Leadership Mindset: How Beliefs Can You & Your Team Back & How to Change the Game

Let’s start with this simple fact: what we previously thought impossible happens everyday. 

When then, do we hesitate so much when it comes to going after what we want? Why don’t we believe that we can do it?  Limiting beliefs are one of the most common reasons for under-performance (or even non-performance) in your personal or professional life for both leaders and their employees.

More often than not, this comes from a defensive pessimism. The mind is programmed to protect us; ‘If I dare, I could get hurt’. We want to protect ourselves from failing, from being rejected or judged; because we know that those things are painful. 

The possibility of embarrassment is enough to have most people retreating back to the safe zone. In the work space, this fear can hold us back in many ways. 

We could be holding on to incredibly creative ideas because we're too worried to share them. 

We may not offer vital feedback for fear it will be ill-received. 

We may allow our colleagues to present the work for fear we might get something wrong. 

It boils down to a lack of trust from within:

“What if I go for it and mess it up? They’ll pass me over for promotion!” 

“What if it all goes right and I can’t handle the responsibility that comes with success?”

Why is it so hard to get out of our own way?

Here’s the thing: it would be so much easier if you were willing to believe that it’s all possible. You have to dare to dream. You have to believe that something different can happen. 

Which is standard motivational speak, right? Wrong; because this is Life Ladder. 

We do the science-part that drives cognitive change to happen. 

We help you dispel limiting beliefs by creating fundamental changes through repeated re-wiring techniques. From a neurological perspective, the mind is able to accept these changes because we are using the cognitive filters that distort, delete and memorise information on a deeper level.  

You won’t need motivational quotes to spur you into action, you become your own motivational quote, you’ll already be motivated and on-the-ball. 

Having said that, we all love a motivational quote when it punctuates a point, so here’s one to round that off:

Much like the butterfly, you have everything you need to metamorphose into something new; and so does your entire staff force. Sounds too good to be true? It’s not. 

Keep reading for a taste of how you can achieve it. 

Recognise your limiting beliefs

As humans, we make sense of the world based on what we can see, hear, smell, taste and touch. We gather information based on our sensory functions. 

This is why we like to work with what’s immediately obvious: what’s there now; instead of what could be there or what's below the surface. 

Limiting beliefs are actually pretty easy to identify once you have the right tools and framework. They hide in plain sight, and are habitual patterns in our subconscious minds. These beliefs often come from memories; things that we picked up when we were young, unkind words that have been said to us, events that have happened at work etc. 

So how do they manifest themselves? Usually in ways like this:

• I can’t
• I’ll never
• I’m not 
• Because ‘X’
• I don’t deserve 
• It's too hard 
• It’s not possible
• They’ll think 
• They’ll never 

Believe it or not, you can transform these thought responses. By interrogating these beliefs, you can uncover the positive side of them. Like so:

“I’ll never get my head around this spreadsheet because I’m no good at numbers” 

becomes  “I’m smart enough to learn how to do this”.

You can also directly challenge this type of belief:

“How do I know for a fact that I’ll never get my head round this? It’s not an impossible task.”

How your memories can hold you and your team back

We all have a history behind us. We’ve all got a back catalogue of experiences and decisions that went well, and ones that went… not so well. 

You may not realise it, but you subconsciously move through life based on these experiences and decisions. They have the power to hold you back or catapult you forward. 

You made subconscious agreements when things went badly; never to put yourself in that position again.

And that’s why it can be so tough to believe in yourself in the present. 

A bad memory being triggered can make you feel sick, knots in the stomach, hot and flustered. They don’t even have to be objectively severe to trigger such a response.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could clear such memories? Get them out of the way?

You can start that process now, here’s a re-wiring tool: 

n.b* - We don’t recommend this tool for particularly painful or traumatic memories

When you’re in a leadership role, you know all too well that it can be challenging to change people's mindsets. Finding out how employees think and feel is no small or easy task. The tool above is an example of just one of the ways that tools on the Life Ladder professional development journey adds ease to the life of the manager, helping individuals empower themselves by becoming aware of the root causes holding them back and giving them the know-how change their behaviours.

Feel free to share this blog with members of your team, or anyone who might benefit from this right now.