Latest / SisterSmart Leadership / 30: Three Mental Challenges that Are Holding You Back from a Senior Leadership Role

Transcript

30: Three Mental Challenges that Are Holding You Back from a Senior Leadership Role · SisterSmart Leadership

• 0:00
  Jill: Imagine a scenario.
• 0:01
  You're booked in back to back meetings, helping the team members with everything
• 0:05
  they need to keep them going and barely any time to do your work.
• 0:10
  When you finally do get a moment for your own work, often in the evenings
• 0:13
  or the weekends, you find this great sense of relief as you start to check
• 0:16
  things off your list that have been sitting there for quite some time.
• 0:20
  The problem is, is that you never seem to get ahead long enough to be
• 0:23
  able to do the strategic work that you know you need to do for your role.
• 0:26
  That to do list is just never ending.
• 0:29
  And in fact, you might've even gotten feedback that you need to
• 0:32
  improve your strategic thinking if you want to get promoted.
• 0:35
  Maybe you don't know where to start, or maybe you simply just don't have
• 0:38
  enough time to get to that strategic work that you know you need to do.
• 0:42
  This is a common problem that I see when clients start our program.
• 0:45
  It's all too easy to get stuck in that doer role and not transition
• 0:49
  yourself into the thinker role.
• 0:51
  So if you can relate to anything in this story, you're going to want to stay tuned
• 0:54
  for this entire episode, because I'm going to talk about a subtle but powerful
• 0:58
  mindset shift that can be holding you back from achieving all that you want and more.
• 1:03
  Jill Avey: I'm Jill Avey, a career success coach, and this is Sister
• 1:06
  Smart Leadership, the show that explores how women can rise from
• 1:10
  director to vice president and beyond by fully leaning into their feminine
• 1:15
  energy as their biggest advantage.
• 1:17
  Let's get you one step closer to the recognition and promotion you deserve.
• 1:22
  Jill: The problem here is that we can often hide behind our to do list because
• 1:26
  it feels good to check things off.
• 1:28
  It gives us a sense of accomplishment.
• 1:30
  It's actually a dopamine rush, and it prevents us from having to further
• 1:34
  examine the thought patterns that are keeping us stuck where we are.
• 1:37
  Instead, we can get caught in self sabotaging thoughts like, I don't have
• 1:41
  what it takes, or it's not important for my voice to be heard, or who am I anyway?
• 1:48
  I can't see myself doing as much more than I do today.
• 1:51
  See, our inner emotional life is like a governor for our success, and
• 1:56
  we need to work through our mindset limitations to avoid getting stuck
• 1:59
  behind outdated ways of thinking.
• 2:01
  Our growth gets stunted and our potential gets cut off unless we work to
• 2:05
  expand our mindset into new territory.
• 2:08
  The mental game is every bit as important as being good at your technical skills
• 2:13
  when it comes to moving up the ladder.
• 2:14
  And it gets more important the higher you go.
• 2:17
  The good news is that it doesn't have to be a mystery how to get there.
• 2:21
  And I'm going to take you through three areas to focus
• 2:23
  on that can be life changing.
• 2:24
  The first area is self belief.
• 2:26
  This is all housed in our subconscious level of our mind, which is, it's,
• 2:30
  think of an iceberg and you only see a little bit at the top and there's the 95
• 2:35
  percent of it that's under the waterline.
• 2:37
  That's our subconscious mind.
• 2:39
  So the conscious mind would be the above of the waterline
• 2:41
  and the subconscious is below.
• 2:44
  We're operating in that subconscious mind 95 percent of our time.
• 2:49
  The thing about the subconscious is it's very old and it's formed when
• 2:53
  you're a kid, but also in adult life.
• 2:56
  It's heavily influenced by your family, your culture, media,
• 3:00
  friends, and life experiences.
• 3:02
  And the thing is it that runs on autopilot.
• 3:05
  So it's very hard to find these limiting beliefs because you've been living with
• 3:10
  them for a very long time and you don't know they're even operating because it's
• 3:14
  all happening in that subconscious level.
