Over the last ten days, I’ve received the following texts from one of my coaching clients who owns a small business.
“Scott, I’m sending off a proposal right now for what would be double my largest project ever!”
“Scott, the client wants to meet with me and go over my proposal. Wish me luck!”
“Scott, they want to work together!!”
I love getting messages like this, but that’s not the point. What fascinates me is how quickly our perception of what’s possible changes when a bigger opportunity suddenly appears in front of us.
Let me explain.
We set mental limits for ourselves, and we put ourselves in these boxes. We find a bar, and we tend to stay right around that bar for various reasons.
Get Scott’s article every morning
No spam. Just straight-talk career advice, every day.
I always use a simple example to explain this.
If the fastest you’ve ever run a mile is ten minutes, that number becomes part of your identity. You tell people you can run a ten-minute mile, and more importantly, you tell yourself that’s what you’re capable of. The next time you lace up your shoes, you’re aiming to get close to ten minutes again. Seven minutes isn’t even part of the conversation because your mind has already accepted ten minutes as the benchmark.
The same goes for your career. If you have achieved a role as Director of Sales, then you are a Director of Sales in your mind, and your entire focus is staying in and or around that role. You may not apply to VP roles unless you are given permission to apply, and you may keep yourself in and around this little box until someone promotes you or pushes you there.
If you own a small business, the way you have operated with pricing and clients is how you tend to repeat. You don’t push the envelope on pricing because it’s uncomfortable. You want to stay in, and around that range you have historically charged because that feels right, and it’s not until you decide to charge two or three times more that you realize you were leaving money on the table.
It all starts with your mindset. The mindset to push yourself. The mindset to be willing to unlock more potential, and the desire to step way outside of your comfort zone.
When I started coaching, I set my first rate at $50 per month for a one-hour session with me. I didn’t think anyone would ever sign up. Today, my hourly rate is $225, over four times what it was when I started just three years ago. You can argue that I earned the opportunity to charge more, but I’ve also had people tell me I’m still underpriced. I’ve struggled to step outside of my own pricing mindset, thus proving this bar and box we put ourselves in is our own challenge.
What I’ve learned is that most ceilings are self-imposed long before they are real. We tell ourselves stories about what we’re worth, what we’re capable of, and what level we’ve earned the right to pursue. Those stories become our reality until something challenges them. A bigger client. A larger role. A stretch opportunity. Suddenly, the thing that seemed impossible yesterday is sitting right in front of us, asking if we’re ready.
The fascinating part is that growth rarely happens in a straight line.
Growth happens when you are forced to recalibrate your own expectations. My client didn’t wake up one morning believing they were capable of landing a project twice the size of anything they had done before. The opportunity showed up first. Their confidence followed. Experience has taught me that confidence is often the result of action, not the prerequisite for it.
Take a minute and think about the areas of your life where you’ve built a box around yourself. Maybe it’s the salary you believe you’re qualified to earn. Maybe it’s the title you think is one promotion away. Maybe it’s the size of the business you think you’re capable of building. Whatever it is, there’s a good chance the limit exists more in your mind than it does in reality. The world has a funny way of rewarding people who are willing to ask for more, pursue more, and believe they are capable of more.
My coaching client is about to take on the largest project of their career. A few weeks ago, they would have told you it wasn’t possible. Today, they’re preparing to execute on it. The opportunity didn’t change who they are. The opportunity simply revealed they are capable of far more than they had given themselves credit for.
Sometimes the biggest breakthrough in your career or business isn’t learning a new skill. Sometimes it’s realizing the box was never locked in the first place.