It may sound cliché, but Amina Altai believes that with the right mindset, you can achieve anything.
In her view, the key, says Altai, a leadership coach and author of The Ambition Trap: How to Stop Chasing and Start Living, is “expanding your belief system of what is possible for you.”
Altai said many people have “limiting beliefs” holding them back in their careers. They are negative, often subconscious, thought patterns that prevent us from reaching our full potential.
For example, a common limiting belief Altai encounters among her clients is impostor syndrome, or feeling like they’re “not good enough.”
People with impostor syndrome often struggle with thoughts like, “I’m a fraud, and someone will find out that I don’t know what I’m doing,” Altai said.
Altai says these beliefs can cause even the most successful people to question their skills and abilities and prevent them from pursuing big opportunities in their careers.
“For me, it’s always surprising in a way, because I’m sitting across from people who are so accomplished, so nice, so kind, who have accomplished all these amazing things in their lives, and yet they still question themselves,” she says.
This is a strategy Altai employs to help herself and her clients let go of limiting beliefs.
How to deal with limiting beliefs
Identifying the source of your negative beliefs is the first step to overcoming them, Altai says.
Limiting beliefs usually stem from bad experiences in the past, she says.
For people with imposter syndrome, the scenario is, “I’m not good enough, because I once raised my hand in elementary school and everyone laughed at me when I got the wrong answer,” she says.
The next step is to challenge that belief with three specific examples that provide “evidence to the contrary.”
These scenarios should show “how successful you are, how great you are at your job,” and how “real” you are, Altai says.
One of the prompts Altai uses to help clients access these examples is, “Tell me about a time when you felt truly grounded and empowered in your body and your vision,” she says.
They may respond by saying: “There was a time when I was the leader of the room and when I came off stage everyone told me I had a great perspective.”
Altai encourages her clients to set aside time and repeat these positive examples to themselves every day until “their brain defaults to doing it.”
This strategy is based on neuroplasticity, she says. To combat the “deep-seated beliefs and channels of not being good enough,” you need to practice and establish new beliefs.
Importantly, Altai emphasizes that her “prescription” for tackling limiting beliefs is different for everyone because “it has to be based on your story.”
“It has to be really specific to their lived experience, otherwise the brain won’t believe us,” she says.
Still, she says it can be helpful to look outside for positive examples.
“Look for people who are doing what you want to do,” she says. Doing so can “expand your belief system of what is possible.”
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