🛑Are limiting beliefs blocking your success?
❌ How you might be unconsciously undermining your business
As I am making my way to Money 2020 Amsterdam to animate a couple of roundtables for female executives on the topic of “How limiting beliefs might be blocking your career” I thought it would be a topic of great value for you too, my Dear Readers! Whether in the context of your business, a business you invested in, or even your career in general 👐
Are your sales always falling short, despite having solid PMF? Are you struggling to raise capital, while having great metrics? Is your valuation disappointing, in spite of appropriate resource allocation?
Your business might be victim of yours, your management team, or your employees’ limiting beliefs…and most likely all of the above.
I have seen first-hand what these limitations can do to one’s business, investments and career; from opportunities not taken to blatant self-sabotage. The feast or famine / boom and bust cycles are typical signs of limiting beliefs. As is being stuck.
I became so frustrated with my own mental blocks that I spent thousands of hours (and dollars😊) learning about this topic in order to get rid of these limiting beliefs. Now I totally understand why many societal, corporative and individual initiatives don’t work. If my clients have an unconscious belief that they are not good enough and don’t deserve success (because of their upbringing, gender, race, stories about the past, etc…), I can give the best advice to grow their business and investments the end results will likely be very limited. And the logic is the same for their management team and employees.
I am now offering workshops and coaching on the topic of limiting beliefs, as I realized that my recommendations, as an advisor and public speaker, and the success of my clients, organizations and individuals alike, would greatly be improved.
Limiting beliefs, mental blocks and other limitations have been in my mind (pun intended) for many years. It has been a multi-step process to free myself from them; 1) understanding that limiting beliefs exist; 2) realizing that I am likely to have my fair share; 3) zeroing on them; 4) get rid of them; 5) enjoying more success! 💪
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🛑 Limiting beliefs exist, yep, they do!
Whether we want (or believe) it or not, we all had times in our childhood when we developed perspectives about ourselves that limited us. It might be due to a specific event, such as the fear of public speaking after an unsuccessful presentation, or feeling unsafe to shine after getting mocked for a very successful rendition of Jingle Bells. Or something we picked up from our family, such as “people like us can’t access that”, “that” usually being money, success, and abundance in all their forms. It can also be a society cliché such as “girls are not good at math”.
You can already see the damages these limiting beliefs can do to our lives, especially that they mostly are unconscious. I used to be a great example of the “people like us can’t access that” or poverty mindset.
🛑 Yes, you have your fair share of limiting beliefs!
I am sure that a large number of you, Dear Readers, is thinking “Absolutely not me!”. But if you look closely at your professional journey did you have patterns and reactions that repeated themselves? Frequent conflicts with your boss/coworkers/employees, repetitive lack of follow-through with long-term projects, boom and bust cycles, business or career stagnation,…these are great indications that you have unconscious beliefs that are holding you back.
I used to find problems in every opportunities that came my way, even the best. It was a great way to never fully commit to anything, to position myself like a victim and by leaving frequently and rapidly I never had to face the risk of failing. This was a wonderful strategy that my unconscious mind put in place to avoid me being hurt by failing and being criticized. Obviously it also prevented me to build anything great.
🛑 Zeroing on the big rocks
Some of your limiting beliefs are more limiting than others and also more frequent. The best way to zero in is to see the gaps between what you want and what you have. Very often the inability to follow through with a reasonable action plan demonstrates a limiting belief. Self-sabotage is the ultimate act of self-love!
If you botch your sales presentation you won’t have to risk underdelivering and disappointing the client. If you can’t fundraise, you won’t have to deal with growing your business and potentially failing. If you don’t find the right partner or employee, you won’t have to expand in a new geography and maybe be criticized. Of course, none of us are consciously telling ourselves; “Let’s sabotage myself to save me from the potential of being rejected, humiliated, and so on”. But our subconscious does.
Look at your goals and where you fall short. That is a great first step to uncover your unconscious blocks and limitations.
Procrastination, imposter syndrome, fear of public speaking, etc… are not “normal” situations for us to be endured forever. These are only symptoms, such as painful feet due to shoes that are too small. We are taught to manage the pain versus changing our shoes for a bigger size. I opted for larger shoes!
🛑 Get rid of them
Now the fun begins! Once you have a good idea of the limiting beliefs that are in your way of success, the next step is obviously to release them. Over the years I used a combo of techniques that have worked well for me and others, whether on my own or with a practitioner depending on the complexity of the matter. My recommendation is to try multiple methods as I found they tend to build on each other and also to work on your own and with practitioners.
The methods I use range from hypnosis, Neuro-Language Programming, Tapping meditation, to Sedona release, positive affirmations and visualization. I usually combine several modalities at the same time. Plenty of free resources are easily available on internet. It is a great way to get an understanding of the techniques prior to working with a practitioner.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the first limiting belief to address is that you wont be able to change or that it is not safe to change.
When working with clients we start with their business goals, set an action plan to achieve them and we then only focus on the limiting beliefs once we assess that the results are not what we wanted.
🛑 Enjoy!
Once you start delayering all the beliefs that have been with you for so long you will definitely enjoy not only more success but also more awareness, understanding and compassion on why you and others react a certain way. Instead of being on auto-pilot - if something “like this” happens to me, I automatically react “that way,” - you will be able to pause and question what reaction is even appropriate. This has been extremely helpful for my relationships with others, which is the base of any business!
The beauty of this process is that not only your business, investments and career will benefit, your personal life will too.
I hope I convinced you to dig deeper when you don’t see the business success that you expect. We tend to think that the answer is always to work harder and longer but if you were training for a marathon what would be more efficient - significantly increase your training time or removing the weights at your ankles 😊
If you want to learn more about my advisory and coaching services, please visit my website and reach out!
It is challenging to be a successful startup entrepreneur, investor or advisor. Knowing best practices and pitfalls, maximize the probabilities of success! Good luck 🙂
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