Accomplished business coach, Yvette Nevrkla reveals how our current thinking can have a huge impact on our lives and career success
Have you ever followed a specific strategy or method in your life or career and then not achieved the results you were expecting? Why is it that some individuals appear to achieve success easily where other don’t? Most frequently the answer can lie in your mindset.
I’ve put together 5 behaviours to consider that can indicate why things don’t always go to plan.
1. Procrastinating
This means you may be putting things off time and again, or holding back from doing something – whether it’s an action or making a decision. Most often, procrastination comes from fear – fear of failing, being rejected, offending someone or being ridiculed. If there is something you’re worried about, this can be enough to keep you procrastinating for a long time.
2. Blaming
What are you blaming for your current situation or results? Blaming involves assigning power to anything and anyone else so that you will have less or no responsibility for the issue. If things are not always working for you, then maybe it’s time to look at the problem and see what can be done to make it better.
3. Making excuses
Similar to blaming, making excuses for your action or inaction can be another way of avoiding responsibility. You may find yourself saying, “I didn’t or couldn’t do it because…” – we’ve all done it! The important thing is to recognise that this could be what’s holding you back.
4. Staying in your comfort zone
If you’re inclined to stay within your comfort zone, choosing pleasing methods over pleasing results, it may indicate some work needs to be done to better prepare yourself to become successful. My advice is to create a focus or desire in order to achieve the results you really want.
5. Getting distracted and sidetracked
If you find yourself working on anything but the things that will progress your career, then this part of your mindset may need some work. Quite often people will avoid doing the important actions and instead will opt to spend more time on activities that are of little value to their ultimate success. Distractions can include checking emails, surfing the internet, tidying the house, chatting with friends – you can allow almost anything to distract you from what you need to do.
Each of these behaviours will indicate that your current thinking may be the barrier to your true success. If you really want to be successful you need to work on your current thinking and consider the ways in which this can be improved.
In order to change your behaviour or mindset, it’s important to understand what’s causing you to behave the way you do. With each of these behaviours the underlying cause is your thinking. This is determined by your values, your current beliefs and your rules about the world. A simple shift in your thinking can have a dramatic affect on your life
How your mind works
- your brain is a connection machine – every day you’re bombarded with information. The brain is constantly working to find connections, associations and patterns between the information it already has and new information. This connection function helps us to learn something and store it so we don’t have to relearn it over and over again
- your brain uses prediction – the way information is stored by the brain gives it a predictive function so we can predict that if X happens then Y is the result. This prediction may come through your own experience, through seeing someone else’s experience or simply by being told or educated about an experience. We then use this information to predict what will happen when we embark on things in the future
- beliefs, rules and values – your brain creates a map of the world that can be expressed in terms of your beliefs, values and rules. Each of us holds beliefs and rules, whether consciously or subconsciously, about the world, people, men and women, health and fitness, business and money, success – everything. We hold our values as being the most important elements to have in our lives or important elements to avoid
- the subconscious – the majority of information in your brain is stored subconsciously – it’s hardwired at a deeper level. Our brains are like computers and we only have a limited amount of short term, conscious memory. The rest is stored in our subconscious mind for retrieval as and when required. Much of this information is used frequently, but we’re rarely conscious of using it.
What does all of this mean for you and your future success?
Your current psychology or way of thinking can determine everything you do. Your beliefs about success will determine your actions and your responses to challenges and opportunities.
For example, if achieving the success you desire means moving out of your comfort zone and opening yourself up to feelings that you usually try to avoid – such as rejection, ridicule or failure, then you are less likely to succeed if you don’t address these issues.
I say stop procrastinating, hesitating, blaming and avoiding and take control of your success. The key is to start identifying what makes you tick by exploring your own beliefs, rules and values, specifically in relation to the goals that you’ve yet to achieve. What is really holding you back? Remember it’s probably not the strategy!
For more training in this area, book on to the Future Fit Training Client Psychology and Motivation Module. This module will not only teach you how to look for indicators within your own behaviour, and teach you how to apply this to existing or future clients – plus upon completion you’ll earn 16 REPs CPD points.