• 3:16
  So if they're hard to find and they're very subtle, how do we
• 3:20
  work with these limiting beliefs?
• 3:22
  And how do we even find them?
• 3:23
  So if these limiting beliefs are all operating below the system, the first
• 3:27
  step is going to be to find them to even identify what your limiting beliefs are.
• 3:33
  One of the things that we can do is just start to tune in and think
• 3:36
  about, okay, what's operating here?
• 3:38
  What belief patterns do I have?
• 3:40
  What are the things that really, define how I see the world.
• 3:44
  And that's really what our belief system is.
• 3:46
  And we have beliefs about everything.
• 3:48
  And so you start to examine them as you go and start to notice,
• 3:53
  Oh, there's a belief here.
• 3:54
  That's informing how I'm operating here.
• 3:57
  What I find more helpful is to do a discovery exercise.
• 4:00
  And we have an exercise where we do this in the Sister Smart program.
• 4:04
  And I'm going to link to that in the show notes for you so that you can do that.
• 4:08
  So sometimes we just examining common limiting beliefs and seeing if that's
• 4:12
  something that you resonate with can be really helpful because now
• 4:15
  you're you're able to identify them.
• 4:17
  And then once we can identify that we have a limiting belief and you're
• 4:23
  going to have a lot of them, you can have, easily, you know, 50 to a
• 4:27
  hundred limiting beliefs, but then you identify that you have that and then
• 4:31
  the next step would be to flip it.
• 4:33
  So if it's a limiting belief, we want to make it an unlimiting belief.
• 4:37
  So how do we do that?
• 4:38
  Okay.
• 4:38
  How do we take a belief that's been a limitation and we turn it into
• 4:42
  something that's actually helping boost us and helping drive us?
• 4:45
  What we want to do is just take that belief and just flip it around.
• 4:49
  So perhaps you have a limiting belief that you're never going to be successful.
• 4:53
  That could be something that started from way back.
• 4:56
  Even though you've had a lot of success already in your career, you
• 4:59
  may still be harboring this limiting belief from your family of origin.
• 5:04
  And this was particularly a common belief when somebody has risen up
• 5:09
  through social class and income levels.
• 5:12
  And so we can be harboring a limiting belief that I can't be successful
• 5:17
  or I'll never be successful.
• 5:19
  It's like an anchor dragging us back because it will continually drag us
• 5:24
  back to what maybe a family member said, maybe one of your parents said something
• 5:29
  like that when you were a kid and you adopted this belief and took it on.
• 5:34
  it doesn't matter where it came from, really.
• 5:37
  Sometimes that's helpful to identify where these things came from because
• 5:40
  you can say, that's not me anymore.
• 5:43
  Here's how I've changed and we can do an affirmation around this limiting belief.
• 5:47
  So in that case, you just flip it and you create an I am statement around it.
• 5:52
  So it would be, I am successful.
• 5:54
  I have had great success in the past and I will have even more in the future.
• 5:59
  That's a beautiful affirmation and you say that affirmation over and over again.
• 6:02
  And what it does is it recreates a new neural pathway in your mind, in that
• 6:07
  subconscious with this new message.
• 6:10
  And so what we want to do is we're not trying to stop the
• 6:13
  belief and start a new one.
• 6:15
  Because our brain doesn't really work that way.
• 6:17
  I like to think of neural pathways as wagon trails.
• 6:19
  Think of when the pioneers crossed the United States, there are wagon trails
• 6:24
  that got so deeply rutted because so many people use them that you can still
• 6:28
  see them today, hundreds of years later.
• 6:30
  Those trails actually started as game trails, and then
• 6:34
  people started walking on them.
• 6:36
  And then they started taking the wagons on them.
• 6:38
  And so they got more and more and more established.
• 6:42
  And so that's what we want to do is we want to establish more and
• 6:46
  more and more the positive way of thinking so that it becomes a
• 6:49
  super highway through your brain.
• 6:51
  What happens when we do that, is that old limiting belief starts
• 6:55
  to atrophy and those neural pathways will start to diminish.
