Lately, in my blogs, I’ve been concentrating a lot on the skills and techniques around training such as motivation and engagement.  This is because I’d been doing a lot of Ski training in the Austrian Alps where I’d had to try and work through some real inner ‘demons’ to meet the standard of an intensive course.  On reflection, I’ve had a hugely emotional journey and one that I’d never have been able to complete without making a vital change.  I had to change my way of thinking and become a believer:

Like I hear so often when delivering training, have you heard the phrases, “I’m not good at that” or, “I can’t do that”?  I bet you’ve heard it a lot and you may have even heard it from your inner self at some point in your life.  I want you to consider the effect on your confidence, motivation and ability if you are saying this; what do you think the result will be?  You’re completely right if you thought, “You won’t be good / you won’t do it”  At some stage, a decision within has been made that something is beyond possible and sometimes even worse than that, people say a third party has told them; imagine what that does to people!  When these manifest themselves within us, we call them, “Self-limiting beliefs”; you’ll hear us talk about them an awful lot in our training and blogs because a huge part of our job is to help you banish them as they become like a ball and chain you are dragging along with you.  Let’s then turn around the above statement’s and think more like, “I can get good at that if I learn” and “I can do that”; think of the immediate change in your mindset just through these simple words; now instead we have something that is truly motivational!  Back then to my journey battling my self-limiting beliefs while skiing, some of you may recall on one of my previous blogs, I wrote about the self-confidence I needed to get back on my ski’s after quite a serious accident.  I needed to gain confidence in my skiing again to try and give my Level 2 ski course another go (for the 3rdtime). Honestly, I had doubts if it was achievable physically and mentally; I had the “I can’t, I’m not good enough” moments (these are those self-limiting beliefs) which I turned around with the help of my trainer, my ski group and some personal reflection.  I left the week in November with huge positivity thinking, “I am good enough at this, I can do this”, and I’m delighted to say that I did pass the course early in April; I was physically and more importantly, mentally ready!

The moral of this story then is never to give up; anything is achievable if we give it our all with positivity; if you don’t first succeed, keep trying.  Don’t let those powerful self-limiting beliefs take over your mind and those of others; if you ever have or hear those moments where you think or hear “I’m no good / I can’t” immediately turn them into “I (you) can, I (you) will”; motivate, encourage yourself and others and watch what happens!

Scott Fraser is a Master Trainer at Target Training and delivers our PTT Train the Trainer courses and our Advanced PTT Train the Trainer courses.  You can read more about him here.