Do you ever feel frustrated that you’re not where you want to be in your career?
Or do you feel that you have lost some of the ambition you once had?
Or do you know what you are supposed to do to achieve your goal and have the skills to do it, but something is stopping you from taking that first step?
Photo by Vadim Bogulov on Unsplash
It could be that you are holding on to some unhelpful ideas about who you are and what you are capable of achieving.
To some extent, we all have internal fears that prevent us from taking action, even when we know it's the right thing to do. Fears of embarrassment, shame, failure or of people not liking us seem irrational but actually stem from our hunter-gatherer days when this would have led to exclusion from our tribe or family - and a life of self-survival and almost certain death. These days (thankfully!), this fear is no longer rational, but our brains somehow haven’t managed to grasp that, so the fear seems very real.
Photo by Sammie Chaffin on Unsplash
Each of us will have fears in different areas:
Fear of not being liked or excluded from a group. This leads us to avoid difficult conversations for fear of upsetting people, saying yes to things we don’t want to do so we can be helpful, and seeing every slightly negative comment as a personal sleight. We become people pleasers.
Fear of not measuring up to an (imagined) standard. This leads to endless comparisons to others about their achievements, feelings of inadequacy, lots of feeling that we “should” be doing things because others are, and taking on board every piece of advice we receive. We lose ourselves and our purpose in the process.
Fear of failure. This keeps us small; we don’t try out new things in case they don’t work, we set impossibly high standards for ourselves and others, and we put in extra hours and over prepare for things. We become perfectionists.
Fear of not being good enough. This leads to us not taking credit for our successes, thinking we will be “found out” any minute now and not taking on opportunities because people like us don’t do things like that, and we shouldn’t dare to be so bold. We feel like imposters.
Whichever fear we identify with, it will manifest itself in a negative critical voice that prevents us from overcoming the limiting belief. The first step to overcoming the fear is to engage with the inner critic. I’ve written more about this here, but here are a few things to get you started:
Listen carefully to the voice and what it’s saying to try and identify the fear. See this information as data that tells you more about yourself, not that you are a good or bad person. If it helps, try and distance yourself from the voice - see it as a different person rather than part of you.
Name the emotion you feel (whether fear or otherwise), and acknowledge it. By naming it, you can do something with it.
Don’t judge or be too harsh on yourself for feeling these things. Recognise that those fears served a purpose earlier in our evolution - and will take millennia to go away.
Try not to react in the moment. Spend time using the rational part of the brain to think about what you need to do next. What would help you move forward, even if it's just a small step? How can you go slightly out of your comfort zone? What support is available?
Make a note of your achievements. Those times when you “felt the fear and did it anyway”. Know that you can do this!
If you would like to talk further about what’s preventing you from moving forward, contact me at helen@helentuddenhamconsulting.com, and we can have an informal chat about how a coaching programme could help.