Here’s a question:
What decides whether you “win” at life & in your career or “lose”? (No matter what your definition of “winning” and “losing” is)
Is it money?
Connections?
Knowledge?
Wisdom?
Willpower?
Honesty?
Hard work?
All these obviously help.
But what if I told you it wasn’t any of these things?
What if I told you there’s an “X-factor” operating behind the scenes that secretly determines who you date, the company you work for, the money you earn, the work you do, how much crap you take from your boss… and even things like how “popular” you are in the office, the clothes you wear, the body you have and the neighbourhood you live in.
Well, believe it or not, there is such an “X-factor”.
Your beliefs.
Because your beliefs are the “lens” through which you see the world. And while your “lens” might not determine reality, it does determine your reality.
So, how do we change our beliefs then?
Well, here’s what you’ve got to know first:
🌪️ The Cycle of Cycles
What we need to remember is this:
Belief → Action → Results (→ Belief).
To explain, take the movie “The Shawshank Redemption”.
Because Andy believes he can escape prison, he takes action by slowly digging a tunnel, which eventually lets him escape. (The result).
Andy’s friend, Red, on the other hand, believes that hope is pointless, so takes no action to begin with, gets no results, which further cements his hopelessness.
Remember:
Beliefs determine actions, actions determine results, and results reinforce your belief. In this way, beliefs become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Another example:
If you don’t believe you’re “leader material”...
=> You don’t sign up for leadership courses.
=> When you’re put in a leadership position, you fail.
=> Your belief that “you’re not leadership material” gets stronger.
And here’s where it gets worse.
Once you believe you’re not a good leader, you think “I failed last time, so it’s probably not going to work this time”, so you…
- Take even LESS action
- Take even LESS initiative to become a leader
- Get even WORSE results (because you aren’t taking any initiative to get better)
- => which WORSENS your belief even further (…and repeat)
It’s what I call a negative downwards spiral.
On the flipside, take my friend Becca.
3 years ago, she seemed super shy on the surface and had never led a team before.
BUT, she believed leadership was a skill she could improve. She knew she could do it, so she took action.
=> She bought and read leadership books.
=> She asked her manager if she could lead more meetings. She volunteered to lead high priority meetings whenever her manager was too busy.
She noticed herself becoming more confident and comfortable in leadership situations. And when her time to lead came, she nailed it, reinforcing her belief that leadership can be trained.
=> She now had even more belief in her ability to lead and learn, so she takes even more action, learns even more about leadership, practices even more, gets even better, and so on => a positive upwards spiral.
(Becca’s leading a team of almost 20 people now)
The big takeaway here is…
Have strong belief in yourself.
And if you're mouthing 'ughh easier said than done', do us both a favor and stop reading. I can't help you if you don't even believe change is possible.
(Ok ok I’m only joking…but also not really)
If you want to break out of a negative spiral, you need to be open to the idea that you’re in control of what you believe.
And that's where these three strategies come in:
🗃️ 1. Careful Content Curation
The easiest way to “hack” your beliefs?
Get inspired. Change your definition of what’s possible.
For example, I recently read Yia Yiang’s Rejection Proof, about how an initially shy guy took on a 100 day “Rejection Challenge” to overcome his fear of rejection.
(He asked for crazy things like planting a shrub in someone’s garden, asking for donuts in the shape of Olympic rings, and asking for a “burger refill”!)
Afterwards?
You believe that conquering your fears and building courage is very do-able. (Which in turn gets you to take more action e.g. by doing a 100 day rejection challenge).
This is why you’ve got to be extremely careful about curating the content you consume.
Inspirational content will change your belief upwards, but “black-pill” doom-and-gloom content will have your beliefs working against you.
(Part of the reason I write Coached is to give you practical ways to improve each part of your career. Once you see these things *can* be improved, you'll believe it’s possible, take action, get results, which will then reinforce the belief that you can make progress.)
🧩 2. Play a game within a game
Let’s say you just can’t shake your beliefs. You can’t get inspired. Then what do you do?
Simple:
Change your “actions” by playing a “game within a game”.
For example:
Let’s say you have the (negative) belief that “no-one would ever respond to my cold emails.”
Here’s what you do:
Instead of trying to win the “full game” (getting a response from cold emails), you decide to narrow your focus to playing a smaller game like:
- Writing hilarious cold emails that can’t be ignored
- Sending out 5 cold emails every week, regardless of how people respond.
- Trying to make it about the recipient as much as possible, not you.
Because these small games are easy to act on and win… they’ll eventually give you results in the “big game” (a cold email response), which’ll change your belief.
Finally…
😵💫 3. Don’t be Delusional!
As you know, I’m a huge fan of LinkedIn content. I think it can really help your career, position you as an expert, and open up doors that wouldn’t budge otherwise.
So, people hear this, believe it’s possible, take action, and then…
Crickets.
And because they didn’t get the result (in this case, an INSTANT career boost, this changes their belief to “LinkedIn is totally a waste of time.”
But the problem isn’t that LinkedIn doesn’t work.
It’s their expectations!
I hate to be a meanie, but…
Believing that posting 10 times total on LinkedIn will transform your career is… well, delusional.
(Of course you’re not gonna get the “result” if you think that).
Whereas if you have realistic expectations from the start – that “posting consistently for 6 months, not days, will boost my career” – then you’ll be more patient for a result, get it, which’ll then reinforce your “LinkedIn = good” belief.