GoHuman Blog

The thought of achieving any big goal can often be overwhelming and seem so far out of reach that we decide it’s not worth pursuing. So how do you get past that daunting, dreading feeling and transform a dream into a project? By taking action. Any action. You accomplish it one step, one task, one measure at a time.

Ask your superior or yourself, “what’s the one thing I do that is more valuable than anything else?” Whatever the answer, look for continuous ways to perform more and more of that task and learn to do it a little better each day. It’s amazing how much and what you can accomplish by breaking your tasks down into bite-sized pieces, setting deadlines, and then taking action, every single day.

Get into a routine where you’re regularly improving your skills through personal & professional development. Designate a specific amount of time each day to reading about your field. Listen to audio programs on your way to and from work. Take additional courses whenever you can. These activities alone will jump-start your entire career and get you on the fast track in no time. When you invest an extra hour or two per day in personal/professional-improvement, the cumulative effect on your ability to get the results you want is extraordinary.

If you can measure it, you can manage it. In every area of your life, carefully analyze your activities and choose a specific number that will determine your level of success in that area. Focus all your attention on that number because just as a plant depends upon water to prosper, the same is true for people, what you focus on is what grows. The very act of being and remaining focused will allow you to perform better in that area, consciously and unconsciously.

The human fear of failure is the greatest obstacle we allow to get in our way of achieving success. Taken to its extreme, we become totally pre-occupied with not making a mistake, with seeking the approval of others for security. We allow it to debilitate us, entrap us, immobilize us from taking action.

Another major fear that gets in our way and interferes with performance, is the fear of rejection. We learn this when our parents make their love for us conditional upon our behavior. If we do what pleases them, we gain their love and approval. If we do something they don’t like, they withdraw their love and approval, which we interpret as rejection.

When dismantled, fear is nothing more than a thought. A thought that is all based in the future. As humans, we tend to fill in the blanks (our thoughts) with the worst case scenario. Fear is irrational. It’s a habit that we can change. Everyone has courage within them and the distinction is that those who don’t allow fear to control their thoughts and actions, call on that courage. They don’t allow their story to stop them from being who they want to be or from doing the things they want to do.  Our personality or story that we use to identify ourselves as, is never what truly defines who we are. Drop the story, get into action and the fear will gradually dissipate.

The opposite of fear is love. Love is always creative and fear is always reactive and ultimately tragic. Destructive! Fear produces “need,” but need it and you won’t get it.  Want it and you will. Want it with all your heart, aka, “commitment.”

The Webster’s Dictionary definition of failure is: omission of occurrence or performance; specifically: a failing to perform a duty or expected action.

One of my favorite quotes is by a gentleman who, in my opinion, is the epitome of what “failure” cannot be defined as. Words recited by an individual who, with absolute certainty, knew his own potential and recognized an opportunity not worth giving up on.

“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” – Thomas A. Edison

It took Thomas Edison 10,000 attempts before successfully creating the light bulb. When asked how it felt to fail 10,000 times, he responded by saying he didn’t fail at anything, but rather learned 10,000 ways of what didn’t work before discovering what did work.

Whether with personal life struggles or professional challenges encountered at the office, there are times when we allow ourselves to see no other way out of a bad situation other than to “give up” and walk away because we’ve failed. We have failed at doing something with a specific outcome intended and in turn, produced all other results other than what was expected, anticipated or desired.

What most people don’t understand is they haven’t failed because something didn’t turn out the way they anticipated or due to certain decisions made in a situation they believed to be right, didn’t produce the results they wanted. People only fail when they decide not to do anything about the situation. They throw their hands in the air and give up. They turn their backs and chalk it up as a loss. Better yet, they’ll play the victim role and walk around with their heads down telling everyone how “circumstances beyond their control,” were to blame. It was the poor economy. It was his fault. It was her fault. It was their fault. It was always someone else’s fault, other than theirs.

Paradoxically, when we take full ownership of who we are being, the choices we make and how we react in a difficult situation, we can do anything, because when we own the problem, we own the solution.

“A common cause of business failure: seeing that a strategy isn’t producing the anticipated results- and responding by going unconscious. A common cause of failure in your personal life; the same policy.” –Nathaniel Branden

How important do you suppose it is to personally invest in ourselves through continued self development? Whether it be for business or personal reasons, many people just don’t take the time or rather, feel worthy enough to spend the time on themselves, to further develop their skills. I say this with certainty because I used to be one of those people who never took the time to further educate myself, for many reasons.

Before starting my business coaching practice, I spent most of my adult career (20 years) in the RV-MH distribution industry. During that period, I was fortunate enough to continuously advance in my positions from administration to head of operations, which I attribute to a lot of hard work, motivation and a strong passion for the work I did and the people I served.  As shameful as this may sound, it never occurred to me how much additional value I could add to my employees, co-workers, customers, and myself by reading leadership books to learn more about effectively leading others or listen to audios about goal setting & achieving, team building exercises or how to deal with work place conflict. With having said all that, nothing could have prepared me for the complete transformation I’ve made over the past year and half.

Once I made the decision that it was time for a change and realized in doing so, not only would I be stepping way out of my comfort zone, but rather setting myself up for the biggest challenge of my life. By the time I reached that awareness, I was far too invested (financially and emotionally) to ever think about turning back and returning to the “land of safety.”

One of the first lessons I learned about starting a business was any/all results that were to occur, would be completely dependent upon me and the commitment I was willing to make to myself, in order to achieve the results I wanted. Part of that commitment meant learning a lot more about a trade that was, although very unfamiliar to me, a great deal similar to much of the work I had done, over the past twenty years.

For starters, I sought out a good training/certification program that would help me lay the foundation for my practice. Next, I hired my own business coach, someone who I knew had a great reputation in the industry and more importantly, one that was effective at getting the results her clients wanted, which in turn, produced the results she wanted. I spent months reading motivational, coaching, sales and success books. I listened to problem solving, financially fearless, owner/victim distinction audios while in my car, every opportunity I had. Then, it was practice, practice, practice the art of coaching, to learn everything that didn’t work for me or others, in order to find what would work.

I’ve encountered more roadblocks than downtown Chicago and at times, often wondered if I made the right decision. However, as soon as I feel myself falling into the victim mode trap of “poor me,” it’s at that same time when I recall how I’ve overcome every one of those obstacles and turned them into opportunities for growth. As a result, I’m a much more independent, wiser and stronger individual & coach, today.

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.

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?

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.

1776 in the U.S. is symbolic of the struggle for freedom from those who would tax without representation.  Economic freedom.  Since last July 4 the markets had a wild recovery ride, but in the last month they’re trending dramatically down again.  The power of global government stimulus has run its course, and the fundamental problems have not yet been fixed.  New regulations have been authored and are in various stages of approval, but there is disagreement on what they will or won’t achieve, both positively and negatively.

There are many ways to look at this problem.  I like the chart at bottom with democracy and economic freedom on a grid.  We could discuss the placement of various countries, but to do so we’d have to first discuss the criteria by which we evaluate the terms.  That would lead to other discussions – and it gets pretty complex pretty fast.  Here’s an interesting video that shows there is hope we’ll get it right!

GoHuman.com’s answer to these challenges is to unite and strengthen local entrepreneurs, supported by a marketplace with transparent information.  This allows prices and services to find their own levels, as in so-called free markets.  But by building it from the bottom up, and putting ownership in the hands of the individual, we strip power from “market makers” who manipulate and control the so-called free markets to their advantage.  We welcome your input to this discussion.

Thank you to our members and supporters.  We look forward to working with you to make GoHuman.com even better in the year ahead.