting the target, it’s called a limiting belief.
So what to do – well goals and beliefs need to be aligned, so if they aren’t we have three choices:
- Change the goal
- Change the belief
- Change a bit of both
Now I’m not too proud to say that I’ve certainly asked for a revision in targets during my time. However when that is met with a resounding “No” – as is often the case, we are now left with one choice…make sure everyone in the team is believing that the goal is still achievable.
Any frustration or annoyance or “woe is me” feelings about the situation won’t help you achieve targets. So it’s time to knuckle down and work on mindset…
So how do we overcome limiting beliefs in the workplace?
The first step is recognising that they are even there! A good leader will want to make sure people feel safe to share their honest thinking so that the leader knows the starting point and the extent of any limiting beliefs that exist, either individually or at the team level. It only takes one person to subconsciously sabotage everyone else’s chances of achieving team goals.
One we know what we are playing with, then we can start to look for real evidence which supports why we can probably hit the targets. Note that people shouldn’t believe 100% that they can get their targets – if that’s the case, they won’t be in the right stress zone, likely to get lazy and probably not hit the target.
So once we have evidence as to why we probably can hit the target, now we just need to reinforce that thinking every day – a bit like taking your brain to the gym to reinforce the neural pathways that support your goals.
There is no point waiting until the end of the year when you don’t hit your targets, or any other goals you were aiming for to realise that your beliefs were not supporting you or your team.
The sooner you uncover this, understand the neuroscience around it, and choose do something about it, the better.
How we think is a choice – and every day it makes sense to be aware of our choices.
Of course, if you’d like to find out more about how to improve performance and mindset with less effort why not either book a Performance Call or sign up for our next 20/20 session or one of our open workshops here.