• 6:59
  You can see an MRI that they lose their myelin sheath.
• 7:02
  And those wagon trails have diminished and they've filled in and the dirt
• 7:07
  has fallen in and grass has grown over them and they're hard to see now.
• 7:12
  And that's what we want to do with these limiting beliefs.
• 7:14
  So we want to de emphasize the limiting belief and we want to
• 7:18
  emphasize the new positive one.
• 7:21
  And so we want to be really careful about how we talk to ourselves and what are
• 7:25
  the things that we're saying to ourselves?
• 7:27
  And in our Sisters in Leadership program, we actually have an exercise where we take
• 7:32
  a day and monitor our self talk and hear the things that we're saying to ourselves.
• 7:37
  And then we work to, to change that.
• 7:40
  It's a really powerful exercise that has changed a lot of people's
• 7:43
  outlook on this self talk piece and how they want to be supporting
• 7:48
  themselves and encouraging themselves.
• 7:50
  And so the second area that we want to talk about here, when
• 7:53
  we're talking about shifting our mindset is facing your imposter.
• 7:57
  So what is an imposter?
• 7:58
  An imposter is that part of you that gives voice to self doubt and
• 8:03
  the saboteurs that hold you back.
• 8:06
  And this is driven by feelings of not enough, making sure that you have to get
• 8:10
  everything right, that everything has to go your way, you have to control things.
• 8:15
  This is driven by what we call these saboteurs.
• 8:18
  We do a lot of work with saboteurs in our program because it's really
• 8:22
  important to work with our saboteurs.
• 8:24
  Everybody has saboteurs.
• 8:25
  Everybody has an imposter.
• 8:27
  It's a matter of when these things come into play.
• 8:30
  So they all come out when we're doing something that is pushing
• 8:35
  ourselves out of our comfort zone.
• 8:37
  What they are, is there our mind are in our emotional systems protective
• 8:41
  mechanism to keep our ego safe.
• 8:43
  And they're brilliant at doing this.
• 8:45
  They're formed in childhood and they're formed as a result of, when
• 8:49
  we're little, we don't have a lot of tools to make sense of the world.
• 8:53
  Our imposter is formed.
• 8:54
  Our saboteurs are formed to help us understand and keep ourselves safe.
• 8:59
  So it's important not to fight these because they're kind of like
• 9:03
  a porcupine quill where if you fight them, it just digs in deeper.
• 9:07
  And that's not how we want to work with them.
• 9:09
  We have a whole half day workshop in our program where we work on becoming friends.
• 9:13
  With our imposter and working together with it.
• 9:16
  And we also do something called the PQ bootcamp, which is another
• 9:19
  way to work with our saboteurs.
• 9:21
  So we do a lot of work in this, in the program.
• 9:23
  So for, for today, I just want you to become aware of what your imposter is.
• 9:27
  Become aware of when you hear that voice of self doubt, the imposter
• 9:31
  is really It's the self doubt.
• 9:33
  It's also you might feel it physically.
• 9:35
  I feel it as a pit in my stomach.
• 9:38
  And I know when I feel that it's a little bit of a nauseous feeling.
• 9:42
  And when I feel that nauseous feeling, it's a signal to me of Oh, I'm
• 9:45
  stretching out into something new.
• 9:47
  This is a little scary for me.
• 9:50
  And this is the reaction that I'm having.
• 9:52
  And I used to shrink back and I used to, go do something else.
• 9:56
  Or I would sabotage myself in so many different ways.
• 9:59
  Trust me.
• 9:59
  There's a lot of different ways we can do that, but I would pull back
• 10:03
  in some way and not be my best self.
• 10:06
  And now I know how to work with it.
• 10:08
  Welcome that imposter in of Oh, hi, I see you here.
• 10:12
  You are again.
• 10:13
  Thanks for coming.
• 10:14
  Thanks for trying to keep me safe, but I'm going to go ahead and do this thing.
• 10:18
  Anyhow, I'm going to feel you as butterflies rather as something
• 10:22
  that I feel needs to stop me.
