Growth Mindset: The Key to Ditching Self-Doubt and Leading with Confidence

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:00  

Welcome to The Executive Coach for Moms Podcast where we support women who are attempting to find balance and joy while simultaneously leading people at work and at home. I'm your host, Leanna Laskey McGrath, former tech exec turned full time mom, recovering perfectionist and workaholic and certified executive coach.  

Leanna Laskey McGrath  0:27  

Hi everyone. Welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for being here today. So for the last several episodes, as you know, I have been sharing what's coming up in my coaching sessions, what's coming up in my life, at work and conversations, and just what would be helpful for you, my listener, and recently, I've been having a lot of conversations, a lot of coaching sessions on the topic of confidence. And so I started writing about some of my clients' situations and takeaways and things that I've learned about confidence so that I could share it with all of you. And I realized that there is so much to cover here, and so I decided to break it into a few episodes, so the next few episodes will focus on confidence, especially for women in the workplace. Last week, I had an amazing guest, Dr. Laura Sicola, who talked about how we can use our language to portray more confidence and to have our voices be heard. And I've done a few other episodes kind of related to that topic, and I think that it's important to learn those skills. And also I think that what I want to focus on, at least today, is peeling back the layers a little bit or going a little bit deeper within ourselves about what we are thinking about ourselves, what we are believing about ourselves, that creates our confidence. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  2:12  

I have heard a lot of quotes. I've heard a lot of people talk about that confidence comes from action that a lot of times we think that we have to become confident before we can take an action, before we can do something. And I agree with the notion that sometimes you just have to start doing it, and the doing of it will build the confidence. That's true whenever it comes to like a specific thing that we're trying to learn, that we're trying to be confident about. And also I do think that there are some different thoughts and mindset shifts available to us to lean into that confidence a bit more. And the one I want to talk about today is the idea of growth mindset, because I believe that one of the keys to confidence, to Unshakable Confidence, to feeling confident in any situation, not just at the things that we're good at, not just at the things that we have built capability in, but the confidence that goes with us anywhere is really having a growth mindset. And I was thinking about this because I was coaching a client who recently started a new job, and she was talking about how she had been on site for her first week, and she had taken some time before she started this job to be very intentional, and thinking about how she wanted to show up in this new role, looking at how she showed up in the past. And we've worked through a lot of different things there, and I just loved hearing some of her takeaways and some of the things that happened as a result of her showing up differently. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  4:09  

So one of the things that we uncovered was that she has always held this belief that the more you know, the more she collects knowledge, the more research she does, the more data she prepares, the more confident she can be in a meeting, in a presentation. And so what that has led to for her in the past has been a lot of overworking, a lot of over preparing, a lot of making sure that she just researches the crap out of everything before she talks about it with another human. Because for her, she believes that she brings value, and she can have the confidence, by knowing a lot about the subject matter, by collecting knowledge. And I think that it's true for a lot of people, that we get to a point in our career where we realize that we know a lot. And the reality is, is that a lot of times the questions that we might get in a presentation or in a conversation are not necessarily just knowledge-based. They're not things that we can just memorize and make sure that we have the data on hand. Of course, that might be helpful, but I think that what it leads to whenever we are so focused on knowledge only and knowing everything about everything and being fully prepared is that then, whenever we get into a conversation, we sound more scripted. We are more in our heads and less in our bodies and in ourselves, and we're less able to connect human to human, because we're so in our heads and we're so focused on the knowledge, and we're also so scared. There's something in the back of our heads that's saying, What if they ask a question that I don't know? What if I can't answer the question because I don't have the knowledge? 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  6:13  

And so this client in particular was sharing that she decided to go into the first week at her new job, just being a bit more open and curious, and instead of, like pretending that she knows everything going in, and you know, if someone talks about something that she doesn't know, asking them and giving them the opportunity to educate her, because she has kind of this confidence in what she does know, and another person might know more about something else. There's no possible way that we could know everything about everything. And so whenever she had that expectation of herself and was more grounded in, hey, here's what I know. I know a lot. I'm comfortable with what I know, and I'm just going to show up and be there with the other person, be there with the team, and, you know, be open to learning, then she said she felt so much less pressure. She felt so much less stressed. She was able to really be present instead of, like, thinking in her head the next thing she was going to say and trying to sound smart and trying to be impressive, but instead, she was able to, just like, be there with the other person and connect human to human. And she said it was so fun to see some of these people just like, light up about whatever it is they're passionate about, whatever it is that they know their subject matter so deeply, and you know, they were able to share that with another person. What a gift that is for them. And so really showing up in this way gave her the ability to connect with people in a way that she never has before. And her biggest takeaway was really that thinking about it from like honing the belief that I may not know everything, but I trust myself to figure it out, and that I'll be able to, you know, be on the spot, and if I don't have the perfect, scripted answer, with all of the data and research to back up my findings, that that's okay, that that's not a problem, that I'm going to be able to think on my feet and decide I can solve any problem. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  8:29  

