Break Through Hidden Blockers: Muriel Wilkins on Leadership Mindset

The Path to Executive Coaching

• 🚀 Muriel Wilkins became an executive coach serendipitously after facing her own leadership challenges and seeking a coach with both business acumen and leadership expertise.
• 💡 Over 20 years ago, a mentor suggested she become the coach she was looking for, a path she embraced and never looked back from.

Reasons for Seeking Executive Coaching

• 🎯 Professionals seek coaching due to external prompts (boss, HR), contextual changes like promotions or new roles, or internal dissonance like feeling off or receiving critical feedback.
• 🤝 Senior executives often seek a confidential sounding board to navigate the "lonely at the top" experience and gain objective perspectives.
• 📈 Coaching is valuable proactively, not just for executives, and can be integrated into daily professional development.

Understanding Hidden Blockers

• 🧠 A "hidden blocker" is defined as a belief that once served you well but is now hindering your progress, often holding significant power over behavior and results.
• 🔑 Common blockers identified include: "I need to be involved," "If I can do it, so can you," "I can't make a mistake," and "I can't say no."
• 🎭 These beliefs are often learned and based on past experiences, creating a "perception gap" where self-perception doesn't align with current reality.

Identifying and Overcoming Blockers

• 🤔 The first step is curiosity and awareness that internal beliefs impact professional life, not just personal life.
• ⚠️ When not getting desired results or feeling "off," ask: "What am I thinking or believing that might be leading to this feeling or outcome?"
• 🔍 Instead of focusing on others' actions, turn the lens inward to examine your own beliefs and behaviors, questioning the origin story behind them.
• ✅ A key question to ask is: "Is this belief helping me right now, or is it getting in the way?"

The Power of Mindset Shifts

• ⚡ A mindset shift, like correlating work with exercise, can lead to tangible positive health results without changing the actions themselves.
• 🚀 When leaders understand that mindset is controllable, they can change behavior faster, more effectively, and consistently.
• ⚖️ Distinguish between wanting external validation (nice to have) and needing external validation (detrimental to self-worth).
• 💡 Self-doubt can be managed by recognizing it, exploring its root beliefs, and choosing to believe something that fosters confidence, even amidst challenges.

Leading with Ease

• 🌟 Challenges are inevitable in leadership, but experiencing them as distressful is optional; the mindset brought to the situation is controllable.
• 🤝 Recognizing that you have control over how you experience challenges, starting with beliefs and behavior, enables leading with greater ease and fostering ease in others' presence.