The Thought Cycle That's Keeping Your Career Change Out of Reach

Episode 37: So many people who want to change careers are struggling to belief that it is possible for them.  In this episode, Career Change coach Dana Stevens unpacks the thought cycle that keeps people stuck in that gap between wanting something and believing it is possible. 

In this episode you will learn:

• Why belief is built through small evidence rather than arriving fully formed before you start
• The important difference between belief and certainty, and why waiting for certainty keeps you stuck
• How coaching interrupts the thought cycle at the thought and action stages rather than waiting for belief to appear on its own

Connect with Dana:

Website: https://www.danastevens.com/workwithme
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana_stevens_coach/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danastevens1/
Free Coaching Consultation: https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

If this episode resonated, follow The Career Change Studio and share it with someone who’s feeling stuck in their career.

And if you’re ready to design a working life that truly fits your needs and lifestyle, book a free clarity call at https://calendly.com/danastevens/initial-coaching-chat

Special thanks to @Lou_Greenaway_Music for the piano composition and performance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Do not let your lack of belief be the reason that you don't take steps to create it. Now, I said this in a masterclass a while ago, and I've been thinking about it and wanting to do a whole podcast on it because I think it was useful to explain it in a little bit more depth, and it's something that I see people battle with all of the time. People who don't believe in themselves or in the possibility of change and that lack the belief, this gets in the way of them ever starting to learn how to build belief. And it's such a huge shame because there are solutions to it. And that's what I want to talk about today. Often when I'm talking to potential clients, I'll be describing what coaching with me actually gets you. So clarity on what you want to do next, a decision about what you're going to do in this next chapter of your working life, confidence to make the changes, and a real plan, a roadmap so that when you take action, I can be there helping and supporting you. And almost every time someone will say some version of this to me, that sounds amazing. That's exactly what I need, but it feels far away. Or it doesn't feel possible for someone like me. They want the result, they might need the result, they just don't believe that it's going to be available to them. And that gap between wanting something and believing it could actually happen to you or for you is what today's episode is about. Because you can close that gap. Here's what's actually happening when someone says that doesn't feel possible for me. A thought like this is creating a feeling, usually something like discouragement or resignation or a kind of flat hopelessness, and that feeling shapes what you do next, or more often, what you don't do next, what actions you don't take, right? And if you don't believe something is possible for you, then you're not going to reach out for the coaching consultation, or you're not going to reach out and have the conversation with someone who's already done what you're considering. You're not going to go out there and research new roles, right? You're not going to take the small first steps because some part of you has already decided that it's not going to lead anywhere. And then because you haven't taken any steps, nothing changes. And this becomes further evidence, right? See, I told you it wasn't possible for me. And that evidence feeds straight back into the original thought, making it feel even more true than it did before. Thought, feeling, action, or no action, evidence. And round it goes. That is a thought cycle, and it's one of the most common and most invisible things, keeping people stuck exactly where they are. And the cruel part about it, you know, the kind of slightly unfair thing about it, is really in the moment, it can feel like proof rather than a pattern. It feels like you're simply being realistic about your situation when actually you're looking at the result of a cycle that you've built yourself with your thoughts, one small avoided step at a time, right? And once you can see that cycle clearly, how your thoughts are shaping your feelings, how your feelings are shaping your actions or inactions, how that's creating evidence, you can start to see exactly where it's interruptible, and it's not where most people think. Most people assume that the belief has to arrive first, that it has to be fully formed before they're allowed to do anything. As if you need to feel completely convinced that a career change is going to work out before you're permitted to take a single step towards it. But this isn't the right way around, actually, because belief is not something you wait for. It's something you create, something you build, the same way you would build trust in anything else, through small repeated evidence. You don't need to believe in the entire transformation on day one, right? You don't need to believe you'll definitely end up in a completely different career, happy and settled and certain. That might be too big a thing to believe in from a standing start. And if you wait for that level of conviction before you move at all, that's how you would stay stuck. For weeks, months, years even. What you need is much smaller. You need to believe that the next step is possible, just that one. And believing you could survive a single, honest conversation about what isn't working might be it. Believing you could spend 20 minutes writing down what you actually