• 10:24
  And so that's how we can work with these feelings and we can go ahead and
• 10:29
  do the things that we want to do and be, that person that, that successful
• 10:33
  person we want to be by making that mindset shift and making friends
• 10:37
  without imposter and those saboteurs.
• 10:39
  have a client that has a really great example of this.
• 10:42
  When we first started working together, she wasn't so secure in her role.
• 10:46
  And she was a senior manager, and she wanted to get promoted to a
• 10:50
  director, when we first started talking, she also had a desire to
• 10:54
  get promoted to VP, she had told me.
• 10:57
  And then as we started working more and getting to know each other better,
• 11:01
  she reached a point where her imposter kicked in and she said, no, I don't
• 11:05
  think I want to be that VP anymore.
• 11:06
  I think I just want to be a director and that's fine.
• 11:09
  I want to be able to focus on my kids and my family.
• 11:12
  And so she was shrinking back into that.
• 11:15
  Mom role and not that there's anything wrong with a mom role, but, for
• 11:19
  her, that was a comfort zone.
• 11:21
  And so I was completely supportive of that because everybody gets to go to
• 11:25
  whatever level they want to, and whatever level is going to be fulfilling for them.
• 11:29
  And so I was a little surprised when just, about five or six months later,
• 11:33
  I had mentioned that she was just wanting to stick to the director role.
• 11:37
  And she said now I, I've changed my mind about that because she'd
• 11:41
  done a lot of this work with her imposter and her saboteurs and they
• 11:46
  were no longer holding her back.
• 11:47
  And she knew that she could go all the way for the VP role and still be the
• 11:52
  mom that she wanted to be and still be the wife that she wanted to be.
• 11:57
  And then it wasn't an either or thing.
• 11:59
  And she could really see the way.
• 12:00
  And that leads us to our third area, which is emotional fortitude.
• 12:04
  As leaders, we need a lot of this.
• 12:07
  And by this, being comfortable feeling your feelings, even the really difficult
• 12:11
  ones, not ruminating or worrying.
• 12:14
  You've got to be able to let stuff go and not hang on to it.
• 12:18
  You can't berate yourself or hang on to past mistakes.
• 12:22
  And you have to develop the ability to remain calm, no matter
• 12:25
  what is happening around you.
• 12:27
  In our program, we work on building our emotional fortitude by learning
• 12:31
  emotional intelligence and we work on identifying the feelings that you're
• 12:35
  feeling as they happen, allowing them to come up and to release in a natural way.
• 12:42
  Feelings and the associated emotions with them really only last for 90
• 12:46
  seconds unless we hang on to them.
• 12:49
  And so good emotional balance will allow us to let them wash through us.
• 12:54
  In our program, we have a framework that gives you five steps on how to
• 12:58
  process your emotions in a healthy way.
• 13:01
  So that process is to acknowledge the emotion.
• 13:04
  So first of all, label the emotion and feel it in your body.
• 13:07
  Often the emotions come with a bodily sensation.
• 13:11
  And so the more we can feel it in our body, the better we can connect
• 13:15
  with that emotion quickly and easily.
• 13:17
  The second step is to accept it.
• 13:19
  Just accept that you're having this emotion.
• 13:22
  That be harder than it sounds.
• 13:23
  It sounds like a no brainer, but sometimes we really want to push away,
• 13:28
  especially the uncomfortable emotions.
• 13:30
  It's our human nature to push those away and to resist them
• 13:34
  or even the good emotions.
• 13:36
  It's our human nature to want to cling to them and, hang on to
• 13:39
  them and want to keep them around.
• 13:41
  So if we can just accept that we're having it,
• 13:43
  Then we can have compassion to ourselves with the heart emotions, have compassion
• 13:47
  that we're feeling this emotion.
• 13:49
  you know, This human life is just not always easy.
• 13:52
  And so having that compassion for ourselves is a very important piece
• 13:57
  of this, because that really helps us to be able to let go of the emotion
• 14:01
  and not have any of that feelings of berating ourselves or kicking
• 14:05
  ourselves for any piece of this.
