What's Holding You Back? You Are.

I start all workshops and coaching relationships with the discussion of Limiting Beliefs. Why? In life, we run into so many external obstacles. People, institutions, rules, regulations, and hierarchies all play major roles in our life. They get in our way, they make us stumble, we get frustrated, and we give up. They win.

The more insidious of life's obstacles are your internal obstacles. I've broken them down into manageable chunks to allow you to understand them and to hopefully assess and ameliorate each one. When I think of limiting beliefs in my life, I call them life's 'Little Stinkers'. Here they are:

What We've Learned

These are the 'hard-wired' internal obstacles that are drilled into us from an early age. 'Don't do this' and 'you can't do that' play a major part in our learning process. We might have parents, siblings, teachers, and other adults in our life telling us what is right and wrong. Not that it's a bad thing — it's important to do — but sometimes they say certain things that are seared in our personality.

Examples: "They're out of your league" "No one can get an A in that class" "You're not artistic" "You can't sing"

What We've Experienced

These are the myriad of personal experiences when we've tried to step out of our bubble and try new things. And they don't go well. We try something new once or take a big step out of our comfort zone and fail. We revert back to a safe spot and constantly repeat to ourselves that we shouldn't go there — it's a waste of time.

Examples: "We shouldn't go there" "We can't do it" "It's not in our DNA" "I'd be happier staying the same"

What We Think/Fear

This is the third level of limiting beliefs. Take what we've learned and what we've experienced, mix them together, and you end up here. These are all the limiting beliefs we have in our head and we project them all into the future. We mentally scare and hold ourselves back from learning new things, experiencing new practices, and meeting new people.

Examples: "If I do it, I will fail" "This will be a futile exercise" "They won't like me" "They will laugh at me" "I will lose a lot of money"

What We Dodge

This is the lazy limiting belief. We get stuck or complacent in our limiting belief world and feel this is all I need to do. We take the other three limiting beliefs and let our procrastination, laziness, and distractions kick in to hold us back.

Examples: "This has worked all my life" "It's good enough" "My job is fine" (I hate the word fine) "I don't have the time"

Conclusion

If you let these limiting beliefs win, you will NEVER get the opportunity to change your life, your situation, your work, your abilities, your friendships, and possibly increase your happiness. I find if you just stay static in your life and career, you won't be happy for long. So start looking in the mirror and start eliminating those internal obstacles!

Perfectionism — The Killer Of Thousands Of Entrepreneurs.

"The thing to realize that having a failure, does not make you a failure."

"One of this biggest things that can kill a persons hopes and dreams is being a perfectionist. It’s that little voice in your head saying that you are not good enough… that the product is not good enough to ship, that the book is not good enough to finish, that you are not good enough for the promotion, and many more."

Another great post from John Cooper on what ails many entrepreneurs today.

The Monster Inside Of YOU.

"We stopped checking for monsters under the bed when we realized they were inside of us." What is your monster?

What keeps you from fulfilling your potential? What keeps you from success? What keeps you from true happiness in your life?

Guess what? It's usually not someone else. It's not an obstacle we can't deal with.

It's YOU.

One of the biggest monsters is Procrastination. We put the important things off. We do the mundane and the simple and forget to do the powerful and influential.

It's evident in the way we conduct our day.

Who should you really be talking to? Don't waste your time with sycophants, half-friends, and time-suckers. Connect and get in front of those people who can change your life, your career, and your current trajectory.

What should you really be doing? Stop checking your email. Stop text messaging funny memes. Stop surfing Reddit. How can you apply yourself right now to deliver instant and absolute success to your career? What is the first step? The second? What would happen if you completed it TODAY?

If you're scared — GOOD. If you're not scared, I haven't done my job. GET SCARED and GET GOING.

"It was a very good year . . ."

It's one of my favorite Frank Sinatra masterpieces:

But now the days grow short, I'm in the autumn of the year, And now I think of my life as vintage wine, From fine old kegs, From the brim to the dregs, And it poured sweet and clear, It was a very good year.

Today is Thanksgiving. It IS the autumn of the year. And I ask my clients and colleagues to look back over the past year and see what was the vintage wine (the stuff which worked) to the dregs (the stuff that didn't).

We're not all perfect — and in my case, far from it. :)

But it's a waste of a good year not to review your highs, your successes — your home runs:

• What new clients, customers or projects did you get?
• Who did you meet and befriend — who grew your business or prominence at work?
• Where did you go? On purpose and by accident?
• When did you do it? Did you plan and act or just bump into it?
• Why did you do it? Were you assigned or asked by a client — and it took you out of your comfort zone?
• How  did you do it? What were the steps which made it special?

