What allows someone to achieve the results they desire in the workplace – or in life - while others strive, but stop short of their dreams? I believe it revolves around choice. Sometimes we make a conscious choice to let our dreams go, but more often, it’s the choices at the unconscious level that sabotages our efforts at success.
When I think of my experiences coaching people over the last twenty-five years, those who experience greater success and happiness have blazed their own trail and made choices aligned with what they want and expect from life. For these folks, no isn’t an option. They create their own destiny. The knowledge of why they want something is internal and pinnacle; so much so, bringing their aspirations to life is intuitive and non-negotiable. When looking at crossroads, they make the choice to persevere. They say yes to more.
Conversely, one of my frustrations was watching employees hand their power over by limiting their paths to success. It’s as if there was an invisible fence that forced them to think and act small, and their choices followed suit. The fence was often decorated with self-limiting beliefs and the ever popular “yeah-but” strategy. Yeah, I would (should, could) but….I don’t have the education, experience, aptitude….it’s not my job….it’s outside of my expertise.
For years I wondered what created these self-imposed limitations. I certainly knew we weren’t handing out this apparatus in new hire orientation, because I saw some of the same tendencies in myself and I don’t recall getting schooled on the invisible fence policy or receiving any new device to wear while at the office.
The reality is that by the time we enter the workforce, we have created our own unique view of the world – the way we see things and our rules of how life works. We have defined our values that guide us in our decision making and construct our view of right and wrong. Also, we have created a set of beliefs that instills self-inflicted boundaries that keep us operating within the framework of what we believe is possible. In general terms, we are introduced to our rules of life through our early years and these are solidified by early adolescence. By the time we are leaving high school, we have cemented a clear set of values and beliefs into our psyche and these become our invisible fence. The values guide us, but the beliefs are meant to protect us; they define how far we think we can run before we hit the electrical current that says, “don’t go there – that’s out of bounds!”
Our beliefs, or boundaries if you will, start as important anchored memories with emotional significance. So although they might start as a potential life lesson, at some point we start making decisions that align with our internal representational system of what’s true and it morphs into a belief. Beliefs turn into habitual ways of feeling, thinking and behaving. For instance, if you were taught that money is scarce and hard to come by, your unconscious mind will guide you to make choices and find experiences to align with your understanding of how the flow of money happens. This could make you a person who invests conservatively, but well, and an expert at saving for a rainy day. On the down side, you might have low expectations for yourself when it comes to your earning potential in your career. You make job choices and gear your expectaions on the career front from a viewpoint of hardship and scarcity. After all, you don’t want to get zapped by moving out too far...so, you stay inside the lines while you notice that others’ parameters (and earning potential) seem to stretch to the next state, or beyond.
Unfortunately, we are not always aware of our limiting beliefs as they operate on our behalf often without our conscious knowledge. Our unconscious mind instead whispers in your ear what you are capable of in life based on the truths we’ve distorted and made our own. We are on autopilot.
Let me give you a real life example. One of my clients in the career empowerment group is looking to derive more meaning from her work. As a family, they decided that one parent would always be home to care for the children when they made the choice to be parents; she opted to play the stay-at-home role and work part-time outside the home. During a session we discovered that she believes she does not have the capacity to be the sole bread winner, even though her husband would gladly shift roles. We are in the process of shifting that belief to open up more options for her and her family. She is an amazingly talented and more than capable of commanding equal, of not greater income, using her ideas, experiences and gifts. She is currently asking herself if this is true…really true. This entails removing judgments we've accumulated over our lifetime and seeing things through a new lens. Being open to stripping yourself of these limiting beliefs allows you to ask yourself, "who would I be without this belief?" Her new mantra is Live Up to You, so I'm feeling she's on her way!
So, if you aren’t getting the results you want, if you are feeling stuck or know you want more from your career, ask yourself, “What do I believe?” Start by being a witness to the decisions you make, the behaviors that are habitual and when you say “no” when your heart is yelling “yes!” Take the first step and commit to be more aware. As Ernest Holmes once said, our unconscious is “the taskmaster to the unwise; servant to the wise.” Wisdom starts and grows from awareness.
And, awareness starts with curiosity and paying attention…seeing things for what they are, testing assumptions and challenging or changing our beliefs as we collect new knowledge, shift perspectives and evolve in our personal development. We can guide ourselves in this process or work with a coach, but regardless of the method, don’t you think it’s time to take down that wall of electricity that keeps you fenced in?
Susan Crampton Davis is the founder of Positive Change Network (PCN), a Seattle-based consultancy that provides strategy development, coaching services and empowerment workshops around employee engagement - where she helps people to fall in love with work again.
Prior to her work at PCN, Susan enjoyed a 25-year career in human resources, most recently as a senior leader at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She has also held leadership roles at Getty Images, Amazon, Staples, HomeGrocer and W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc. She received her B.S. from Evergreen State University, where she focused on Human Resource Management and Leadership Studies, and is a certified NLP Practitioner and Hypnotherapist.
You can learn more about me and my work at www.awakeningexcellence.com.