Empower your teams with the positive hacks of the highest performing people—pt.2

Part 2: Set your people free from their limiting beliefs, and watch them grow!

I’m sure you’ve been awestruck by the positive attitudes of your people over the last 12 months. I’ve seen companies and their teams rise with incredible resilience and resourcefulness despite their personal and professional lives being upended. 

However, the relentlessness of it all can start playing mental tricks on anyone, in fact, situations of never-ending uncertainty are known to provoke paranoia and self-doubt about our values and abilities. As an example, it was recently reported that the increase in remote working has meant employees are increasingly stressing out about how they come off over Zoom, and wondering whether unanswered Slack messages mean they’re going to get fired! When these sorts of negative (and usually groundless) beliefs creep in, they can snowball, ultimately impacting performance and mental health.

But what if you could give your people the tools they need to bat those damaging thoughts away? Giving them a new lens through which they see all situations as neutral, enabling them to remove the shackles of their limiting beliefs, and direct their own narrative. Just imagine what a positive and powerful impact that would have on your people, your team morale and company culture! 

Back in Autumn 2020, I interviewed 16 incredible people through a virtual seminar in celebration of World Mental Health Day. Bringing us revelation after revelation through personal experience and imparted wisdom, they shared the tools and practices they use to remind themselves that, regardless of what life throws at them, all situations are fundamentally neutral, and that they all have the power to steer themselves in a more hopeful and productive direction.

Below I’ve shared three toolkits inspired by these contributors - their hacks and daily positive behaviours that will give your team the tools they need to thrive, whatever life throws at them. 

Help them to understand their belief structure

You might be surprised how many people have firmly-held beliefs that subvert their happiness and growth, false notions about themselves and the world around them that have become so deeply entrenched that they ultimately become self-fulfilling.

Have you ever heard your people fret that they ‘won’t be able to do it perfectly’, that they ‘don’t have the time’ or simply ‘aren’t good enough?’ Well these seemingly inconsequential comments can snowball until it becomes language that holds them back, rather than pushing them forward.

As Paul Mort, super coach, says, ‘Beliefs are powerful things, they control your brain. But beliefs and assumptions can change by challenging them. That takes commitment.’

If you think anyone on your team has a belief system that’s sabotaging their potential, you can help by suggesting that they give some of these challenges a go: 

1. When they experience a negative belief, write it down. Then ask themselves: “Is it really true? More often that not, they will find that evidence to be flimsy at the very least.
2. Understanding their belief triggers. Are these at work and related to performance? If so, wind back and see what lies behind them. Is it a childhood memory or experience of a bad time as an adult? Face these triggers head-on, until the negative belief shrinks in favour of a more positive outcome.
3. Stop making comparisons. They’re no better and no worse than anyone else. And stop thinking that the grass is greener. It isn’t!
4. Channel these new beliefs into activity. If they’ve always believed they couldn’t do something and now recognise that was a load of baloney, it’s time they go out and do the very thing!  

Help them to question their thinking

Following on from above, once they’ve started to understand their belief structure, they can begin to expand this awareness, starting by questioning their thinking. 

The point isn’t to think themselves into a point of paralysis, instead, encourage them to try journaling, which allows them to follow the pattern of their thoughts, identifying which are useful (and which aren’t.) It’s important to be clear that this isn’t a diary - it’s more a ‘sketchbook of the mind’, that allows them to unravel thoughts, and get deeper into their feelings on paper.

Journaling needs nothing more than a pen, a notebook and a little time.

Here are our five tips for successful journaling that you can share with them:

1. Pick a time when you can guarantee you won’t be disturbed. 15 mins are fine - 30 if you can get it! 
2. Start writing and keep your hand moving. Don’t edit, just write. It doesn’t matter what you put down as long as you keep going. 
3. Don’t be in a rush to read what you’ve written. You’re trying to capture a moment not write a bestseller! Give yourself a few days, then read back and reflect 
4. Don’t share. Thanks to social media we overshare just about everything we do in life. Keep this very much to yourself, treating it as the key to your mind 
5. Revisit them later. When you’ve built up a couple of weeks’ worth of entries, take a look at them as a whole and write down any common themes or threads you identify. Write these on or separate pages as a kind of ‘log-line’ of your thoughts!

Teach them to approach life with curiosity

They say that curiosity is one of the most employable skills - but growing up in an education system that demands us to answer rather than ask questions, few people seem to actually know what curiosity really means, how to cultivate it, or how to celebrate it!

And with all situations being fundamentally neutral, it really puts the onus on us to make the best of them, exploring them non-judgmentally and with a childlike curiosity.

Encouraging your people to expand their curiosity will have a tremendous impact on their future potential, it expands their worldview, stops them making assumptions (which hinders growth) and gives them the building blocks they need to innovate.

Here are some easy curiosity growth challenges for you and your teams:

1. Alternative reading

Suggest they read a book on a subject they know nothing about!

2. Talking!

Remember the random but often useful info you picked up from colleagues at the coffee machine? Recreate the serendipity of the office with ‘Coffee meet-ups’ between your employees. Slack’s App ‘Donut’ is great for this!

3. Reframe a boring situation

Yep, everyone’s human, we all find meetings boring sometimes. But when we do, make an effort to find the positives, they’re always there!

4. Pretend you’re someone else!

Just for a moment take on someone else’s persona and do something that they would do! We lose the skill of play-acting, but it’s an important one to re-learn! 

This is just a snapshot of what’s inside PUSH’s new book ‘High Potential Hacks - The Positive Behaviours of The Highest Performing People.’ We’d love for you and your people to benefit from more of its magic, so download your free copy here… it might just change their life!