“Self doubt”, “Fear of the unknown”, “Believing you’re incapable”. These mental roadblocks are detrimental to our progress and growth as individuals, not only in the workplace but in our lives. Now, I believe it’s completely normal to sometimes doubt our abilities and lack confidence from time to time, but constant inaction due to our own self-limiting beliefs are what prevent us from taking steps to reach our goals.
Throughout the years, I’ve experienced different mishaps and failures in my life that have occasionally shaken my confidence and warped my perception of my capabilities. Whether it’s saying the wrong thing in a professional setting or someone telling me I’m horrible at something, these specific moments in life can solidify our beliefs about ourselves. However, it’s important to recognize that what we and others tell ourselves isn’t necessarily the truth. You can push forward and overcome some of these things holding you back from pursuing your dreams with just a few mindset shifts. So with that, here are the top 3 things holding you back from pursuing your dreams as well as how you can overcome them.
Telling Yourself You Can’t Do Something
The words we tell ourselves matter. Telling ourselves internally that we can’t achieve something, and even worse, speaking those thoughts into existence, forms a self-limiting belief and sets a self-imposed standard that becomes hard to break. From personal experience, I know early negative experiences as a kid can shape our confidence and form our initial thoughts on what we are and aren’t good at. If you get a D in Biology as a high school student, that one instance might lead you to form a belief that you can never be a successful doctor or medical professional. If you take slower to become good at a certain skill, you might be led to believe that you’re not cut out for a certain path. These self limiting beliefs from early life experiences are nothing but roadblocks in the way of achieving your full, capable potential.
“If you say you can’t do something, you never will.”
The language you use matters. That’s why it’s important to train yourself to rewire your preconceived beliefs. Here are some actions you can take to form new believes in place:
- Say you can do something out loud, or even better write it. Even repeating to yourself that you can do something, or writing it down, is the first step to achieving what you might have thought wasn’t possible.
- Dedicate just 10 minutes a day to learning a new skill. Learning will slowly build up your confidence and allow you to feel more sure of yourself and your abilities. Although just a few minutes each day sounds like nothing, over time it would be 70 minutes a week which adds up over the course of a year!
- Break your goals down into smaller, more achievable tasks. Smaller tasks are easier to complete and help you build confidence when you complete them. When completing smaller, more digestible tasks that seem “doable”, suddenly the larger tasks will become less daunting.
Believing You Don’t Deserve That Thing
Many friends have come up to me throughout the years and vocalized that they decided not to apply to that job or decided not to put themselves out there because they believe they’re not deserving, talented, or smart enough. I’m here to tell you that this is a lie! You deserve that opportunity just as much as anyone else in the world, and if someone else can achieve that job title…you certainly can too.
I once had a close friend come up to me and express that she’s not smart enough to obtain a “big girl salary”, meanwhile she had a college degree, was an extremely emotionally intelligent person, and performed better than me in subjects like math and science all throughout high school. So what was holding her back? I believe it was her mindset that told her those jobs were reserved specifically for the most intelligent people, and she wasn’t one of them. However, after working in corporate for a few years, I’ve come to learn that the most intelligent people usually aren’t the ones that advance the most in their careers. Instead it’s the people with the most confidence, drive, and willingness to build relationships with the most important people.
So, I’m here to tell you that you are 100% deserving of that new title, salary, or promotion, and here’s why:
- The truth is, you have more experience, knowledge, and expertise than you originally believed, and all your collective experience throughout the years have set you up for this new opportunity now. List out all your skills, experience, and qualifications. After taking some time to write everything down, I’m willing to bet that you have a pretty extensive list made up of all your hard and soft skills, ranging from anything like customer service and active listening to data analysis and project management.
- If that person with significantly less experience and knowledge can secure that job title or compensation, you can too. Take a look around you and really assess some of your employees titles and how they got there today. Some of them don’t have degrees, certificates, or years of experience in a specific industry, but they got the job anyway due to forming the right connections, nerve, and a bit of luck.
- People that believe they don’t deserve something are usually the ones that are most deserving. Humility and sacrifice are positive qualities to have, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t deserving of having nice things for your own. Instead, it means you’re usually the most suited for that role or opportunity.
Not Taking Yourself Seriously
That *little* project you’re working on or that *little* dream of yours, is actually a very big deal. It may not be so in other people’s eyes, but your goals and aspirations can lead to huge, life changing opportunities if you take yourself seriously and really believe in yourself. In the past, I think I had a habit of continuously downplaying my goals or projects in front of other people because I was slightly scared and embarrassed. I was critical of myself and nervous about what other people would think of me if I was attempting to try something new or put myself out there by starting a new endeavor.
However, this mindset only held me back, and I had to learn to take myself seriously if it meant progressing and moving forward in life. I had to:
- Realize I can’t control other people’s thoughts and feelings. Sure some people might think I’m “cringe” or corny, but they’re entitled to their own feelings and there’s nothing I can do to stop them. So instead of trying to change people’s perspectives of me, it’s better to just focus on myself and work on being the best version of me possible.
- Realize the risk of inaction is far greater than the risk of feeling embarrassed. I don’t want to look back decades from now and think to myself, “I wish I gave that thing my best shot or I wish I didn’t care as much about what others thought.” I found that sometimes it helps to think about what’s most important by visualizing yourself in the future. What would you regret? Personally I wouldn’t want other peoples thoughts or opinions to prevent myself from achieving something greater for myself.
I hope this post provided some useful tips on how you can overcome the obstacles holding you back from pursuing and eventually achieving your dreams. These top 3 things aren’t barriers that you’ll be able to overcome in a day, but by taking action and incorporating a few mindset shifts, reaching your goals will become that much easier over the long term.