Let’s cut right to the chase. I’m going to tell you why despite all your efforts, you’re still struggling with low confidence and are piss poor at being a champion for your ideas and worth, leaving you overlooked in your career and disrespected by others.

Mistake 1) You’re doing WAY too much… and have no strategy.

Slow down, seriously. Transformative work should be complex, not complicated.

I know you’re loading up on self-help books, videos, podcasts, meditation, journalling. The whole 9 yards so you can build confidence and get respected. Hell, you’ve even seen a couple of therapists. But here’s the thing, absorbing a bunch of different material from various sources may FEEL productive, but it’s actually an addictive distraction.

You’d know you’re guilty of this if you’re excellent at being mindful and describing your behavior, feelings, and thought patterns, but haven’t yet found yourself making emotional strides or taking much action directly from your self-knowledge.

I’ve had clients literally losing their life-long, crippling performance anxiety after a handful of sessions together – you don’t need to have heaps and heaps of self-knowledge before being able to take bold action and experience significant changes in your self-esteem.

On that note, while we’re emotional beings with ever-evolving internal states, that doesn’t mean we should approach our growth with no structure. You have to be methodical and have a strategy in mind.

For example, my strategy is to uncover the roots of my clients’ problems through analyzing their early life experience and identifying how it has constructed their personality and behavior patterns using the Enneagram personality model. Not somatic work, not energy work, not spiritual work, not the MBTI system.

Whatever strategy you choose to go with, stick with it. Go inwards and focus on depth, not sideways and focus on variety.

Mistake 2) You understand but you don’t internalize. You’re open but you’re not vulnerable.

I know you already know this, but let me repeat louder for those in the back. Internal work is UNCOMFORTABLE.

We all (I can be very guilty of this as well) naturally have walls up whenever we’re doing work that exposes our shadow side and weak points. This is where you understand the points that are being said mentally, but don’t allow them to truly sit with you and change your internal gears.

It is completely possible to talk about painful experiences and sensitive behavior patterns in a way where the words are coming out of your mouth while your mind is a blank. There’s a mental barrier that keeps you from feeling vulnerable. States like this may feel safe, but that same barrier prevents powerful information from reaching you.

Think about the difference in how you feel when talking to a close friend over lunch vs a relaxed late night conversation. Or how about your thoughts are normally vs when having a long introspective shower.

Being vulnerable while sharing that same information requires very intentional effort and an environment you feel comfortable in. Which is why it’s extremely important that you genuinely feel a connection to the coach/therapist/counsellor you’re working with. Not only will they make you feel completely safe and understood, they will also be adept at guiding you to be vulnerable and suggestible.

Mistake 3) You strategy does not include studying others.

While it is “personal” development, we are social creatures, ever-evolving, and interconnected in many ways. It’s impossible to effectively learn about yourself without simultaneously learning the people around you.

Which is why the thing that has brought the MOST transformative change to all my clients have been gaining the ability to objectively perceive themselves and others.

Typically, when starting off, they are negatively biased towards themselves while putting others on a pedestal. When they finally start seeing everyone as objectively as possible, they feel completely empowered and highly capable of achieving incredible things.

That’s because you feel POWERFUL when you understand your strengths and weaknesses. It leaves you in control, in charge, and feeling radical self-acceptance.

However, to reach that point, you have to learn the strengths and weaknesses of those around you as well. That way you understand how you relate to others, how to best communicate with them, as well as learn to appreciate everyone in an objective way.

This means understanding why people behave the way they do, the kind of lens they view the world with, and how they perceive your behavior.

From my experience, the Enneagram personality model is completely unparalleled when it comes to this. It elegantly and effectively teaches you why you function the way you do, why others function they way they do, and how we’re all connected.

Putting it all together…

We’ve got this weird misconception that we need to overload ourselves with tons of self-help stuff to experience transformative changes, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Pick a strategy, stick to it, and make sure you’re intentionally putting down your walls whenever you’re looking within. Make sure that strategy involves observing the folks around you as well as observing your own actions and thoughts.

With the right strategy, you’ll find yourself going from doubtful and looked over, to being a self-assured leader who’s recognized for your worth within weeks – Switching that harsh inner critic to a voice that cheers you on to accomplish more.

In my Private Transformational Program, you’ll go through a proven strategy that has gotten my clients to overcome anxiety, feel empowered to strive for more, and offered leadership roles less than a month after working together.

The strategy uses the Enneagram Personality model. Over 8 weeks, we dive straight into early life experiences that has moulded your personality framework, and learn how your framework relates to the ones of those around you. You’ll learn how to hone your natural gifts and gracefully embrace your weaknesses.

In order to be a great candidate for the program so you achieve the transformative results I’ve mentioned in this post, you need to have at least a decade of experience in what you do, actively do personal development work and have seen some progress but far less than what you’re putting in, and identify as introverted/quiet natured.

The investment for this program is not insignificant, but it’s completely outweighed by the results you’ll experience. This work won’t only leave you transformed, you’ll continue to grow for months after you’ve completed the program. If you haven’t already seen, check out my post on my clients’ 2021 update, where I check in with them after weeks/months of working together.

If you’re keen on joining the program, all you need to do is send me a DM on LinkedIn and I’ll ask you a couple questions to make sure the program is a right fit for you. Or you can click here if you’d like a full breakdown of my program.