I have always been slightly uncomfortable with the phrase “self-limiting beliefs. This is not to suggest that these beliefs do not exist. I see them regularly in my coaching work with leaders, clients and candidates. The difficulty is that the phrase itself can reinforce the idea that we are limited in what we can do, what we can achieve and who we can be.
A more constructive way to think about them is as stories. We all live stories, we tell ourselves stories about who we are, what we’re capable of, how other people see us and what is possible for us. Over time, those stories can become so familiar that we stop questioning them. Because we experience the world through our own belief system, what feels like an objective truth can actually be a story we’ve been telling ourselves for years.
It is also important to remember that those stories are there for a reason. These beliefs are, in many ways, here to protect us, a sort of evolutionary response. For example, if you’re standing on the edge of a cliff your instinct is to think, don’t jump. That’s not a negative belief but a protective mechanism.
The problem is when that same protective instinct starts telling us we shouldn’t take a step towards something because we might fail, or that we’re not capable enough, confident enough or intelligent enough. This is when limiting belief can become entrenched and hard to break. It is hard to break the cycle however if we are aware of how some automatic negative thoughts become a limiting belief, we can switch our frame to more of an empowering belief.
When I’m working with someone, I’m interested in understanding what sits underneath the belief:
A belief is not a fact and so more of our focus should be on empowering beliefs rather than dwelling on ‘self-limiting’ beliefs as they do nothing to move us forward.
I see the impact of beliefs and stories in my work particularly with women returning to work after a career break.
There can be a very strong sense of “if only”: if only I didn’t have to juggle my family, I could be different; if only I hadn’t made that decision, I would be further ahead; if only I had invested more in my career, I’d be a stronger leader.
I would always encourage people, and I include myself in this, to challenge the belief behind the statement. How do I know this is true? Is this true for me now? Was it true at some point in the past? Is it actually true for my current reality?
From my experience and from a leadership point of view, the best leaders are the ones who examine their beliefs consistently and allow themselves to believe something different about their own potential.
One of the beliefs I hear most often when coaching is some version of “I’m not enough”.
- I’m not capable enough.
- I’m not intelligent enough.
- I’m not confident enough.
- I’m not doing enough.
The word “enough” can be incredibly destructive because there is always another measure against which we can decide we haven’t quite made it.
So I like to flip the question: what if I were enough and what would that look like? Then I try to approach challenges with the mentality of ‘ I am worthy’.
It can feel a little bit like braving the wilderness, entering a situation where you might not know everything about what you are talking about or how to deliver it but it’s about holding onto that belief that you can do this and that you can learn.
I often say it’s not the do, it’s the be.
For example if you would normally say ‘I don’t have the confidence to do it’, that would be a negative story/self limiting belief. If you embrace it, without knowing what you’re going to see or meet, that can become an empowering belief. One that hasn’t yet been uncovered or affirmed out loud.
Confidence isn’t necessarily about being fearless or certain. Sometimes it’s simply being willing to take the next step when you don’t know what you are heading in to.
You also probably have way more empowering beliefs during your day but we often cloak them in negative stories. Self-belief is a really fundamental bedrock for coaching, and when you become aware of how we are born out of our own beliefs and thoughts you can pay attention to how negative that story can grow within your head if you let it.
This mindset also changes the way we think about achievement. We put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves to achieve, particularly in professional life, in comparison to say 5-10 years ago.
We can become so focused on the outcome that we forget to recognise progress. Yet it’s important to recognise we do what we can with what we have available to us each day.
Some days you might wake up firing on all cylinders. Other days, perhaps you’re operating at 40%. That doesn’t mean the day is lost. Even with that 40%, you can make an element of improvement. One tiny step forward is still a marginal gain.
If you make an eighth of a marginal gain tomorrow and another eighth the following day, eventually you’ve made a significant marginal gain, even if you weren’t particularly aware of it happening at the time.
I think we need to be much kinder to ourselves about what progress looks like because nobody needs fixing, everyone is on a journey.
That is very much how I approach coaching. Someone might come to me saying, “I want to get this particular job,” but that’s their endpoint. I don’t start there, I take them all the way back to self:
Do you believe it? Yes, no, maybe.
Okay, what do you need to believe to take one tiny step towards that bigger goal?
Sometimes we have to peel the onion right back to its core. What do you believe? Why do you believe it? Who told you that? Do you believe it’s true? Is it serving you? Is it still a benefit to you now?
And sometimes that process can be raw. I’ve had coaching conversations where someone has reached a point where they simply don’t want to continue because we’ve arrived somewhere that feels too sensitive. When that happens, we stop. There is no prize for forcing the conversation. Sometimes people need some time to sit with what has come up and return to it when they’re ready. I see the same thing when I’m helping candidates prepare for interviews. I can observe what somebody is showing me that they may not necessarily see in themselves. And that’s often where the real work begins.
Because the role of the coach isn’t to make someone feel that they aren’t already the best version of themselves they can be today. It’s to hold someone in positive regard for everything they are bringing into the conversation, while gently challenging them to think about something in a slightly different way.
This is particularly important in leadership. Leaders are under enormous pressure to do more, achieve more and deliver outcomes against increasingly critical timelines. Yet if there is no room to fail, there is very little room for learning after failure. I use the word fail, but if you don’t fall to your knees sometimes, you don’t know what good looks like when you stand up again. The strongest leaders I see are able to give people space to be who they are. They allow people not to know everything. They allow fear to be present without allowing fear to dictate what happens next and they model that themselves. People need to know that somebody has their back and so sometimes leadership is simply being able to say, “I’ve got you.” That takes humility, community and compassion. And I don’t see that as soft leadership. I see it as really empowering leadership.
One of the things that struck me recently on a coaching course in Paris was the idea of a leader having a “disclaimer”. It might simply be: “Today, I’m really low on energy. If I don’t give you the cues that I’m interested, please don’t interpret that as me being distracted. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
It’s a very simple thing to say, but it humanises the leader. It says: I am self-aware enough to know where I am today, and I’m not going to make you responsible for interpreting it. This is the language leaders of today and tomorrow need to become much more comfortable with.
Ultimately, unlocking potential is at the heart of personal development. Your potential is not my version of your potential. It is your own version of your own potential. We can support somebody. We can coach them. We can create an environment where change is possible. But we cannot decide for another person who they should become.
Your environment can support change, but unless you are making the change for yourself, you can’t expect your external environment to make it for you. That isn’t meant to be harsh, I actually think it’s empowering, because it means the potential is yours. You get to question the stories you’ve been carrying. You get to ask whether the beliefs you’ve been living by are still true. You get to decide what still serves you and you get to take the next tiny step.
Perhaps that’s the shift we need to make. Not trying to eliminate every self-doubt or “fix” ourselves, but becoming sufficiently self-aware to recognise the stories we’re living by and decide whether we still want them to write the next chapter.
That is ultimately what I try to create through coaching: the space to step back, question what we have come to believe about ourselves, and consider what might be possible when we look at those beliefs differently.
Sometimes the next step is small. But it can still change the direction of the journey.