But it's just as important to step back and look at some of your mistakes, your wrong turns, your plans which went awry:

• What obstacle came out of nowhere and threw you for a loop?
• Who was a waste of time to work with — who hurt you, your business, or career?
• Where did you go where it took a lot of resources and didn't pay off?
• When did it happen  — did it happen multiple times? When did you procrastinate or put things off?
• Why did you do it? Were you pushed into it? Did you feel you HAD to do it? Obligation or just laziness?
• How  did it affect your career or business? What were the short term and long term effects?

Some people might say "Forget about the past — focus on the present and the future."

From this perspective, I agree. But everyone has to take some time during the year and assess what got them there and ensure they repeat the successes and the actions which streamlined their progress.

And they need to understand the wrong turns and what impact they had on their progress. It's only then you DON'T make the same mistakes again.

In any event, take today and have a relaxing, restful, tasty and filling Thanksgiving.

You've earned it. 

LEAVE YOUR QUESTIONS AND COMMENTS BELOW — I'D LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU!

Change Your Life With A Cookie.

"You don't become a failure until you're satisfied with being one." A fortune cookie — I found this in a darn fortune cookie!

How serendipitous life is — when you least expect it — the universe opens a door to enlightenment.

So what does this mean?

1. You are not instantly a failure when you fail.
2. No one can make you a failure.
3. Only you can make yourself a failure.
4. It's easy to fail, but then it's also as easy to decide to learn from your failure.
5. Failure is a prolonged state of mind.
6. Failure influences future behaviors.

Are you going to make mistakes? Sure.

Are you going to fail? Sure.

But we need to understand is HOW we react to that failure. If we let it defeat us — Failure has won.

If we step back and learn from our failure — we move on. We stay strong. We get that much closer to success.

So today — don't focus on your failures, your losses, your dropped balls, your missed chances.

Today I want you to see what CAN happen. What you can do right NOW.

You'll thank me.

Failure: How You Deceive Yourself Everyday.

Wonder why you don't get certain things accomplished? Why you hit the same obstacles every time? It comes down to a simple phrase one of my clients so eloquently related to me the other day:

"I know the little games I play with myself."

You see, we all play games in our head. I know of no one who has a personality which is so buttoned up that they perform at optimum efficiency. We think we know some people like that — but the real truth is — they play games too.

The secret is knowing what the games are and why we do it. It's the what and the why that will deliver the insight you need to move past these games.

What games am I speaking of?

Do you dodge people at work? Do you procrastinate on important things? Do you show up late to appointments and meetings? Do you let important and timely decisions lay fallow until the 'right' moment? Again — we ALL do it. So let's pick an easy one:

"I am always late on paying my bills."

WHAT: "I don't open bills until the last minute." That's the reason or the game we play.

WHY: We are afraid of having reality hit us square in the face. We know we spent a lot this month — now the bill is here and is waiting to be paid. But it might not be as bad as you think. But you'll never know until you open it.

And when you do — it immediately forces you to make a decision — where am I going to get the money to pay this? Or if I don't have the money — I have to get it. I either have to work harder or borrow from savings. AND — here's the best part — it forces us to alter our behavior to ensure it doesn't happen again.

And that's the hard part. But I want you to now place yourself in the spot of someone who opens their bills immediately, schedules or pays them immediately, and moves on. How does that sound? How does that feel? Pretty good.

So why aren't you doing it?

Are You Frustrated? Good!

Work breeds frustration. It's a fact. You get frustrated when people or things knock you off balance, where you're out of control. It could be a late project, or a recalcitrant associate, or a vendor who never gets back to you.

Let's be honest — if everything worked perfectly, all the time, you would be quite bored at your job.

Did you know airplanes are off-course 95% of the time? The pilot or auto-pilot course-corrects to keep it headed in the right direction — it doesn't check once in awhile - it's an ongoing process.

Work needs course-corrections frequently. And the number and severity of the course-corrections are directly related to how much frustration you feel.

Now if everything starts to fail and you lose complete control, one of two things happen:

1. You get angry. You direct your frustration in an emotional manner towards the supposed perpetrator of the issue. You yell, you get mad, and you probably say things that are not found in the professional handbook.
2. You shut down. You lose energy and you become unmotivated. You move on to other projects and tasks and you probably procrastinate on this issue.

What would happen if you turned your frustration the other way? Instead of getting angry or shutting down, you use this situation to MOTIVATE yourself into action?

Turn your normal reactions to frustration into positive reactions.  

Next time, take a look at the more successful people at work or in your life. See how they handle frustration. The ones who are moving up quickly and are happy are the ones who figure out how to bypass their frustration and get motivated to solve the problem. They never let people and things get them down.

Let's go back to that pilot. If they got frustrated whenever their plane ventured off-course and god forbid, procrastinated on doing anything. What would happen?

