Especially the language we use when we speak to ourselves.
Negative self-talk is incredibly corrosive when it comes to building our confidence and expertise, taking chances, and progressing with our lives in a way that is right for us.
People can get quite obsessed with glass ceilings and how these can get in the way of our career progress.
Yet I think that changing the narrative in our heads is far more important, and far more limiting.
I refer to these internal confidence destroyers as glass walls.
Glass walls keep you caged and playing it small in a fog of self-doubt and harsh criticism.
And imagine for a moment that you do break through the glass ceiling and go up a level in your career – if you haven’t conquered the glass walls, then they go with you as you go up, like taking a lift to the next floor.
So there you are, at the next stage of your career journey, but you’ve dragged all the heavy baggage of your negative self talk with you.
Glass walls are very clingy.
And if anything, those voices could grow louder, and become increasingly persistent, as you are faced with the new challenges of more responsibility, perhaps a bigger team, and greater expectations.
So you have to do something different to get a different result.
Start by changing the language you use to speak to yourself.
Be positive. Be supportive. Be factual. Be kind.
Listen carefully for the negative voices – it could be a whisper, it doesn’t always have to be a scream.
And make the positive, supportive, factual and kind voices louder. Ramp up the volume to drown out the lying, nasty, undermining voices. Ask yourself “Is what I’m saying fact or fiction? What’s the evidence?”
It won’t be easy at first, but keep going, it does take practice.
Where your wise and supportive internal voices point out things that might need to change, then adjust your sails, find a new way.
It’s all within your power.
And one day you will realise that you are your own biggest advocate and your most loyal supporter.
Once you’ve smashed down your glass walls, that glass ceiling will be a whole lot easier to break your way through.
With hard earned confidence and self belief.
Let me know if you’d like me to accompany you on this journey.
Oh the places we’ll go.
