Can’t Achieve your Bigger Goals? It May Be Time to Look Within

If you aren’t achieving your bigger goals, it may be because of a limiting belief or resistance to change. Don’t let that hold you back and prevent you from reaching your own definition of success. It’s time to look within, so that you can finally make significant progress towards your bigger goals.

Start By Overcoming Limiting Beliefs

Limiting beliefs constrain our potential, hinder our progress and prevent us from achieving our goals. These long held beliefs are true for you in your brain and they impact how you see the world, make decisions, and see yourself. They can be deeply ingrained and difficult to overcome, but the good news is that they can be addressed and challenged with the right mindset and strategies.

How Can You Challenge Your Limiting Beliefs?

Start with the awareness that they exist for you and ask yourself if you still want to hold on to that belief. For example, one of my limiting beliefs was that I wasn’t creative. Fast forward to adulthood, and I took an art journaling class online with Brene Brown. The art journal I created turned out so much better than I thought it would! Going through that process changed my limiting beliefs from…I am not creative to I am creative!

Reframing Negative Self-Talk

Going through that experience helped me to reframe my negative self-talk to a more positive view of myself. I also did a lot of journaling at that time. Here is an exercise that you could try if you want to reframe your limiting beliefs.

• Take five minutes and write out any of the negative statements that you think about yourself. For example: I can’t take that promotion because I don’t have all the requirements that they are asking for
• Take each of those and turn them into positive statements. For example:I have a majority of the requirements of this potential role and I know that I can learn the rest of them.
• Create action steps to prove to yourself that those limiting beliefs are no longer true for you. Pick two or three of the limiting beliefs that you want to focus on and identify actions that you can take. Evaluate your progress and your success to reaffirm that you are growing and changing.

Building Self-Awareness

The important part of this exercise is that it will increase your self-awareness. It will help you see yourself differently and give you the motivation to start taking new actions that change that belief and shift your thinking for the long term. This process won’t completely eliminate the limiting thought right away. However, it will teach you how to have that thought and shift it to a positive one quickly, so you can rewire those long held beliefs to be positive.

This process will work for both your professional and your personal life. If you aren’t achieving your bigger goals, it may be because of a limiting belief. Don’t let it hold you back and prevent you from reaching your own definition of success!

Don’t Resist Change, Embrace It.

I remember sitting in the conference room with my peers and my manager at the time my company underwent a merger, discussing what possible roles there would be in the newly combined company. I had not committed to staying or leaving up until that point. My manager mentioned a role that there would be for me and asked me to consider it. As he described the details of the position, I immediately felt a huge pain in my stomach. My body was sending me a sign to pay attention.

This is known as resistance. I think of it as a self-protection mechanism that tells me to dig deeper into what is happening to me. It occurs when I have a big career decision or a choice that I need to make in my personal life. This pain acted like a warning system and told me that I should leave the company so I could do something else. Although it was a scary thought after being at the company for so long, as soon as I made the decision to leave, I immediately felt better. The pain left, and I knew that I would be okay. I trusted that it was the right decision for me.

Have you had something like this happen to you? It may happen when you try something new or attempt something that is out of your comfort zone. You may also experience it in a different way than I did. Not everyone feels it in their stomach. Some people feel it in their heads or in their chests. Think back to a big decision you have had to make. Did you experience a physical symptom in your head, chest, or stomach that was sending a signal to get your attention? What did you do when that happened? You have a choice to ignore it or dive deeper into what is going on.

Self-Trust

I have continued to see resistance show up in multiple situations for me, and now I know that I need to explore why it is happening. It has given me a way to make decisions about what I should or shouldn’t do. My self-trust level has increased because I know now that it will let me know if I am heading down the wrong path. That gut feeling has only grown stronger for me over time and has helped me have more confidence that I am doing the right things.

Recently, I was going to launch something that would have been new and different for me. I kept struggling with pieces of it because they didn’t feel right. My head was telling me that what I wanted to do should work fine, but something wasn’t right. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I felt that pain in my stomach again. I made the decision to pause what I was going to do. The pain went away, and I immediately felt better.

Better Opportunities

The interesting outcome that happened as soon as I made that decision, was that a bunch of new opportunities came my way. None of these new things that came along were in any way expected, but I do believe that they are the best choices for me right now and will help me bring the message of visibility to a bigger group of people. There is a quote from John Maxwell, who is an author of multiple books and a well known speaker on leadership topics that says, “Learn to say no to the good, so you can yes to the best.”

Now it is your turn. Is there anything that you need to say no to that isn’t good enough for you? What if you could receive something better to put in its place? The next time that you feel any kind of resistance, slow down and explore what may be happening to you. Is the feeling that you have to try to tell you something that you may not have recognized on your own? Is it giving you guidance to lead you down another path? That path may offer you an even better opportunity, just like it did for me!

Susan M Barber, Author, Podcast Host, Former Fortune 500 IT Director, turned Certified Executive Coach helps business leaders to play bigger, increase their visibility and finally, shine a light on their leadership strengths so they can elevate their position in the workplace. She brings a depth of business knowledge to her coaching from her 25+ years of leadership experience at Kraft Heinz. As the author and podcast host of The Visibility Factor, she is creating a visibility movement for leaders to show their value and be seen for their true talent. Susan is married with three children and lives in the Chicago area.