Experts have identified age, capacity, rejection, false humility, self-deprecation, money, and men to be seven thoughts on which self-limiting beliefs amongst women are anchored.]
Every time women allow their limiting beliefs to control them, they are one step back and away from their goals, experts said at The Peak Performing Woman Live Session in Lagos.
“If you believe yourself to be limited in some way, whether or not this is true, it may become your reality,” Abiola Salami, convener of the program said.
When a woman allows the thought about being too old or too young to achieve a dream in her mind, she has allowed her age to get in the way of her success.
When a woman says she is not smart, or she is too smart to herself as her excuse for not taking up an opportunity, she has allowed her passiveness and/or arrogance to get in the way of her success.
“Feedbackwards” in Salami’s words, “is when there is an absolute focus on a strength or weakness and that aspect is magnified as though that is everything about an individual. This results to either an ego inflation or self-esteem deflation”.
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However, Nike Bajomo, executive director, StanbicIBTC Pensions Ltd noted that capacity is about potential, which is locked up in every woman.
When a woman allows fear of rejection an excuse that keeps her from taking an opportunity, she has allowed it to get in the way of her success.
According to her, rejection really, is in almost all phases of life, and everyone has had their fair share. Hence, success is moving from failure to failure, without losing optimism.
When a woman feels it is selfish of her to want more for herself, and makes it an excuse for not reaching for an opportunity, she is displaying false humility.
“Humility and modesty are great virtues, but excessive versions of either, is a plague,” Salami explained.
Also speaking, Doris Mbadiwe, deputy managing director at Inter-Bau Construction Ltd said women allow self-deprecation to get in their way when they feel they are undeserving of what they seek to achieve.
She further noted that the notion that women hold, that they need to have money to make money, stops many of them from taking the first step in executing any project or starting any business.
Similarly, Salami hinted that women allow money to get in their way of becoming a global solution provider rather than focusing their ability on being resourceful.
“They have not even conducted a business plan yet; they have not written a feasibility study to check the viability of their idea, but they say there is no money,” He said.
They all agree that there is hope for anything as long as there is still life, and self-limiting beliefs grow by association.
They noted that the world needs more women who will rise up from the valley of pessimism and move to the zenith of their possibilities.
