As an executive leadership coach, I routinely encounter situations with clients where they state that they cannot do something. Whether it’s networking to a different career path or pushing back on a co-worker who repeatedly disrespects their boundaries, they tend to have the same fixed mindset about the issue. They don’t think they know how to solve the problem or they believe they lack the tools to do so.
Often the thing that helps them to discover the solution is one (or more) of the following open-ended questions:
- What resources could you tap into that you’re not currently using?
- What are you avoiding?
- Who exemplifies the kind of attitude or behavior you’re trying to exhibit?
So often, we get locked into a fixed mindset that all we know or all we have is all that there will ever be. Jerk Brain is a master of the fixed mindset. When we prod a little, we can find that there is much more depth and richness than we first believed.
All we have to do is ask.
Seriously, Jerk Brain? 