Nationally-acclaimed, award-winning women’s mentor and inspirational business leader Wendy Dean has curated the pioneering ‘Why Women Don’t Play Golf’ (WWDPG) programme, offering an invaluable opportunity for women in business striving to reach their full potential, and break the glass ceiling. Wendy shares her insights on self limiting beliefs and advice for overcoming them.

I’ve just been in a meeting with someone who paid me a compliment on my outfit. I said “thank you”. We then got onto the subject of how, when paid a compliment, people are keen to run themselves down. Responses such as “oh I’ve had it for ages” or “it was in the sale” are common.

Another example of this was something I was involved in last week. It was a social event and someone mentioned that they’d organised a little quiz. Immediately the response was “I’m not very good at quizzes”.

That got me thinking, why do we run ourselves down when we don’t need to? Why are we so unable to take a compliment, and why do we think we’re no good at something even when we don’t know what it is we’ll be doing?

These are self limiting beliefs. Some people are paralysed by them. These beliefs hold us back and stop us from feeling confident about ourselves and our abilities.

It’s the same with public speaking in a way. Some people immediately will say I’m not very good at public speaking. How do they know? Has someone told them that or have they even tried it?

I have a friend that is terrified of public speaking. They do it because their job dictates that they have to. They are in fact very good at it. They are still terrified, but live with the fact that they come across ok and accept that. Reducing self limiting beliefs isn’t magic. It takes hard work and determination.

Self limiting beliefs impact almost all of us in one way or another. In our working life, we often refrain from going for the promotion or asking for the pay rise we want because we think we don’t deserve it. By allowing that internal monologue of ‘stay where you are’ to take over, it means we can miss so many opportunities to achieve what we, in our hearts, truly desire.

Some self limiting beliefs have been cast upon us by others, and it is only in our power to shed them in order to move forward. Recognising these is hard, but making note of every time you say ‘I can’t do that’ and recognising the reasons why you think that will help you identify what you need to do to shed this feeling.

Highlighting what you are not very good at something will put the microscope on you. If you don’t highlight it, no one knows.

Quite often the self limiting belief is false, created in our childhood or by those around us. The likelihood is that no one can remember this only us so if we chose to let it go, we are back in control.

If a self limiting belief is stopping you from moving forward with your life or your career, you could end up living with anxiety that gets worse each time someone mentions doing something. Try it, if you don’t like it, you can then say you don’t like it, not I’m not very good at it.

I am a great believer that it is outside of your comfort zone where the magic happens. This doesn’t mean you need to go sky diving or run a marathon, it could be something as simple as wearing a colour you would usually avoid, offering your opinion in a meeting where you would usually sit quiet, or coming forward with an idea without the fear of rejection. These things may never become easier, but the more you do them the more opportunities you are allowing yourself.

Not all self limiting beliefs are negative, we need some of them to prevent us from doing bad things. We limit our speed on a road because we’re told that it’s not good. That’s ok!

Don’t let age limit you. We are never too old to learn, try something new or break down a life-long limitation. Quite often it’s only our minds that control this, not our age.

Finally, the next time someone compliments you on something, such as how you look or what you say, just say thank you. You’ll be surprised how good it makes the other person feel too!

Wendy will be hosting an exclusive personal development retreat is being held on Monday 10 and Tuesday 11 July in Cheshire, inviting female leaders to come together to work on themselves, away from their business. For those wishing to find out more about Why Women Don’t Play Golf, or to register their interest for the two-day personal development retreat, can visit: https://wwdpg.co.uk/

To find out more about Wendy Dean, visit: https://wendydean.co.uk/