| What’s Stopping You?
What's stopping you from reaching your true potential and achieving breakthrough success? Well more than likely ... you.
You've read that right. It's not the world conspiring against you. More than likely the limiting factor in your success is your mental conditioning. That's the reason you don't make the sale, get the job or earn the promotion.
Most people are held back by a lack of courage. I'm not talking about the climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro or bungee jumping off the Golden Gate bridge kind of courage. I'm talking about the everyday kind of courage. The courage to have the conversation, apply for the project or ask for the business.
Why aren't we more courageous? Most are afraid of failure. And so strong is this fear that we will go to great lengths to avoid it and unfortunately this keeps many from realizing their true potential.
|
 |
|
Most of us talk to ourselves. We have a running internal dialog. And many psychologists will tell you that this mental conversation we're having with ourselves is quite often negative.
Often it's inhibitive, "I can't" and other times it's imperative, "I have to" and then there's double whammy "I can't, but I have to." Who could thrive in such an environment? The answer is darn few.
The challenge here is to be cognizant of our mental state and the running internal dialog. And when we catch it being a negative, change it. Scientists say we can only hold one thought in our head at a time (although they also say our neurons are firing at some 250 miles per hour so you can have a range of quite divergent thoughts quite rapidly). So your thoughts may as well be positive.
If you catch yourself saying "I can't" of course you should obviously change that to "I can" as long as it truly is a task worth pursuing. You can do most of whatever you set out to do, you may just need to learn something, read something, or talk to someone first.
If you find yourself saying "I have to" try replacing that with "I want to" and see if that doesn't change your mood. And of course the alternative to both is "I'm not going to and I don't have to" and this will often change your perspective as well.
|
 |
I know one thing more of us can reduce, me included, is the limited drive towards perfectionism. Look below at this frequently used, "hockey stick" chart. It shows that for most to get to about 80% effective really requires relatively low investment in terms of energy and effort. But the energy and effort required to get substantially above that is huge.
What's the take away? Quit killing yourself trying to make things perfect. Make them good and move on. |
 |
Another aspect of our mental conversations keeping us from our potential is something psychologists call "catastrophic" thinking. It's where we take the slightest fear and work it into inevitable doom. Here's how it works.
"I can't possibly make those prospecting phone calls. If I do, customers will react badly and then others will discover I'm not really a good sales person. Then my sales career is going to go down the shoot, I'll probably lose my job, won't be able to pay my bills and then ... next thing you know ... I'll be homeless."
Ok just so I have this straight. If you make this phone call you're going to be homeless right? See how ridiculous it sounds. But yet how many of us have had these or similar conversations run through our head
|
|
A PhD in psychology by the name of Pauline Clance wrote a book called the Imposter Phenomenon. It seems in her clinical work she found a very interesting commonality shared by most people. They were afraid they would be "found out." That's right - discovered that they weren't really as good as they were given credit for.
It didn't matter if the people were senior executives in organizations, highly capable athletes or some other high performer, even though they achieved high levels of success, they all felt somewhere somehow they would be "found out." Of course these were all unjustified and unwarranted fears. Resist this negative thinking pattern at all costs. You truly are better than you think you are! |
|
There is a terrific Nike Michael Jordan commercial that no longer airs (check it out on YouTube). It shows MJ in slow motion coming to an arena ostensibly before a big game.
Jordan, doing a slow dramatic voice over, says,
"I've missed over 9000 shots. I've lost over 300 games. 26 times I've been trusted to make the game winning shot ... and missed. I've failed over and over and over again. And that is why ... I succeed."
Pretty great advice.
|
|
| Feel free to share this info at your staff meetings, use it for training sessions, or in conversations. Co-workers not signed up? Forward this to them. Our goal is to help you be, have and do more for you and your customers. |
| Earn more. Stress less. Make a difference. |
|
|