Now put your career in that same situation. Is frustration, anger, or procrastination going to solve your problem and move you forward?

What techniques do you use to move you from frustration to motivation?

Many thanks to Zach Klein from Flickr for the image of Streeter Seidell.

Are You Paralyzed At Work?

During my coaching sessions, I run into a lot of "Fear of Failure" discussions. People who are paralyzed because they feel if they take action (any action), they will fail and the world will come crashing down upon them. I also experience "Fear of Success" with some of my clients. This one is even more insidious — it tends to show you the way to success and then the right side of your brain kicks in and you begin to worry about all the life changes (usually negative) which will impact your relationships, your routine, and your work. So you stop in your tracks.

But there is an even more sinister dysfunction out there — I call it "Fear of Completion". And a lot of people have it. 

I do. I think it stems from having a perfectionist streak in certain things you do and it causes the person to never reach completion on certain actions, projects, or services. You're always afraid you can do it 'just a little bit better'.

In addition, it plays nicely with Fear of Failure and Success — you don't want to deliver it because you are afraid of failure (you have to fix it or do it again) or success (you have to then do more of it).

You see this happen when people are writing books, or developing a workshop, or rolling out technology. They keep adding areas or functionality to the deliverable so they never have to experience the reality of their actions.

They like to live in project limbo. I call it Maybe-Land. They're not getting a 'Yes this is great' or a 'No this sucks' — they get no response, because they haven't delivered it yet. Maybe-Land is a warm and fuzzy place to live. Most people out of work like to live in Maybe-Land — they don't follow up on leads or interviews, because they might get a 'No'. Or even scarier, a 'Yes'.

How do you eliminate "Fear of Completion"? Two suggestions:

1. Set a firm deadline and let everyone know about it. You have to deliver it within 90 days. You are going on a diet and losing 50 pounds by this date. Publish it everywhere — tattoo it on your forehead.
2. Promote someone on your team or ask a colleague to physically take the presentation, the site, the project and launch it when they think it's ready. You will never think it's ready and continuously add functionality. They will stop the insanity and launch it (on-time).

Do you suffer from one of these fears? What do you do to ameliorate them?

"If You Have Fear, You Will Fall."

If you know me, I'm constantly out in the electronic zeitgeist learning new things and meeting new people. This morning, I came upon Human Planet, an incredible BBC documentary on a man called Tete (who makes Chuck Norris look like a schoolgirl). He climbs a very tall tree (120-150 feet in the air) with just a vine and his willpower.

Why? To break into a bee hive to get honey for his family. By the way, he probably gets stung scores of times during the process.

There's one line he mentions about getting the willpower to climb the tree, "If you have fear, you will fall." Tete is truly a man without fear.

How many times in your career are you faced with a fear? I suggest we be more like Tete and focus on the problem at hand. Then you won't fall.

How To Pick Yourself Up After You Fail.

"The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall." - Nelson Mandela

1. Try another direction, tack, or plan.
2. Ask a friend for help.
3. Go for a walk, clear your mind, get back to work.
4. Take action, do anything, keep your momentum moving forward.
5. Read a book, surf the web.
6. Call a past customer or client.
7. Go to an event/meeting.
8. Hop on a webinar or e-learning conference call.
9. Go visit your competition.
10. Hit the museum — I always get inspiration from that.
11. Get in your car and drive.
12. Go to the gym.
13. Have lunch with past colleagues.
14. Read Fast Company, Wired, Inc., or Entrepreneur.
15. Meditate, pray, or do yoga - center yourself.

In the end, don't sit still and wallow in your failure. Stand up, regard it as a learning experience, and move forward.

What have you done to pick yourself up after you've failed?

3 Ways To Believe In Your Ability To Succeed.

Well — Do You? My family and I just watched the film, 'The Polar Express' last night with Tom Hanks. It’s a wonderful movie — great story, wonderful animation, and the acting is top notch.

One of the themes is the main character’s ability to ‘Believe’ in the existence of Santa Claus. It’s all focuses on hearing one of the sleighbells from Santa’s sleigh . . . oh  . . . I’m getting off-course here.

Do you listen to Radiolab? It’s a radio show and podcast from NPR that delves into the areas where the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience. It’s a cool show.

A few months ago, they did a show on how we deceive or lie to ourselves and how that benefits an athlete's performance. Their ‘elite belief’ in a sport requires a mental focus and intensity that is different from the way that many others approach tasks.

So to push themselves — they lie.

In fact, I've seen people become very successful in the business world because of their ability to self-deceive. Their positive attitude and confidence sometimes cloaks their lack of competence, but they can go far if their subordinates perform well and make them look good.

Even in situations where these executives or businesspeople fail, they are more likely to bounce back quickly because they do not dwell on failures and, in fact, do not even recognize they have failed. It's fascinating to watch, and for others, frustrating, because they do not have this trait and too often question their abilities and dwell on setbacks too much (do you do this?).

