How certain beliefs are killing your confidence? (And how to identify those)

Whom do you think you interact the most with on any given day?

It's not your spouse/significant other.

Not your colleagues, your boss, or best friend.

Not your parents, family, or any other person for that matter.

It's you yourself.

Don't believe me...? You're doing that right now, as you are reading this. There is a constant monologue that goes on in our heads most of our waking hours: in form of thoughts, judgments, opinions, feelings, behavior towards our own self, the situation, or other people. There is a good reason for doing that, but we can talk about that sometime later.

Now, I want you to imagine a situation: let's say your best friend is feeling low about their capabilities and their life situation. They are experiencing a feeling of low self-worth. If you see them in that situation, would you bash them and make them feel more worthless, accusing them of how they did certain things the wrong way, and so now they deserve to feel this way. Or would you list them all of the reasons why they are in this situation, and that there is nothing they can do to make it better? (You probably know where this is going...)

I bet you won't, for the love of sanity.

Why then, the story is different when you're having the conversation with yourself in your head? Why do we choose to consciously or unconsciously disempower ourselves with negative beliefs? Because I coach professionals on charisma and confidence, I encounter these common beliefs that I find my clients have in the beginning.

• "I am not good enough for this role, this presentation, or that client"
• "What if others judge me if I stick out, and thus I must stick with the norm"
• "Some people are born charismatic. I was born(or raised) without good social skills, and I can not change myself"
• "I have great ideas, but my team is not convinced of it because they are not ready for my greatness yet. It's their problem and I can't do anything about it"
• "I must not express my true self and must put up a serious mask because only that is how people will know how sincere I am"

And this constant monologue becomes very caustic to your sense of self. Ask yourself: Does it put you in a position of empowerment or disempowerment?

Why exactly your beliefs have so much power over you?

Consider this model: Your current situation that you're in is a result of your behaviors and actions. Your actions follow your abilities --> what you can and can not do.

Your abilities and feelings around something are a result of what you believe is or isn't possible. Subconsciously, through our feelings and behavior, we always try to uphold our beliefs.

Let's take an example: A very technically sound Data Scientist, called Bill, can not present their work convincingly(Situation). His audience comprises business people who have little technical understanding. Bill is convinced that these business stakeholders care little about his in-depth analysis and don't appreciate the hard work he's put in(Belief). Because of this belief, Bill feels a disconnect from the rest of the organization (Feelings). This in turn provides no motivation to better his communication with the stakeholders(Behaviors and Actions)

Of course, the end result is that when delivers his presentations, it flatly gets no engagement and the stakeholders seem a little irritated towards the end of a long technical lecture. This again further fuels Bill's belief that his organization doesn't care about what he has to say.

What should Bill do in this situation? Short answer: Present his content in a language understandable by his audience.

Now if Bill tries to work on his 'Behaviours' by trying to change the way he presents his content, without changing the belief that people will listen to him, he's going to find little success. It only takes one little voice of doubt in his head, "Why are you putting so much effort into explaining it Bill, when they won't even listen to you".

Funny enough, a lot of courses on communication focus heavily on solving these symptomatic behavioral problems, without addressing or changing the core belief system. When working on changing only their behaviors, professionals often get a feeling of being 'fake'. For example, if someone wants to learn to make better connections at the workplace, and you teach them how to initiate and continue any conversation. The results are not sustainable as long as the person holds the belief that it is pointless to make small talk or talk without any agenda.

But the good news is: Beliefs can be changed, and that changes the way you experience your reality.

And once negative, disempowering, and limiting beliefs are replaced by an empowering belief, making a change is easy and sustainable. We all have some sort of limiting beliefs about ourselves.

Do you want to find out what your limiting beliefs are?

If you have been reading this far, that shows that you take your growth seriously and will invest time into exploring right resources that help you. I will encourage you to do a little exercise for yourself; this simple yet very powerful exercise will help you identify beliefs that limit you. The only rule is that you have to be very honest with yourself. Let's take an example of you trying to better your communication and charisma at workplace.

Begin by filling out Column 1 followed by Column 2. When you have a clarity on bith your current situation and goals, fill out the 'Gap' column. Don't judge yourself, just be mindful of what reasons come to your mind that are keeping you from realizing your goal. This story that you tell yourself here are your limiting beliefs that you subconciously tell yourself all the time.

You may come up with some of the reasons like

• "Oh I'm a natural introvert"
• "I'm in the tech field, I don't have to go out and sell myself or my ideas"
• "It's not a priority for me right now. When the right time comes, I'll get it handled"
• "People don't understand what a true genius I am. I am not being appreciated because I'm in the wrong kind of environment"
• "Conversations at work are supposed to be very logical and direct"

And so on and so forth...

Are these reasons that you tell yourself reasonable? Is there truly nothing you can do about your situation?

Trust me, there's always something you can do about your situation. It may be hard to see for yourself right now, and that's where having a mentor helps you massively. I didn't realize my blind spots until my metor pointed those out to me.

If getting better with people and becoming more charismatic one of your goals?, I'd like to hear more from you. Send me a DM and I will show you how you how you can practically neutralize these limiting beliefs and gear yourself towards bettering your communication. We can help lay out an actionable plan for your specific case.

Cheers

-Varun Kirti