• 14:07
  And then fourth is to create a little distance from that emotion.
• 14:10
  Recognize that you are not your thoughts and try to see it from a little distance.
• 14:14
  So sometimes we can feel really embroiled in our emotions and feel that even our
• 14:19
  mind is the same thing as our thinking and that we are our thoughts and we're
• 14:24
  not, we're actually very different.
• 14:26
  from our thoughts.
• 14:27
  Our thoughts are the things that run through our mind, but our mind is
• 14:30
  very different from that thinking.
• 14:33
  And so if you, If you maybe meditate on that a little bit and see where your
• 14:37
  thoughts end and where you begin, it's really interesting to explore that.
• 14:41
  And so number five, is it curiosity?
• 14:44
  We can lean into it rather than push away the feeling and
• 14:47
  see what it has to say to us.
• 14:49
  So go ahead and feel it and see what wisdom is in that emotion.
• 14:53
  For example, you can, let's say you're feeling anger in the middle of a meeting.
• 14:57
  We can run through these five steps pretty quickly and easily where you're
• 15:01
  acknowledging, ah, anger is present here.
• 15:04
  I'm not anger.
• 15:06
  I'm not this thing, but I'm feeling anger or anger is present.
• 15:10
  That's the way I like to say it.
• 15:11
  It's oh, anger is here and then I can distance myself from it a little bit.
• 15:16
  see that this is just something that's, that's occurring and that curiosity to
• 15:22
  really lean into it and say, hmm, okay, what does that have for me to learn from?
• 15:26
  And anger is usually just a signal that our boundaries are being crossed or
• 15:32
  that something's really important to us.
• 15:33
  We feel passionate about it.
• 15:35
  And so then that can really help us to figure out where do I go from here.
• 15:39
  Another thing that we want to do to develop our emotional
• 15:42
  fortitude is to let go of worry.
• 15:44
  this is really important because often we carry a tremendous amount of worry,
• 15:48
  and women can carry a lot of worry feeling like it's almost an obligation
• 15:52
  for them, and that often worry is conflated with care or love or concern.
• 15:59
  And so what we want to do is let go of that connection.
• 16:03
  Because those are very different things had one client that was
• 16:06
  really successful in shifting away from worry by Shifting from worry
• 16:11
  to hope and that helped her to have something else to take its place again.
• 16:16
  We're talking about Upregulating a neural pathway and downregulating another one.
• 16:20
  So she was able to focus on that hope and let the worry go.
• 16:24
  And that was a really major shift for her because staying
• 16:27
  optimistic is our next thing.
• 16:29
  And that's really important that we stay optimistic and
• 16:31
  not stay in habits of worry.
• 16:34
  So how can we stay out of pessimistic thinking traps?
• 16:37
  This is another framework that we use in our program.
• 16:40
  And this comes from positive psychology.
• 16:43
  So the first pessimistic thinking trap is mind reading.
• 16:46
  And that is where we think that we know what's in other people's
• 16:49
  minds and we don't, we have no idea what's in other people's minds.
• 16:54
  So that one is really important to stay out of.
• 16:57
  Me is the second.
• 16:59
  pessimistic thinking trap.
• 17:00
  This is where we think it's all about me and that I'm the sole cause of this.
• 17:05
  I'm the one totally responsible to fix it.
• 17:08
  Those kinds of things can really be a burden and drag us down.
• 17:11
  The third pessimistic thinking trap is called them.
• 17:15
  And this is where we attribute everything to everyone else.
• 17:18
  And this can lead us to feel hopeless.
• 17:20
  And like we don't have a lot of control or agency in a situation.
• 17:24
  Our fourth pessimistic thinking trap is called.
• 17:26
  catastrophizing.
• 17:28
  And that's where we can get, we've all been there.
• 17:31
  We can get on and on and on, spun out about how bad something
• 17:35
  can get or how bad it is.
• 17:37
  And just, you just have to stop.
• 17:39
  You've got to stop yourself when you catch yourself doing that because
• 17:43
  it really leads to a bad place.
