We know that we short-change ourselves and our happiness when we stay stuck so why is it so hard to take those first steps forward?
For a long time I was in a place where I was unable to move forward. I knew I wanted to have more of an impact with my work but to progress I needed to “put myself out there” by selling, networking and speaking publicly and that felt hard, if not impossible for me. An introvert at heart, I wasn’t good at those things and I felt that lack of capability was somehow intrinsic to who I was. That kept me from even trying to step into a bigger league.
I’m not good at that.
I didn’t learn to do that.
I didn’t take the right program at school so I can’t.
I’ll just wait another year and get more experience first.
There’s too much competition.
I didn’t know that the real roadblock was a mindset that feeds and compounds self-doubt. This is where the real internal misery happened for me—and it happens to all of us who want more out of our lives but feel blocked from going after it. When you value living your potential but you can’t make choices that are alignment with those goals and values—it eats away at you.
That’s why I’m all in on helping people understand that mindset is the missing link. Mindset is about how we think and how we think is based on our belief system. We all have a belief system that is a road map into every aspect of our lives. Beliefs are the basis for what we can and can’t do. This is everything when it comes to any kind of high-performance result. I can do those things or I can’t.
Leveling up comes down to the quality of the choices we make for ourselves. As a perfectionist I had a belief that it was important to appear competent at all times otherwise it would be embarrassing. Because of that belief I could not make choices that took me out of my comfort zone because I was afraid of making mistakes and looking bad.
It’s hard to break new ground when all we can make are safe choices in areas we already know we can succeed in. We end up in a protective comfort zone, which is a deal breaker in today’s world where most of us are required to navigate many transitions personally and professionally over the course of our lives.
The real change for me happened when I learned how to skillfully manage my mindset and create an environment for myself that feels safe to fail. I see mistakes now as an opportunity to get better—not as a threat to looking bad. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care about that but it does mean that I am more resilient in the face of it. Through mindset work, I was able to enhance the quality of how I relate to myself around difficult choices and that is everything.
Mindset is not about affirmations and positive thinking. This work is deep, broad and transformative. It’s about tapping into the beliefs we have about ourselves and asking is this really true, where does this belief really come from and does believing this take me where I want to go? This is how we gain the courage and the confidence to take risks and go after what we really want.