Overcoming Limiting Beliefs to Unlock Your True Potential

Have you ever gotten to a point where you realised that, although the people in your circle mean well by advising you against doing something, it sometimes becomes necessary to say, “Thank you! However, I believe I will manage on my own from here.” It could be a sibling advising you to not take the leap and start your own business, or a friend discouraging you from going on a solo date because ‘eating alone is awkward’, or maybe even a close colleague advising you to stay at that job you have been thinking about leaving because the job market is extremely dry. Realise that all these come from a good place. However, it is also important to recognise when unjustified fear and limited beliefs may be stunting your growth. What sets apart a leader from the rest of the crowd is the ability to still make your own decisions and act upon them, even when it puts you at risk of being unpopular. Leaders do not become leaders from blending in. In fact, it requires you to be comfortable with being the odd one out.

What are limiting beliefs? Simply put, they are those false perceptions about oneself or the world that restrict one from reaching one’s true potential. These beliefs are often based on fear or past negative experiences and can hold one back by creating a reluctance to take risks or pursue new opportunities. Some examples of limiting beliefs include hearing things like “you are too old to learn a new skill”, “it’s too late to change careers”, “only men can do this”, “I don’t have enough money to start a business” and the one that gets me the most is “I am too young to be in a leadership role”. The danger of limiting beliefs is that when they are not identified and dealt with, they can manifest themselves in social settings and professional spaces.

I am reminded of the time when I would call my friends and family to get their thoughts about me changing careers. I was met with a wide variety of opinions. There was the first group that said “Wait! You are a mom. What will you do when you struggle to get another job?”. Then there was the second group that said “Girl, you have been anticipating this new chapter of your life for quite a while now. Do it!”. When comparing the two groups, I realise that the first group operated from a place of fear and believed in having something to fall back on should things go south. Their basis being the negative experiences of people they know who went through a similar journey. The second group (my favourite group), believed strongly in following your intuition. They also believe that desires exist to confirm that there is another version of yourself (perhaps your future self) that already has the thing you desire, and that perhaps the only thing standing in between you and your goals is yourself. They know that limiting beliefs exist, but they intentionally choose to focus on the positive attributes and those capabilities that will allow them to reach their goals.

Overcoming Limiting Beliefs in Organisations

Organisations often wonder why they struggle to meet their strategic goals, despite investing resources in world-class talent recruitment services or expensive team building and culture change initiatives. Performance targets are set but never met. What they do not realise is that employees may have been highflyers in their previous jobs but come and struggle in their new roles because the environment they now find themselves in is not conducive for growth. It is a lot like removing a rose from a rich and healthy field where it thrived amongst other roses, planting it in the desert with no nutrients or water, and expecting it to flourish. In some cases, the new environment may be perfect for other plants, say maybe lilies or dandelions, but may not be setup for the rose to thrive. I am sure you are familiar with the phrase that says, “if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid”. The same occurs if you do not have the right metrics for measuring performance.

The expensive mistake that most organisations make is spending precious time and resources trying to get employees to align with strategic goals when really, the productive approach would have been to spend time getting to know their teams, their strengths and weaknesses and allocating goals that complement their strengths. Instead of adopting the “my way or the highway” or the “we have always done things this way” approach to strategic goal setting and performance management, perhaps a unique approach to implement would be to ask your teams, “what skills do we have now in our possession that will allow us to reach our goals, and how can we utilise them in the most effective way possible?” This question helps with keeping track of current surpluses or deficits in skills (knowledge) and resources, determining where the need to invest in development is, and lastly, setting up systems that translate this information into actions.

Once the required skills and resources have been identified and allocated, the next question to ask would be, “How do we cultivate and maintain a culture of growth and excellence?” For organisations that want to take things even further, I encourage conducting an internal survey to find out what are some of the limiting beliefs that are holding the teams back. Once those limiting beliefs have been identified, they should then be replaced with a set of new positive beliefs and mantras. For example, replace “we have always done things this way” with “ideas can come from anywhere” or “creativity is a skill that can be learned”.

Your Responsibility as a Leader

Being a leader requires you to be fully aware of your personal limiting beliefs. Above and beyond possessing the ability to influence and lead teams, organisations or even institutions, the most important characteristic of an effective leader lies in the ability to lead oneself. As an individual, you have various aspects of yourself that require alignment for you to move forward and succeed in all your endeavours. If you have too much internal conflict and lack the ability to silence the noise (and the limiting beliefs), you may be at risk of making poor decisions which can be costly to yourself and the organisation you lead.

When it comes to making decisions and driving change, there will often exist two opposing groups or mindsets: 1) the conservative group that feels that much is still yet to be done prior to taking the leap, and 2) the group that will ask “When do we start? " Both groups mean well in their approach. Your responsibility as a leader is to figure out which group/mindset best serves you at that point in time. The truth of the matter is that there are times when waiting is crucial to allow for planning and preparation. And there are also times when diving in right away saves you from missing out on opportunities. The effective leader knows and understands the important role each group plays and embraces both their strengths and shortcomings. What is important to remember is that if that opinion or belief does not serve you at that point in time, it may be best to put it aside and park it for the sake of progress. Leaders that have done the work know when it is necessary to do this.