The best cure for our self-limiting beliefs is conversation with other people.
Today I spoke with someone who was working on the self-limiting belief that any attempt at delegation on her part as a manager was inflicting some sort of serious harm on her team. She believed her role was to protect them from work by doing as much of it herself as possible. I have plenty of other posts about why that belief itself is harmful to everyone involved, but for today we’re just going to talk about her process in overcoming it.
As we worked together on her view, she came to a few really impressive breakthroughs and was ready to start empowering her team. But one factor still had her stuck: how to tell her team! Because she had this initial belief, she also believed everyone viewed it that way – and that her team would be very unhappy with her delegation, even though she recognized its benefit hersself.
I had her have a few conversations with other people who were team members of other teams, and their response was universal: they wanted meaningful work, to be included in the mission, and they wanted their manager to be doing things to help get them resources, connections, etc. – not just grinding on tasks they not only could do, but would help develop their skills and resumés to do so.
Our most self-limiting beliefs often lie to us and tell us that everyone believes that thing, which is why it can be so hard to overcome them ourselves. But get other people’s views and mix them into your own, and you’ll see the world more clearly!