want without needing to act on it yet. Believing you could ask one question of someone who's already done something like what you are considering. Each of those small steps becomes new evidence. And that evidence can reinforce your belief, right? That evidence reinforces your original thought, which reinforces your belief. That is how belief can actually be built. Not in one giant leap of faith, but actions, small actions one by one, slightly enlarging what feels possible for you. There can also be a confusion about feeling certain. People often think they need certainty before they can believe in something. Certainty that it will work out, certainty that the new career will be the exact right one, the perfect one, certainty that the business will succeed or they won't ever regret it. But you will never 100% get that, not before you start. Certainty about an outcome only ever exists in hindsight, right? Once it's already happened, and at that point you don't need belief anymore because you simply know. Belief is a different thing. Belief means having enough of a reason to take the next step. Despite not knowing for certain how it's going to turn out, it can be provisional. It's allowed to be a bit shaky. It doesn't need to be completely loud or unwavering, it just needs to be enough to move on with. So if you're waiting to feel certain before you let yourself believe change is possible, you're waiting for something that arrives after the journey, not before it. Belief is the much smaller, much more achievable thing that you need and that you can create. And I actually spoke in last week's podcast, which was episode 36, all about believing that changing careers is worth it for you. That can be a belief that you can start working on right now, even if it only feels like a small belief to start with. So by all means go back and listen to that episode after this one. Belief is not something I'll ask clients just to simply summon up on their own. It's something I'm going to teach you how to create through thought work. And it's also something my coaching process has built to generate stage by stage. Remember that cycle I talked about? Thoughts and how they create your feelings, how your feelings drive action or inaction, and that becomes evidence, which reinforces your original thought. Coaching can help interrupt that cycle at two specific points, both the thought and the action, rather than waiting for belief to magically appear. At the thought stage, I help clients catch and examine the specific thoughts that are quietly running the show. Those thoughts that might be limiting you, ones I call limiting beliefs. Because when you can start to gain awareness of your thinking and which parts of it are holding you back, then you can start to do something about it. And that's what I teach my clients how to do with my constructive thought practice. You're going to learn how to identify limiting beliefs and how to change them for new constructive beliefs, beliefs that are going to help you move forwards and achieve what you want. Now that isn't the same as just trying to think positively and just hoping everything turns out okay. It's about learning an actual mindset tool that will help you adjust your thinking so that you can really start to believe in your ability to create the change that you want. And learning how to build beliefs is so vital because you're going to learn how to believe in yourself. And learning how to believe in yourself helps to create self-trust and confidence in your ability to try new things. And these are going to be so useful for you as you make a decision about what to do next in your career and as you transition and start your new job. So the very thing that is holding you back, not believing in yourself or what is possible for you, is the exact thing that coaching will help you learn how to do. Not just for this career decision, but it will be a skill that you will then have for the rest of your life. And at the action stage, the structure of my coaching process means clients take small steps even before belief is quite caught up. Getting clarity on what they want is a step. Naming the fear out loud in a session is a step. Looking at options, taking them seriously is a step. None of these require full belief in the end destination. They just require willingness to take that one specific manageable action. And each one of those steps starts to become new evidence. Evidence that something is possible, that you can do hard things, that movement can happen, is happening. And that evidence slowly reinforces your new thought, which changes the feeling, which makes the next action even easier than the one before. That's how the process works together. It's like a two-pronged attack, basically. We're going to be doing thought work to build the belief, and we're going to be taking action in small supported ways that build up your belief as you go. So let's come back to where we started. Do not let your lack of belief be the reason that you don't take steps to create it. If you lack belief, that is the exact reason to get coaching on belief work. So that you can learn how to create it. I can teach you how to build belief. And you don't need to believe that the whole thing is possible today. You just need to find one small step that you believe you could take and let that step become evidence and let that evidence start to rewrite the cycle. And if you want support doing that, that is exactly what my coaching process is built for. Not to hand you belief, but to help you learn how to build it one real step at a time, one useful thought at a time. Edit one constructive thought at a time. The link to Book of Free Consultation is in the show notes if you want that support. Thank you so much for listening this week. I'm gonna see you next week. Bye for now.