Decide who you want to be and don’t let the room shape you!

Earlier in June this year Nicole Schlautmann gave a powerful and inspiring talk at #HBAELS26 in Vienna on vulnerable leadership. She asked the question: 

 Is there anything in your life that you didn’t do because someone told you, you couldn’t?

Most hands in the room were raised. Then she asked "Are you happy you didn’t?" and no one spoke up.

Most people would agree that to succeed it helps to surround ourselves with people who believe in us. But what do you do when the messages you’re receiving that ‘You can’t do that!’ Aren’t from the people around you, but from the subconscious thoughts circulating around your head?

According to research on average we have between 6,000-12,000 thoughts a day, the vast majority of which are both negative and repetitive. Why are they mainly negative and repetitive? To protect us from unwittingly stepping into dangerous situations.

This negative self talk isn’t all bad, fear itself isn’t bad, it’s there to protect us, but not knowing what to do about your negative self talk can be bad and make the difference between success and failure.

Unless you’re the sort of person for whom being told they wouldn’t be able to do something acts as the catalyst to prove everyone wrong, listening to those negative thoughts has an impact on self belief and consequently on your chance of success.

Why? Because as Nicole pointed out:

“We shape the rooms we walk into by how we show up and what we say ourselves.”

Both as children and later in life when the consequences of failing become even greater, having someone tell us they believe in us until we’re able to generate enough self belief and courage to ‘go it alone’ can make a hug difference.

I would suggest that introverts are more prone to succumbing to these negative thoughts than extroverts, purely from the perspective of how we process information. There are different types of introvert and the distinction between introvert extrovert isn’t black or white. But generally speaking, introverts tend to process on the inside what many extroverts process on the outside. This matters, because when extroverts process verbally, people around them are able to to correct them. When introverts process the same negative thoughts internally they don’t benefit from an alternative opinion.

Mental attitude and how we talk to ourselves is important.

Whole therapeutic methodologies have been developed around self talk and much of my work helping multilingual leaders communicate with more confidence focuses around exactly those conversations we all have with ourselves. The natural response of most people to fear is to push it away, which unfortunately tends to make the fear stronger and louder rather than quieter.

Also, our minds are masters at manipulation, interpretation and generally rationalizing that the scary thing, whether it’s speaking up in the team meeting or giving a keynote on stage is risky and that another person would do a better job of it anyway.

The reality is that allowing ourselves to be vulnerable at times whether it’s speaking on stage, or risking an uncomfortable conversation isn’t going to be easy… but It doesn’t need to be easy, because the good things are never easy!

So, I’ll leave you with these last inspirational words from Nicole.

Decide who you want to be and don’t let the room shape you!”

If you’re looking for support from someone who knows what imposter syndrome sounds like and has found a way to work with the mental chatter rather than against it, dm me to arrange a call to discuss how I can support you.