And so I think what's important to notice here is that there's a much different set of thoughts. So in the thoughts, when we believe that knowledge is what creates our value, knowledge is what gives us confidence, we have thoughts that are usually like, what if I don't know enough? What if they ask this question that I can't answer? I need to make sure that I am sounding impressive. It's very kind of the thoughts that we have about that don't really create confidence for us, don't create that feeling of confidence because we're constantly wondering, do I know enough? Did I do enough? Did I prepare enough? And that's kind of constantly running in the back of our heads, and then we have this kind of hyper vigilance of being prepared for whatever questions they might ask, but being afraid that we might not be able to answer them. Whereas, on the flip side, when we shift into more of a growth mindset, we're able to think thoughts like, I'm capable of solving any problem. I'm capable of tackling any question, even if I don't know everything about it, but I can instead use my problem solving skills, and whenever we think things like that, then our confidence becomes much more unshakable. It allows us to be confident no matter where we are, because we believe in our ability to problem solve. We believe in our ability to figure it out. We trust that no matter what, we can solve any problem. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  10:08  

Those thoughts create a lot more confidence and allow us to show up much better, because, like I said in my client's example, she was able to connect with people so much more. And that's really, really powerful. And I think that the people who are able to do that, who are able to show up to any situation and be present with the circumstances and the problem and the situation that's that's presented in the people that are in the room and solve whatever problems in front of them, or figure it out, or maybe not solve it right on the spot, but be able to bring in the resources necessary and have the confidence and the humility to say, I don't know. I need to grab an expert who knows more about this than I do. I think those are the people that are much more marketable, rather than being a complete subject matter expert on something and relying fully on the knowledge. And then whenever something presents where we don't know something, that we are unable to move forward, that we feel shattered that we don't have that knowledge. That is a much more fixed mindset. And I think especially in the world that we're living in today, with a pace of innovation and things constantly changing, that growth mindset is so crucial. And I think we all know that, and we all probably in our hiring are looking for people with a growth mindset, but also it's really important to recognize how it ties to our confidence. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  11:49  

And so if you're feeling a lack of confidence in a new role or in a new project, or in something you've done for years but it's changed because of innovation, then just remember to go back to those thoughts about believing in your problem solving abilities. I can figure this out. I can solve any problem. And if you don't believe that about yourself, that's where the work is. That's where to put your time and energy and effort is in working to build that belief in yourself, rather than going and seeking more knowledge and more data. Not that you shouldn't research, of course, but also understanding that over researching, over preparing and overworking is only going to take you so far, whereas building the belief of I can do it, I can solve any problem, I can be in any situation, and I believe in myself to find a solution,that is really where the work needs to be if we want to build our confidence in any situation. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  12:59  

So I hope that's a helpful thing to think about. Action items from here would be to number one, think about, you know, what do I think about myself in terms of my problem solving abilities, in terms of my belief in myself to solve any problem, to bring value to any circumstance, whether or not I am fully knowledgeable about it, and then two, work on building that belief in yourself. Maybe this goes back to the original thing I talked about with confidence comes from doing. Maybe try out, not over preparing, not over researching, which probably sounds really scary, but going in and being able to think on your feet, and practicing that, and building that muscle, being able to problem solve. Also looking back on where you can collect evidence of where you have problem solved in the past, where you went into something and you didn't have all of the information, you didn't have all of the knowledge about it, but you were able still to find a solution, and you were able still to add value. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  14:07  

I actually think about this that there are some parallels here with coaching, because sometimes, when I'm coaching a client brings something that I don't know anything about, I can still be really present with that, and we can get to a really amazing place just by being fully engaged and present and curious, and then we're able to really solve any problem. So that is a skill set that is available to all of us, and that I would highly recommend if you're struggling with confidence that you see where your belief is about yourself. If you rate that on a scale of one to 10, ask yourself, how strongly do I believe this about myself, that I can solve any problem, that I don't need to have all of the knowledge and background information to be able to show up and be present and make a solid impact on whatever situation's in front of us. And if that number is not a 10 or close to a 10, then I would highly recommend working on building that belief in yourself, because I think that that is something that really, really, really helps us to build our confidence in any situation. 

Leanna Laskey McGrath  15:24  

All right, well, I hope that this first lesson on confidence has been helpful for you. I would love to hear from you about anything confidence related that you're struggling with or that you'd like to hear about, so that I can continue to create some more episodes on this topic, because I think it's a really important one for us to be focused on. So thank you all so much, and I will see you next week to talk about confidence some more. Thanks so much everyone. Have a great day. Bye.

Leanna Laskey McGrath  16:00  

If you're loving what you're learning on this podcast, I'd love to invite you to check out The Executive Mom Reset. It's my six month coaching program for ambitious, success driven, career focused women who are ready to stop surviving and start thriving. Together, we'll tackle the stress, guilt and overwhelm that come with being a high achieving executive mom. You'll learn how to set boundaries, prioritize what truly matters, and build the confidence to show up powerfully at work, at home, and for yourself. Head on over to coachleanna.com right now to schedule a free discovery call. We'll spend an hour talking about where you are now, what you want to create, and how I can help you get there, because every woman deserves to live the life of her dreams. Let's create yours together.