So you have plenty of qualifications and you work really hard but your career is proving a disappointment. Success in life comes not from our qualifications but from how we think.
I’m working with a woman at the moment… and she is stuck. She has been stuck in the same role for too long.
Is she stuck because of her qualifications? No, she has an engineering degree and an MBA. Stuck because she has not achieved anything? No, her CV is outstanding. Stuck because there are no jobs out there? No, there are plenty of jobs.
She is stuck with the limitations she has created for herself in her head. She is looking for the perfect role and can’t find it. The result? 10 years in a role that is ‘way off’ perfect.
There is no such thing as perfect. Self-imposed beliefs prevent us from seeing the world and the possibilities it presents us.
Our self-imposed beliefs make world seem much smaller than it really is. It’s a bit like looking at the world through a window that is small and dirty.
So how did we end up looking at the world through a small dirty window?
Basically ‘stuff happens’. Things happen to us in our lives and we make decisions in response. For example, when my son was three, a little white dog jumped up on him. Now, he hates little white dogs. He made a decision at the time that he would never trust a little white dog and he would spend the rest of his life avoiding little white dogs. He is not even conscious that he made this decision – this decision sits in his unconscious. Now, he just knows that he hates little white dogs. The window of life just got smaller and dirtier.
We also inherit our beliefs and values from our parents. When our parent says, “Don’t pick up leaves and sticks because they are dirty,” we learn that sticks and leaves are dirty – making picnics and camping in nature unpleasant. Our window gets dirtier and dirtier. Many parents teach their children that the world is an unsafe place. Their children carry this belief for their whole lives.
So how do we change the way we think?
- Understand that you are looking through a small and dirty window
- Don’t say ‘no’; say ‘maybe’
- Say ‘yes’ even if you don’t know how to do it just yet; you will work it out
- Ask yourself if something really is true or just ‘a story you made up in your head’
- Think bigger – if you don’t ‘think big’ you will never ‘be big’
Jenny presents a keynote called, ‘The Thinking Habits of Confident Women – and how to learn them”. This can be presented at no cost to your organisation as part of a ‘lunch and learn’ or other format. It includes:
- Understanding your mission and purpose
- Playing to your strengths
- Dealing with blockers to success
- Developing a constructive, resilient and growth-focused mindset
- Dealing with dark times and how to filter feedback