All this builds up to your ability to believe in your success. Here are some ways you can bridge that gap:

1. Next time you have that errant negative thought about yourself, an action, a project you’re working on, say to yourself, “Is this negative thinking moving me forward or backward? What thinking will rocket me forward?”
2. Next time someone says to you, “You can’t do that.” or “That’s not the way we do things around here.”, immediately question their beliefs and motives. I’ve found that THEY are usually WRONG.
3. Next time you are questioning yourself about an action, just do it. In my 20 years of corporate life and 10 years coaching, I’ve found it’s better to ask forgiveness than permission. Take action.

And BELIEVE in yourself, your abilities, and what you can do. YOU can move MOUNTAINS.

How do you believe in yourself? Do you 'fool' your thinking? What techniques do you use?

What Are You Afraid Of . . . Failure Or Success?

At some time in our careers, we self-sabotage. We know we need to do 'A' to move forward, but somehow we find ourselves doing 'B'. And 'B' isn't as good as 'A'. In fact, 'B' might make us take a number of steps backwards. But we do it anyway.

Why? Fear of Failure & Fear of Success.

Fear of Failure is simple - we don't want to attempt something if we feel that it's going to fail in the end — a sales call not attempted, a higher price asked, etc. We retreat to that safe, warm, and fuzzy place in our heads that takes us away from all possible failure scenarios. Unfortunately, you might be wrong — that call or price might be accepted and you suddenly move forward at a blinding speed with your career . . . and that's where fear of success steps in.

Fear of Success is even more insidious and calculating than fear of failure. It hides in the deep recesses of our psyche and when it comes out, we usually don't even notice it. Fear of Success sabotages our ability to make great leaps forward in our career by preying upon our irrational fears.

So how do we fix this?

Fear of Failure - Just do it. Most of the time, we are just putting up obstacles to procrastinate and hide of the pain of rejection. But the reality is that you usually have a better chance of acceptance is you just take action. Also - the rejection is not as bad as you think - so just do it.

Fear of Success - Get real. Most of the internal stories we tell ourselves are based upon fantasy. If we lose weight, we'll cheat on our spouse . . . if we get that big promotion, we'll never see our family again . . . and on and on and on. Sit down and list all the irrational ways you fear success, write them on paper. Then take each one and dissect it with a clear head and only use FACTS. You'll find that most of your fears are highly irrational and not based in the real world.

Now go out and face the world without fear!

Five Reasons Why Leaders Fail (& Why Failures Lead).

It's hard to be a leader in today's economy. Add that you need equal parts of courage, vision, empathy, and reality (Peter Koestenbaum's Leadership Diamond) AND get your work done, it's almost impossible. I've reduced my list of hundreds down to five — and here they are: 1. You move from confident to cocky. There is a fine line between confidence and cockyness — my definition:

Confident - fully comfortable in their skin, able to hold their own in most situations, but always willing to learn from others to better oneself. Cocky - fully comfortable in their skin, able to hold their own in most situations, knows it all - and let's everyone know that fact.

Be more humble — keep your mind open to new ideas. This leads me to my next reason:

2. You speak more than you listen. Pontification is a rampant disease of leaders. Candidly, as you move from communicating to pontification, you slowly lose the attention of the very people that you are speaking to. Communication is a two-way street — so feel free to let your people know what you are thinking and impart key information, but please fit in a bit of listening to complete the circle. It will go miles whenever you communicate with your team.

3. You care more about your performance than your team's performance. This primarily affects new managers than accomplished ones, but it does creep in sometimes when times are hard for the company. We all fall back on touting our own laurels rather than bringing up the rear with stories of the real performers of your company — your team. Try to pick one person and one action every so often and message it to the people that matter. It will pay dividends in exposure and good will from your team.

4. You manage upwards significantly more than downwards. A corollary to the previous reason — when we focus on ourselves, we tend to manage upwards to hone impressions of our performance. When we spend time doing this, we tend to forget that our job is to manage our people — which is quite easy to do:

a. Give them the information they need to do their job. b. Motivate them when required. c. Help them get rid of any obstacles.

If you spend more time on your people, everything else will fall into place. If you would like to read more on leadership, read this.

5. You care more about where you're going than where you are. Everyone becomes enamored with shiny objects — add to that a bit of executive ADD, and you tend to look elsewhere for better vistas. I'm not saying not to do this (it's always good to keep your options open), but you also need to pay attention to where you are. Too many executives come onto the scene, make a big splash, pull in a big client or coup, and then immediately get distracted and look for other shores to conquer. Slow down, enjoy the accolades and see if there are bigger beasts to manage where you are — it might pay off in the long run.