What holds you back from change?
At a recent conference, one of the speakers explained how the ‘crab effect’ can keep people stuck.
The ‘crab effect’ theory is a social phenomenon where individuals, instead of supporting each other’s success, actively try to pull others down, preventing them from achieving a better position, even if it doesn’t benefit the person hindering them.
Apparently, this is based on the behaviour of crabs in a bucket. You don’t need a lid, because they pull each other back in.
Opinions are divided as to whether this is what the crabs are actually doing, but after disappearing down a Reddit rabbit hole for 60 mins, I decided it didn’t matter anyway.
While there are people who will actively dissuade you from changing, the loudest voices are often internal. We don’t need others to pull us back – we undermine ourselves with statements such as:
‘I’m just not good with numbers’.
‘I can’t ask for that’.
‘I’ve never been able to save’
Usually, these beliefs come from things we were told by other people, that we have now internalised. One of my clients was repeatedly told “Don’t get too big for your boots”. She was very entrepreneurial, but was unable to achieve success because of this voice that told her that it was dangerous and that she wasn’t good enough to do it. Coaching fixed that.
So, when you’re talking to clients about change – and they seem to be stuck – it may well be that they have a set of self-limiting beliefs that are blocking them.
When it comes to finances, we all have self-limiting beliefs about what we can do, be or have with money. And that’s why understanding a client’s money beliefs should be part of any financial planning or advisory process.
When life changes, money changes; when money changes, life changes.
And what holds us back from embracing these changes are our internal narratives.
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