GoHuman Blog

The whole problem with not achieving goals is preoccupation.  And the greatest obstacle to happiness, to high performance, to personal wealth is preoccupation.  People don’t understand that.

When I work with people one-on-one, they don’t quite understand how distractible they are, and how preoccupied they get.  And how they wake up and decide, “Well, today, I’m going to do this project and I’m going to pursue my goals,” but five minutes into the day, they’re thinking about a thousand other things.  And the mind that thinks of a thousand things in one day is not going to get anywhere. No matter how fast it’s thinking!    But if the mind is on the right path, it doesn’t matter how slow or fast you go.  If you’re on the right path, you’ll get there.

The key is to slow down and focus all your energies on doing “that one most important thing” you’ve told yourself you were going to do today. Since the mind can only  focus on one complete thought at a time, why not put all your focus, all your concentration and efforts into doing that one thing to the very best of your ability? The beauty of it all is once it’s done, it’s done, and you can move on to the next most important thing, project or task on your list.

Obstacles are your friends. They’ve come, like angels and saints, to make you stronger. They are blessings in disguise.

When trouble confronts you, think about it like a log in the road. You first identify the log in the road as an obstacle, but a log is also something you can put on a fire. What happens when you put a log on the fire? It gets consumed, for one thing. But what else? By being consumed, it makes the fire stronger, brighter, and hotter. The log actually feeds the fire! Obstacles feed the mission!

In the past couple of years, I’ve adjusted my own mindset, in that I’ve chosen to perceive problems I’m occasionally faced with as opportunities for learning. The greater the obstacle, the greater the opportunity for growth that lies ahead.

A bad situation is a bad situation but just like both sides of a coin, there’s an upside and a downside. Most often, we tend to only see the downside, but what if you could learn to find the good, some good, any good….. in every difficult situation? How would it look to you then? Would things seem quite as bad as what they first appeared as, or would the commitment you made to find something good in any bad situation, erase the negative thoughts/ feelings you have about it?

That’s why it’s so important to face problems with a fire in your heart. Not to tiptoe around problems, but once the decision is made to encounter the problem, to light your internal fire and go after it. Consume it. Convert it into energy. It changes the story of the log when you put it on the fire. And then it changes the story of your life.

One of the many things I have yet to understand about the different personalities/perceptions people have is why some feel the need to continuously bash the competition. What good comes from doing this? Who does it serve?  They’re under some apparent impression that if they speak poorly about their competitors, it makes them appear confident. Ironically, it conveys the exact opposite message.

Take political advertisements for example; “I’m _____   _____ and I approved this message.”-Great. Good for you! Although I’m not too sure I’d be putting my name out there for the entire world to see/hear how I just slandered the #$%^ out of my competitor (who is still in business, mind you.) Competition is healthy and required. Without competition, there’s no motivation for improvement.

Let’s move to a more professional environment like the corporate worldJ. How often is it we hear from others or waste a lot of our own precious time (something we, in America, claim to never have enough of) gossiping, assuming, accusing, speculating or fabricating a story to be much more of “what we’d like it to be” (because the real facts are just plain boring) about what the competition did, didn’t do, is going to do but doesn’t even know it yet themselves?

Then there’s reality TV……Last evening, I watched the season finale of Master Chef (Gordon Ramsey’s series) and decided this topic would be a blog many would relate to. I didn’t say everyone would “like” it. The objective of the show is to find and be the first Master Chef. The winner receives a $250k check, a Master Chef book deal and presumably, no longer needs to be concerned with returning to their previous employer.

Throughout each episode someone would be eliminated at the end, depending upon how the judges rated their cooking abilities based off of presentation, taste and creativity. As the weeks progressed and the number of competitors dwindled, the show spent more time doing the quick minute interviews with those still remaining. I quickly noticed a pattern forming with a few contestants. It was as if their focus shifted from concentrating on creating the best tasting, most eloquent looking entrée, to being more concerned about how the guy/girl next to them can’t do this, does too much of that, cooks too fast. Of course, none of this mattered anyway and only further validated that they would be the first Master Chef. NEWS FLASH–there would only be 1 winner and ironically, the winner was someone who focused less on her competitors and more on her own strengths and skill-sets.

Speaking highly of your competition communicates a genuine confidence about you….. and confidence breeds confidence.

