Breaking through the barriers: address those unhelpful beliefs & finally achieve your goals!

Posted November 9th, 2009 by admin

Find yourself ‘stuck’ in a situation that you just can’t get yourself out of? Have you considered that perhaps the underlying beliefs you have about yourself and the situation may be keeping you locked in this negative cycle?

As a career coach I’ve had many clients who have found themselves stuck in a vicious cycle because of limiting beliefs. Do you have any limiting beliefs blocking you from reaching your goals or achieving real success?

When I think of limiting beliefs I compare it to a ‘thought’ virus. Just like a computer virus a ‘thought’ virus can cause immense destruction if you let it. Like a virus, our limiting beliefs are a self-fulfilling prophecy that interferes with our ability to heal, improve, and achieve the dreams and goals we want for ourselves.

To give you an example of how powerful our beliefs are, and how they can impact our outcomes and results, we’re going to review two scenarios.

Imagine a person having the following unhelpful beliefs:
• I’m not good at selling myself
• I don’t really have any real impressive accomplishments in my career
• I haven’t got the skills to support me in making a transition to a new role
• I’m too old for a career change – I’m too old to go back to study
• I’ll never be able to find a job that I really love.

Let’s look at the impact these unhelpful beliefs could have when this person attends an interview:

Belief: ‘I’m not very talented and don’t really have any hope of getting through the interview or being offered the job.’ [leading to...]

Why bother to research the company and practice my interview techniques? [leading to...]

I just know the other candidates are going to have far more experience than me. I know I’m going to make a fool of myself. [leading to...]

I feel so hopeless and uninterested in preparing for the interview. [leading to...]

I don’t perform well at all in the interview. [leading to...]

I notice when I answer a question incorrectly (which makes me even more nervous and incapable of answering any further questions appropriately). [leading to...]

I ruin all chances of impressing the interviewer. [leading to...]

I receive a ‘you were not successful’ letter in the mail. [leading to...]

I confirm and prove my belief to myself, which is:

Belief: ‘I’m not very talented and don’t really have any hope of getting through the interview or being offered the job.’

So you can see that this person’s limiting beliefs became a self-fulfilling prophecy that interfered with their ability to prepare and present themselves professionally at the interview, unfortunately confirming their unhelpful belief to themselves that ‘they are not talented and have no real hope of getting through the interview’.

One of my favourite sayings is: ‘where your attention goes your energy flows’. In other words, what you focus your attention and energy on is what you will attract into your life. Now if we look at the above situation, that person’s attention is focused primarily on the negative which therefore created and delivered a negative outcome for the client. They went full circle to create exactly what they ‘had [unfortunately] believed’.

If we take the exact same job seeker but change the limiting beliefs to more positive and empowering beliefs, let’s see what impact that would have on the sequence of events.

Belief: ‘I am skilled, have a lot to offer an employer, so have a great chance of getting through the interview and being offered the job.’ [leading to...]

I research the company and practise my interview techniques. [leading to...]

I visualise myself building rapport with the interviewer and being able to answer all their questions professionally. [leading to...]

I feel confident and ready to meet the interviewer. [leading to...]

I connect instantly with the interviewer and respond well to the questions. [leading to...]

I notice when I impress the interviewer with my responses. [leading to...]

I strengthen my position as a strong candidate for the role. [leading to...]

I have been invited to the next round of interviews. [leading to...]

I confirm and prove my belief to myself, that:

Belief: ‘I am skilled, have a lot to offer an employer, so have a great chance of getting through the interview.’

What an impact this has on this person’s job search and interview. Simply by changing the belief and their attention in a positive way their energy, thoughts, and actions were all positive allowing for a far more positive outcome.

Do you have any unhelpful and limiting beliefs that are currently holding you back from achieving the goals that you would like to change?

Maybe you find yourself continuously failing to make it to the second stage in your interviews and are feeling quite hopeless and unable to pinpoint exactly why this is? You may have considered changing jobs for some time, however feel apprehensive about submitting a job application because you doubt your skills and experience? Perhaps you may be feeling unworthy of putting yourself forward for that promotion – how could you compete with everyone else in your department?

Annemarie Cross is a Radio Host of CareerSuccessRadio.com, a Career Coach, Personal Branding Strategist, a triple certified multi award-winning Professional Resume Writer and Author of ’10 key steps to Ace that Interview’.

(Via Career Rocketeer – Career Search and Personal Branding Blog.)

In the modern job search, the littlest of things can make a HUGE impact. There are tons of little things that go into making a successful online job search and the more you know the better prepared you can be when you see the ideal job posting.
Today, there are consulting services and career coaches with whom you can expect to spend thousands of dollars for advice; literally, thousands of dollars for career consulting, career coaching, interview coaching, resume consulting, personal brand coaching and much, much more.

But what about the rest of us, who are unable to spend the exorbitant sums needed for these types of services? What if I (the modern job seeker) have questions about my job search, my resume, and my upcoming interview?
The answer is MyOnlineCareerCoach.com.

For other great articles, check these:

Creating Your Position: Market yourself as the perfect candidate for your “dream job/career
Economic and Political Cartoons to Think About
Graphs, Stats; About the Economy
Don’t Be Like This Alpha Dog -Funny Tips for the Job Seeker
How Personal Branding Works and Its Affect on Your Job Search