• 17:45
  And most of the time, none of that's going to happen.
• 17:48
  And so we want to be careful with that one.
• 17:51
  And then the fifth one is called helplessness, and this can be a feeling
• 17:55
  of just as it says that there's just no hope and there's nothing I can do
• 17:59
  that, a really feeling stuck here.
• 18:02
  And so those are five thinking traps that we work with and we learn about
• 18:06
  in the program so that we can really stay in that optimistic mindset.
• 18:09
  So we've talked about the importance of mindset when it comes to being
• 18:12
  recognized as a leader in order to secure that promotion and have the
• 18:16
  influence you need to be effective.
• 18:19
  In each episode, I like to leave you with three shifts that you can make today.
• 18:22
  So the first one that I'd like to leave you with is to stop and think about.
• 18:26
  when you hear that voice of self doubt, everybody has a voice of
• 18:30
  self doubt and whose voice is that?
• 18:33
  Sometimes we can identify that this might be the voice of my mom or a
• 18:37
  teacher or my dad, or, somebody.
• 18:41
  And so often that can be a real helpful cue to start to reverse that.
• 18:47
  And you can start to, just say, actually, I think that person,
• 18:51
  really wants the best for me.
• 18:53
  And I'm going to change that voice and I'm going to change it into something
• 18:56
  positive because it's not helping me.
• 18:58
  And I really want to have the support that I need.
• 19:01
  So the second shift is I would like you to ask yourself, why not you?
• 19:05
  So this is an important mindset shift that we can really find power in is
• 19:11
  thinking about, aren't you the type of person who we need to lead in this world?
• 19:16
  Aren't you the kind of person that has the integrity and cares about
• 19:20
  the humans and has the, the interest of people and, you know, you'll work
• 19:26
  with the team and all of the positive things that women bring to leadership.
• 19:31
  Aren't you that kind of person and don't we need more people like you to lead?
• 19:36
  And number three.
• 19:37
  If you were to lead at higher levels, who would you do it for?
• 19:41
  So it would probably be more than just you.
• 19:44
  Maybe it's somebody that you want to be a role model for.
• 19:47
  Maybe you'd like to show the power of what feminine leadership can do.
• 19:52
  That was something that really inspired me in my career.
• 19:54
  Maybe you want to be a good role model for women who are coming up under you
• 19:58
  or for your daughter or your niece.
• 20:00
  So think about those three shifts and please pick one today
• 20:04
  and start on that right away.
• 20:06
  I'd love to hear from you.
• 20:07
  What are you taking from today's episode?
• 20:09
  Is there a limiting belief that you can identify with?
• 20:13
  If you're watching this on YouTube, let us know in the comments, which one you
• 20:16
  are going to flip so you can inspire us and be sure to check out the show
• 20:20
  notes to download the find your limiting beliefs exercise that I mentioned earlier.
• 20:25
  This will help you to find those hidden beliefs that are down below
• 20:29
  the surface that aren't part of your consciousness quite yet.
• 20:32
  I have also linked our future self meditation track, which is an
• 20:36
  episode that is on YouTube only.
• 20:38
  And this will help you envision that new version of yourself
• 20:41
  that you're seeking to create.
• 20:43
  So if you want to dive deeper into women's leadership and how to
• 20:46
  move up in your career, subscribe either on YouTube or wherever you
• 20:50
  listen to your favorite podcasts.
• 20:52
  I'm on a mission to help more women get into leadership and stay there.
• 20:56
  And if that's aligned with you, I'd love for you to be part of this community
• 20:59
  and tune into more episodes on Sister Smart Leadership that will support you in
• 21:04
  becoming the leader that you want to be.
• 21:06
  If you're ready to fully lean into your feminine leadership and get promoted
• 21:10
  from director to vice president and beyond, hit that subscribe button so
• 21:14
  you'll get all the episodes to come and check out the recommended video here
• 21:18
  to see how women are rising up without playing by the old rules that built these
• 21:22
  male dominated industries and systems.