How does what you believe about yourself affect your performance, happiness and success?
People often come to me for coaching for this exact issue although frequently they don’t even realise that this is a core barrier to achievement. Your beliefs can cause self-sabotage or amazing success and what you believe is, (believe it or not!) YOUR CHOICE. Make it wisely. You will be surprised to see the difference it can make.
“Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!” said the Queen of Hearts in ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’. Our beliefs are our guiding principles so they must work FOR you if you are to achieve the things you want, both in your personal and professional life. They strongly influence our behaviour so if you believe that you’re not up to the job in hand, whether that’s promotion, higher sales targets, asking someone on a date or just making decisions, you are making it far harder for yourself than it needs to be.
When you let that doubt creep in and believe that something is too hard for you or you are not good enough in some way, you will never find out whether it is true or not – because you just won’t try. Have you ever looked at a job vacancy and thought, even though on paper you have the experience or qualifications to do it, that it’s not worth applying because you think it’s out of your reach? Or worse, even if you got it, they would find out you weren’t really up to it?
In these cases, you are using generalisations about the world and your place in it. Remember it pays to ask how true these really are. Catch up here next time to hear how.