What’s holding you back?

Whether in our personal lives or our careers, we all want to grow. Change. Evolve. Get better. And we all have those voices in our head that pipe up and tell us we can’t. Have you ever wondered ‘what’s holding me back’?

When I work as a coach with freelancers, I hear things like:

“I can’t find new work”

“I’m not that talented”

“Everyone else is doing much better work”

“I’ll never get out of this job”

“No one likes my showreel.”

So many of us now work alone, often as a freelancer outside of the core team. And working from home simply makes this isolation worse. And in isolation, self doubt can creep in. We become unsure we have the skills, strategy or the impetus to move forward.

This lesson is about how to work through those doubts. It’s an ideal exercise to do with your Morning Pages, but make sure you have enough time to go through the whole exercise, don’t rush it.

Confronting your doubts

Sometimes these doubts are so deep rooted, stemming from years of telling ourselves “You can’t…” You’re not…” “You’ll never…”

They are rarely true.

Here are the steps I take with freelancers to challenge and overcome these voices.

Step 1: Recognise the voices and what they say

To break us out of this cycle the first thing to do is really recognise these voices and the things they say. Ask yourself:

• What’s holding me back?
• What do those voices in my head tell me I can’t do?

List those doubts. Write them out. Don’t challenge them at this stage, just get them out on paper.

Step 2: Identify where these voices come

These voices aren’t always our own. They can be things people have said, sometimes years earlier. I can think of several times people have been critical of my work, and it’s stuck well beyond that particular moment.

One time when I left a job early to start a better contract elsewhere, and was told by the rather soured producer that I’d never work for that company again.

One time I was a researcher and my appraisal wasn’t great, I wasn’t doing all the jobs they’d hoped.

Another time when, as an assistant producer, I asked the series exec producer if they would send me on a director’s course, and I was told firmly no, that’s not what they had planned for me.

The fact they happened years ago, in a completely different context, doesn’t make them any less potent. All of these moments still make me wince when I replay them.

It’s good to identify where your beliefs or doubts stem from, so you can really show how outdated they might be.

Step 3: Recognise that these are beliefs not truths

These voices are made statements which sound like solid facts. But they’re not. They are beliefs. And often they aren’t even your beliefs. They are the beliefs of other people.

Yes, the instances I listed above limited the way I thought about myself. They told me you’re never going to get another job. You’re not working hard enough. You aren’t good enough to be a director.

These all have played through my head in the past. It took a long time to recognise that they are not facts. They are beliefs, and they were all held by the other person. Not by me.

On reflection, I recognise that the producer was stuck on a crappy clip show, where all the researchers were moving on every few months, and she was probably more anxious about having to fill my position again.

The jobs I wasn’t doing, the employer hadn’t told me she expected me to do them.

And the producer who wouldn’t send me on director training, I understood. I wasn’t ready, and they didn’t have the pipeline of work. So it was about “not now” not “you don’t deserve it.”

But even with this reflection, when I’m in a dark spot in my working life, I can bring those events back up and remember how those people didn’t believe me in, and therefore I shouldn’t believe in myself either.

Step 4: Identify what are they stopping you from doing

Look back at your self-limiting beliefs. What have they blocked you from doing in the past? How have they held you back? When you hear those voices, how does it affect your mood and behaviour?

I know I can feel like it’s not worth doing what I was going, and should give up. I stop posting on LinkedIn. I stop asking for referrals. I start browsing on the internet and get totally sidetrack.

The reality is that none of those comments actually stopped me from doing what I wanted to do.

The new job lead to an even better one, and then to setting up my own company. So it was the right decision.

After the appraisal, I looked at the work load, took on these additional tasks and started shifting my time around to make sure I completed them.

Within a year of being told I wouldn’t be a director, on another job I just said I was a director, was hired, and learnt to direct on the job.

None of those events actually had the impact I feared at the time. And I need to remind myself of that when I hear those doubts coming through.

Step 5: Work our what you will lose if you listen to them

Ask yourself what you will lose if you don’t let go of these beliefs. If they continue to chip away at your confidence, what will they stop you from achieving?

I could have let the belief that I’d never become a director stop me from putting myself forward as one. I would have lost the opportunity that came up. I might have waited another year before trying to get work as a director. Instead, that job lead to another and then another as a director.

Step 6: Commit to letting them go

Embrace these beliefs and get ready to discard them. It’s going to take work and persistence to move on from them, so you need to absolutely commit to letting them go.

I know this can be hard, and for me it comes in waves. Some days you get up with the nagging doubts rattling around your head (even at Napoleon Creative we have quiet times with no new work coming in). They creep up on me, like a wave building then sometimes I have a moment where they crash over me, I feel totally overwhelmed. I realise I need to let them go if I’m to move on, and the moment passes.

The first step though, it to actively commit to no long letting those beliefs affect you, and like moths held in your hand, get ready to let them go to fly free and bother someone else.

Step 7: Question the beliefs

Ask yourself ‘why do I believe that?’ Then ask yourself, ‘And why do I believe that?’ And then again, ‘And why did you believe that?’ This process has been very revealing to my clients, as it turns out their beliefs are based on flimsier and flimsier foundations, all the easier to knock them over and rebuild!

Try to identify when you took on the belief. Sometimes they can be rooted even back to childhood. It’s time to put them in the past.

Has this belief ever served you in a positive way? Sometimes they can actually spur you on. More than once my doubting voice has said “you can’t” and I’ve replied “Sod off, I can!”

Step 8: Counter your doubts

When has your belief not been true? Who would never say this about you? When have you done something that contradicted these beliefs?

I think of the times I’ve worked like a Trojan, or some of the work I’ve directed. I’m sure you’ll find instances where you can disprove your doubts.

Step 9: What do you want to replace this belief with?

Imagine if you reversed the belief. “You are creative.” “You have great ideas.” “You can finish this project.” Let them settle in your brain. What would happen if you acted like these were true? What would be the consequences? How would you act differently?

If you said to yourself:

• My showreel will win me more work
• I’ve got a great eye for colour
• My framing is actually quite good

Would these counter your doubts? If so, write them down, say them out loud!

Step 10: Today is Different

If you don’t take action to affirm your new beliefs, you’re simply giving your old beliefs more power.

Remind yourself that today is different. Whatever stumbling blocks you’ve had in the past, they are not in your way today. You can choose to act differently, act confidently, act with purpose. I know that’s easy to say and harder to achieve, but you can do it.

Your first steps don’t have to be perfect, just headed in the right direction.

Getting help when you can’t answer the question “what’s holding me back?”

One aspect of the coaching work I do is helping my clients identify these and unpick those beliefs that are holding them back, and identify new beliefs to follow.

If you’d like to speak to me one-on-one about this, let me know.