Today I want to tell you a story of a woman that was stuck at her job.
She had everything going for her and yet she couldn’t move up at all.
She couldn’t get the pay she wanted and the dream job she has worked for years to get.
Sounds familiar? See if you can find yourself in the story, and pay close attention to the transformation that happened and how we got her unstuck.
Let’s jump in. Ester is 32 years old, with two small children (3 and 0.5), has an MBA, 5 years of experience and great position as a Business Analyst, which is in high demand.
She’s looking for a new job, with a higher wage, better working conditions and generally wants get promoted.
So what’s the problem? Faith.
Or more precisely, a lack of faith.
Ester doesn’t believe she can do it.
She has gotten this far but she doesn’t think she can get the job and pay that she desperately wants.
The problem is that Ester’s beliefs about herself are limiting her from moving forward.
She has put herself in a box and she doesn’t know how to get out. Our perception of reality is based on our beliefs about ourselves.
We’ve stored these beliefs for a long time, sometimes from childhood, and we walk around with them in our back pockets. Whenever something happens we remind ourselves of who we think we are, by pulling up these completely fictional and often negative ideas about ourselves.
This occurs automatically, we don’t even think about it.
We wake up in the morning, brush our teeth, wash our face, we look in the mirror – and voila!
The beliefs are there.
And the worst part is that we never stop and re-evaluate these things.
Are these things that I think about myself even true? We use these negative ideas as a crutch, and slowly these preconceived notions become our safety net in life.
For example, a person who perceives himself as capable, will cope well with difficulties and tell himself that the challenge at hand is temporary and success will surely follow.
A person who perceives himself as average, as not the sharpest pencil in the pencil case, will tell himself that his success is temporary, that it’s pure luck.
He becomes stuck in his safety net in his mind. The problem is that like every net – it wraps around us and limits our growth.
And if we don’t deal with these ideas we become stuck in life – just like Ester did.
What kind of set of beliefs did she have?
A mother of two small children will not be able to find a good job at this stage of the game.
I’m not really that qualified in my work, I should be satisfied with what I have.
I will not be able to find work at convenient hours, in order to get the kids from kindergarten.
We worked with Ester to get her unstuck from these beliefs, here’s how we did it.
Our Goal Our mission was to change Ester’s set of beliefs and patterns of behavior in order to get her a better position with all of the benefits that she wants (time with the kids, flexible hours, etc.).
We used the “Pygmalion effect” where higher expectations lead to an increase in performance, in order to create a new reality.
The Methods To create practical actions that enhance Ester’s faith in herself and create a new reality, we did the following:
Built a pitch with a clear message
Practiced the pitch, including speaking clear and loud
Practiced looking straight at the interviewer, not looking down
Treated each experience as a stand-alone and therefore even if you get a negative answer, it’s just part of the process, which is improving.
The Results
Ester found a new job, an excellent position with improved conditions:
A 20% raise in the first year
A fixed raise every year (written in the contract)
Approval to leave work three times a week at 15:00, to get the children out of kindergarten
Wow, how is this even possible? It’s very simple.
We worked with Ester to transform her perception of herself through a series of simple exercises and tools.
We transformed her resume, job pitch, and interview strategies but that wasn’t enough.
We also had to transform Ester’s beliefs about herself, and that’s what really made the difference.
Do your beliefs limit you and prevent you from getting your dream job? Are you stuck and don’t know how to keep moving up in your career?
Now is the time to build the right career for you that will help you live the life you want to live.
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