It may sound trite, but Amina AlTai believes that anything is achievable with the right mindset.
The key, in her view, is to “expand your belief system of what’s possible for you,” says AlTai, a leadership coach and author of “The Ambition Trap: How to Stop Chasing and Start Living.”
Many people are held back in their careers by “limiting beliefs,” AlTai says: negative, often subconscious thought patterns that hinder us from reaching our full potential.
For example, a common limiting belief that AlTai encounters among her clients is imposter syndrome, or feeling “not good enough.”
People with imposter syndrome often struggle with thoughts like “I’m a fraud, and someone’s going to figure out that I don’t know what I’m doing,” AlTai says.
These beliefs can cause even the most successful people to doubt their skills and competence, AlTai says, which may hold them back from pursuing major opportunities in their careers.
“It always is kind of flabbergasting to me, because I’m sitting across from these people that are so accomplished and so lovely and so kind, and have done all these amazing things in their life, and they still question themselves,” she says.
Here’s the strategy AlTai employs to help herself and her clients let go of limiting beliefs.
How to tackle limiting beliefs
Identifying the source of your negative belief is the first step to overcoming it, according to AlTai.
Typically, a limiting belief stems from a bad experience that happened in your past, she says.
For someone with imposter syndrome, the scenario could be, “I’m not good enough because I once raised my hand in elementary school, and everybody laughed when I got the answer wrong,” she says.
The next step is to challenge that belief with three specific examples that provide “evidence to the contrary.”
These scenarios should demonstrate “how you are knocking it out of the park, how you’re so amazing at your job,” and how you are the “real deal,” AlTai says.
One prompt AlTai has used to help clients access these examples is, “Tell me about the time that you felt really grounded and empowered in your body and your vision,” she says.
They might respond with something like, “There was this time that I was leading a room, and I got off the stage and everybody told me what an amazing perspective I had.”
AlTai tells her clients to set aside time and repeat those positive examples to themselves every day until “their brain does that as a default,” she says.
This strategy is based on neuroplasticity, she says: in order to combat the “ingrained belief and pathway that you’re not good enough,” you have to practice and establish a new belief.
Crucially, AlTai emphasizes that her “prescription” for tackling a limiting belief varies for each person, “because it has to be based on your story.”
“It has to be really specific to their lived experience, otherwise the brain won’t believe us,” she says.
Still, looking outward for positive examples can be helpful, she says.
“Look for the people that have done the thing that you want to do,” she says — it can “expand your belief system of what’s possible for you.”
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