If it can be agreed upon by the majority of people that great time management is a desirable skill, why is it that so few people can be described as “well organized, effective, and efficient?” In my experience over the past several years, I’ve found that many people have ideas about time management that just aren’t true. I also know that if you believe something to be true, it becomes true for you. Your beliefs cause you to see yourself and the world, and your relationship to time management, in a particular way. If you have negative beliefs in any area, these beliefs will affect your thinking and actions, and will eventually become your reality. You are not what you think you are, but what you think, you are.

Brian Tracy- a well known entrepreneur/leadership developer/motivational speaker outlines and describes time management as:

Three Mental Barriers To Time Power
The first negative belief about time management is that if you’re too well organized, you’re rigid and unemotional. Some people feel that they will lose their spontaneity and freedom if they are extremely effective and efficient.

Many people use this belief as an excuse for not disciplining themselves the way they know they should. The fact is that people who are disorganized are not spontaneous; they are merely confused, and often frantic. The key is structuring and organizing everything that’s within your control to allow you to make the most of your time, i.e.: thinking ahead; planning for contingencies; preparing thoroughly and focusing on specific results. Only then can you be completely relaxed and spontaneous when the situation changes.

The better organized you are in the factors that are under your control, the greater freedom and flexibility you have to quickly make changes whenever they are necessary.

The second barrier people tend to surround themselves with in regards to ineffective time management, is that it’s a trait that’s been programmed into them, either from their parents or other influential people in their lives, since early childhood.

If you were continuously told as a child, that you’re a messy person, unorganized, a procrastinator who waits until the last minute to do anything or always late, chances are that as an adult, you may still be operating under the same thought process.

Time management and personal efficiency skills are disciplines that we learn and develop through practice and repetition. If we’ve developed bad time management habits, the good news is we can unlearn them by replacing them with new/better habits, over time.

The third mental block to good time management skills is having a negative self-concept, or what’s commonly referred to as “self-limiting beliefs.” Many people believe that they don’t have the ability to be good at time management. They often believe that it is an inborn part of their background or heritage. The truth is there’s no gene/chromosome for poor time management, or good time management, for that matter. Personal behaviors are within your own control.

IMAGINE THIS………
Imagine if someone offered you a million dollars to manage your time superbly for the next thirty days. Imagine an efficiency expert following you around with a clipboard and a video camera for one month. After the thirty days, if you had used your time efficiently and well, working on your highest priorities all day, every day, you would receive a prize of one million dollars. How efficient would you be over the next thirty days?

A coach helps others improve their performance. When I say improve performance, I don’t merely mean that coaching can and will improve a person’s working life; it will also boost their productivity, the enjoyment and fulfillment they have at home and in other aspects of their lives. It’s about drawing out the untapped potential in others, to allow them to discover the things they don’t see within themselves. A coach recognizes their strengths and shows them how to leverage those strengths and use them to their advantage.

The travesty is that most people don’t get proactive when it comes to boosting their own performance. Many people do quite the opposite. They look for ways to get away with the minimum possible amount of work. Unfortunately, this type of attitude holds back many talented individuals.

Most of us know someone who’s failed their high school/college exams, miserably. There are; however, countless examples of such people who for one reason or another, went back to school/college and passed their exams with flying colors, the second time round. What changed? The answer is simple; their attitude changed. It is attitude which separates the good from the great. Given the choice of somebody to work with, I’d rather take someone with an outstanding, highly driven and determined attitude, who is hell bent on succeeding, then a person with a weaker attitude but notably, more ability.

Disciplining ourselves to do what we know we need to do to be the best in our chosen field is perhaps the most difficult, and at the same time, easiest request we could ask of ourselves. Self discipline is defined as this: “Self discipline is the ability to make yourself do what you should do when you should do it, whether you feel like it or not.”

It’s always easy to do something when we feel like doing it. It’s when we don’t feel like it and force ourselves to do it anyway, that are we able to transition our personal/professional lives onto the fast track.

So how do you get started? By asking what decisions need to be made today, in order to start moving up the success ladder. Regardless of what they may be, either get in or get out, make a decision today and get started. This one act itself, can change the entire course of your life.

-The first action step to take is deciding what you want in every part of your life. Be specific, rather than generalizing.

-Next, document it, detail for detail. A goal that’s not in writing isn’t a goal at all. Having a goal in writing puts it out there and makes it real. It’s no longer just a thought swimming around with the other 5,000 thoughts you have throughout any given day.

-Set a deadline for your goal. A deadline allows you to have a targeted completion date to work towards. A deadline motivates you to do what’s necessary to make your goal a reality

-Make a list of everything you can think of that will have to be done, in order to achieve your goal. As new tasks come to mind or occur that you might not have thought of before, add them to your list until it’s complete.

