What Are Your Negative Beliefs Costing You at Work?

Written by Monique Jordan-Cave

Leadership and Holistic Coach

What Are Your Negative Thoughts Costing You?

Hello, magical human,

You’ve been promoted.

Yay! 🎉

You have a handover (OR NOT) and jump straight in.

You are so occupied with trying to learn new systems, new departments and build a relationship with your team, weeks fly by.

After a while, that little voice of self-doubt inside your mind starts whispering…

“Hold up, wait a minute, how the hell did you get here!”

“Oh no no no, you don’t have enough experience for this”

“YOU have to manage a team, Jesus take the wheel. You can just about manage yourself! lol”

And now you start to agree.

“Oh crap. How the hell did I get here?

I don’t have enough experience and I can just about manage myself.

What have I gotten myself into?!”

Your thoughts are powerful, and if you don’t challenge your negative thoughts, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And you won’t try to push through the discomfort of change and growth.

But once you do, you’ll be able to see what’s truly possible for you.

What are you telling yourself?

1. I Can't Do This

Imagine if every time you told yourself that you can’t really lead a team, you can’t make suggestions in meetings or make an impact.

You received a punch to your face.

Might help you change your mind. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Beating yourself up mentally and telling yourself that you can’t do the job, hurts you every time.

It’s not just words.

Those words connect to your emotions.

That feeling hurts and you feel like, well, crap.

I see you fellow soul leader.

You hold yourself to such an incredibly high standard and you must do everything perfectly.

But being overly critical about yourself is the wrong focus.

The first step to overcoming this belief is to take a step back and pause for a moment.

Find a quiet place, sit in that stillness, and breathe.

Never forget how wildly capable you are.

We all have moments of doubt, but when you find yourself thinking, "I can't do this.”

Challenge that thought with this focus positive affirmation.

"I can achieve anything, I set my mind to."

2. I Don’t Deserve This

In my experience of coaching leaders, this either happens when:

👉 You feel like you are too young or inexperienced to have such a high position; or

👉 You got promoted soon after joining the company.

If your inner voice is telling you that you don’t deserve your promotion or leadership role.

Let me ask you this…

Do you honestly think that a company, whose sole focus is to make money, is going to promote someone that could mess with their bag?

Nah.

Would you purposely hire a plumber to fix your kitchen sink with a Google rating of -0.5?

Nah.

You put your money where you know you are going to get value out of it.

So does your company!

Instead of saying, "I don’t deserve this"…

Challenge that thought with this positive affirmation.

"I deserve my dream job and I acknowledge my worth."

It might take a little time, but eventually, you'll start to believe it.

And when you do.

You'll be able to see the beauty on the other side of letting go.

3. This Is Too Hard

When things start to feel difficult at work, it can be tempting to give up and believe that things are just too hard.

But nothing worth having comes easy.

There are a lot of moving parts in leadership.

Managing expectations from your boss, yourself and your team.

The truth is, even the most accomplished leaders feel the weight of responsibility.

But the key is to focus on what you do have and how you can use it to leverage your strengths, and your teams superpowers.

Hello, remember them!

👉 What can you delegate to your team based on what you need, and their individual unique skills?

👉 Who could I ask to mentor me?

👉 Should I get a leadership coach?

If you want to achieve your career legacy, you need to be willing to put in the hard work to make it happen.

Confidence is built in the doing.

Over time, your confidence will grow and you’ll become the impactful leader you want to be.

When you catch yourself thinking, "This is too hard."

Give yourself a moment and challenge that thought with this positive affirmation.

“I am capable of handling anything that comes my way.”

How to change limiting beliefs and move forward

4. Acknowledge When You Have These Thoughts

All change starts with awareness.

“Well, that’s obvious Monique”. I hear your sarcasm…

But if you’re reading this.

It’s quite possible that you already know what your limiting beliefs are, but they are still holding you back.

Every time you have a negative thought or emotion, instead of keeping them in your head.

Write it down so that you can reflect upon it.

Then…

2. Challenge The Validity Of This Thought

DO NOT SKIP THIS STEP, PRETTY PLEASE!

This allows you to see that the belief may not be true!

If it’s NOT true – fabulous.

Laugh and tell yourself how silly and lovely you are, and you’ll never think it again.

Then move on to the next step.

If it honestly IS true.

Where did this thought originate from?

You may have had a negative experience in your past that led to the development of this belief.

But more importantly…

What can you do to change it?

3. Reframe Your Thoughts

Remember what I said about the company and their bag?

Give yourself as much credit as they do.

If you keep telling yourself that you’re not good at running a department you will end up not giving 100% at work, which will manifest into you not performing to your best and your team will see right through you!

All of your thoughts are you.

You will never get away from them.

So instead of letting them control you or trying to ignore it, do something different.

Face your negative thoughts head on.

I call mine Little Miss Nut Nut and she is rude!

It doesn’t have a problem standing up to you, so lead from your soul and flip the script.

Get feisty with it.

Name it.

Have a rebellious conversation with it.

“You don’t deserve this promotion.”

“Why don’t I deserve it?”

“You can’t do this job.”

“Why can’t I?”

“There are people in this board meeting with more experience than your age!”

So what?

4. Reconnect with yourself

Being a leader comes with more time responsibility which means it’s even more important for you to find moments to slow down, breathe, relax and rejuvenate.

Do this in whatever form that serves you.

👉 Running.

👉 Yoga.

👉 Attending that cooking class you’ve been meaning to go to for months.

👉 Meditation.

👉 Little or long walks.

👉 Heading off to an exhibition.

👉 Reading.

Give yourself grace and compassion to make time for the things you love.

Lead by example and make sure that your holistic wellbeing is a priority.

Create balance in your professional and personal life and repeat your positive affirmations.

It will allow you to remember who you are, what you know and what you love.

You’re not alone.

We ALL have negative thoughts, but you can change them!

Will you try challenging your negative thoughts and become the soul leader you are meant to be?

Let me know in the comments below.

Over to you!

MJx

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