In the high-pressure world of professional services, coaches often find themselves guiding clients through the labyrinth of limiting beliefs and thinking distortions that hold them back. But there’s hope! By surfacing performance-inhibiting thoughts (PITs) and transforming them into performance-enhancing thoughts (PETs), professionals can unlock new pathways to success and reclaim their confidence. Let’s dive into a powerful tool that empowers you to challenge your inner critic and cultivate a mindset that propels you forward.
Limiting beliefs and thinking distortions
A limiting belief is something that we believe to be true about ourselves and which restricts us in some way. It can be thought of as performance inhibiting – it gets in the way and prevents us from being at our best, particularly when we are feeling under pressure.
Thinking distortions are similar to limiting beliefs, in the sense that they are not true. However, rather than being a single thought, for example, 'I am not able to delegate', they involve thinking patterns. They are habitual and might rear their head alongside limiting beliefs, compounding the impact. In some respects, as they are ongoing behavioural patterns, they can be harder to change than limiting beliefs. That isn't to say that they can't!
There are a large number of thinking distortions. Here is a diagram that sets out a number of them:
Catastrophising | Jumping to the worst-case scenario
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Black or white Thinking | Black or white thinking/All-or-nothing thinking. There is no middle ground here.
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Fortune-telling | Making predictions based on little or no evidence.
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Mind-reading | Jumping to conclusions about what others are thinking of us
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Overgeneralising | Error of drawing global conclusions from one or more events
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Ruminating | Continually thinking the same thought. Similar to emotional reasoning – but no movement towards accepting and moving on.
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Reframing performance inhibiting thoughts
When working with coachees on negative thoughts and thinking processes, it is helpful to think in terms of performance inhibiting thoughts (PITs) and performance enhancing
thoughts (PETs). Limiting beliefs and thinking distortions are examples of performance
inhibiting thoughts.
The coaching approach to dealing with PITs is first to understand what they are. By
surfacing the thinking that sits behind them, it becomes easier to reframe that thinking when it is negative.
One exercise that can be helpful is to create a list of some of the PITs you might have. 'I am no good at business development' is a common one among lawyers. A deeper narrative might be, 'I don’t like introducing myself to people I don’t know', or 'Clients won’t take me seriously'.
Once the PITs have been brought to the surface and explored, it is then time to think about a different – and more helpful – narrative. The PETs. 'I am no good at business development' might become, 'I am able to win work in a way that is authentic to me'. 'Clients won’t take me seriously' might become, 'I have already built strong client relationships, I know what I am doing. I might not connect with everyone I meet, but that is OK.'
This then moves over into behavioral experiments. These experiments are about connecting the thinking in a coaching session with the day-to-day. Is your inner critic correct? Is it helpful? How can you test it out? How can your successful past inform and accelerate you towards a positive future?
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