-Organize your list by priority. Determine what tasks or project items are more/less important. Begin with the most important item and work your way down to the least important, until complete.

-Take action! Regardless of how large/small the action step taken is, do something every day that will move you one step closer to achieving your goal. A plan is only as good as the paper it’s on, until it’s fully executed.

One of the greatest lies we tell ourselves is that to be successful, we have to know ”how-to” achieve the level of success we’re looking for. Fact of the matter is to be successful in anything we do in life, requires us to have the “want-to” and then ask “why do I want this to succeed?” Once we’ve asked ourselves what the intention is for us to succeed, we work towards strengthening our want-to, in order to know how-to.

If the want-to is strong enough, we’ll always find the how-to. Having a weak want-to on the inside, allows all the power to go to the outside, which leaves us feeling powerless. A weak internal want-to creates an exaggerated fear of the external forces, i.e. competition, economic conditions, lack of cash, employee conflict issues, etc…A behavioral change without action is utterly useless, because neither one is any good without the other.

When the desire or passion is absent, no system, regardless of how brilliant it may be, will work. Find the deep passion within you to want-to do something badly enough, and the how-to will always come.

Whether willing to admit to it or not, most of us have experienced (and most likely participated in) some sort of dysfunction, within the workplace. Depending upon to what extreme or level of hierarchy the dysfunction occurs, if not addressed & resolved, it can be toxic, with the potential to cause irrefutable damage, throughout an entire organization. So, what happens when there’s dysfunction within a team, how does one deal with it and how much, if any of it, can be controlled?

Trust is the heartbeat of a functioning, cohesive team and without it, teamwork is impossible. Unfortunately, we use the word “trust” about as often as we misuse it. In reference to team building, trust is the confidence among team members, who have good intentions and no reason to be cautious about what they say/do around one another. Teams that lack trust, waste exorbitant amounts of time, energy and ultimately money, managing their behaviors and interactions with one another. All of which will result in reduced employee morale and increased employee turnover.

In Patrick Lencioni’s “The Five Dysfunctions of a Team,” he writes about how the most important action a leader must take to encourage the building of trust on a team is to demonstrate vulnerability first. This requires them to risk losing face in front of the team, to ensure others will take the same risks themselves. He continues to say the leader/s must create an environment that doesn’t reprimand vulnerability. Even unintentionally, leaders can discourage trust by scolding others for weaknesses or failure. Finally, when displaying these acts of vulnerability, it’s critical that the leader/s be genuine and not fake. One of the best and fastest ways to lose trust on a team is to fake it, in order to manipulate other people’s emotions. A leader who displays regular acts of  being inauthentic, will most assuredly, be left with no one to lead.

Having a vision is the single most important quality a leader possesses. It gives him/her the guidance necessary to achieve success. Vision motivates a leader to inspire others and share in that vision. A leader without a vision, is like a traveler who has no idea where they’re going.

To develop a vision requires us to look within ourselves, because it starts from the inside. It’s not something that just appears overnight, it grows from a leader’s past experiences, mistakes, lessons learned and the people around them.  A leader draws from their own strengths & talents, dreams and greatest passions, when creating their vision.

The greater the vision a leader has, the stronger of a team he/she will need to support and help accomplish the goals. It’s equally as important that a leader have someone who they can turn to for guidance, whether that be a mentor, coach, superior; someone with more experience than they have and who can keep them in alignment with the results they want to achieve.

Lastly, a vision should be greater than any past memories, mistakes or accomplishments. If the vision is clear, the journey begins by taking one step at a time. Discouragement and frustration aren’t caused by not practicing, but rather by not having clarity about the journey itself and where it begins.

Did you know 80% of businesses started by experienced businesspeople succeed? That’s an incredibly high statistic, but did you notice how I said “experienced” businesspeople are the ones who succeed?

Experienced entrepreneurs who’ve “been there, done that,” have a good understanding of what works and what doesn’t work in business.  Those who are fully committed to knowing what to do, when to do it, & know how to purchase and market the products/services offered, can and will survive in any economy. They know how to negotiate with their suppliers, they know how to raise money, they know how to sell & market and they know how to add continuous value to those they serve. “Experience” is the key.

Most businesses started by inexperienced people fail. Ninety-nine percent of businesses started by those who lack business experience, fail within the first two or three years. Why? Because they haven’t the slightest idea how to make it successful. They may have an idea for a product or service, but don’t have the experience to know what the key requirements are for building, sustaining or growing a successful business.

Coach’s Corner #1