In today's fast moving, global world, many people suffer from the modern problem of information overload. We get bombarded by TV, radio, newspapers, magazines and the Internet, and the average person sees around 10'000 adverts a day.
As a consequence, we get intellectually, emotionally and psychologically overloaded about the way we should be living. This means that you start to doubt yourself because you live from the outside in. The media and the people around you are telling you how you should be living, that you should have that BMW and that boat. Because your friends are doing it, and so should you. In this scramble of keeping up, you don't stop and ask yourself whether you actually want it, or even whether it's logical.
The psychological literature calls this "normative influence", and in marketing it is known as "social proof".
Isn't it time for you to get in touch again with what's important to you?
You as a business person will have noticed that the pressure of doing more and more in the business is not getting you the success and results anymore that you are hoping for, because you are too caught up with "doing things".
Now, taking action is a very important component of business success, especially when the action is planned and is relevant to a well set goal. In a future article, we will look at how you can set achievable goals and create an action plan that allows you to reach your goals much more easily.
This article shows you how you can change small things in the way you think and do things, in other words change things on the inside which then have a big impact on your success. We will look at the 5 key factors of success and how you can apply them in your business and in your life.
This means that even if you're not in business, this is for you because these inside-out changes do not just transform business, they can transform lives, because they come from the inside.
Making changes from the inside out creates leverage, and this has a profound effect on business. W. Clement Stone says it beautifully when he writes "Little hinges swing big doors". Because by making small adjustments you can get big results. This is called leverage.
Do you make these common mistakes?
There has been an interesting study done by Pham and Taylor at the University of California. They took 5000 students and asked them what their goals were. They all had great goals and all of them had the greatest of intentions of achieving these goals. When they followed up 5 years later, they found that only 10% reached their goals. Now, it's interesting to check what these 10% did that was different from the 90% who didn't reach their goals.
What doesn't work?(remember, 90% of the participants did this. If you are currently doing these... GOOD! This means there's room for improvement!)
Visualising how perfect your life will be when _______ happensFocus on the negativeTry to suppress unhelpful thoughtsRely on will power (and grit your teeth)Motivate yourself by focusing on someone you admireHere's what works (this is what the 10% of participants did who reached their outcomes)
Visualise the path and the actions you need to take to achieve success, not just your destination. This will create a step-by-step plan allowing you to achieve your goal.Focus on the positive aspects of reaching your goal, and having an objective checklist. For example one item on that checklist could be, "What qualities will I enjoy when I reach my goal?"Record your progress along the way. A spreadsheet software program works well for this where you can draw up charts to make a visual representation of how far you've come.Reward your progress. These rewards and celebrations don't need to be big. Extra time off, or a nice meal in a restaurant works well.Tell other people about your goal. This keeps you accountable and is an important source of leverage.Don't climb the mountain on your own!
A series of studies, this time carried out by Simone Snall at the University of Plymouth, found the following interesting results:
Participants were taken to the bottom of a mountain. They were then asked to estimate how steep the mountain was, and how difficult it would be to climb it.
Participants who were there with a friend estimated the mountain to be 15% easier to climb than the participants who were there on their own.
What this indicates is that when you set out to achieve a goal or an outcome, it makes it easier when you take someone with you, say a friend or a partner. They can take the steps with you, they can be there with you, and very importantly, they hold you accountable.
A 1999 study by Brigham Young University shows that, in addition to having a clear goal, making an action plan, and measuring your results, if you have a coach or mentor who holds you accountable, you have a 95% chance of more success than if you do it on your own without a clear goal and a plan on how to reach it.
Make a commitment and think of one thing from this article that you're going to implement today. Or perhaps you've already started to implement one of the things you've been reading about here. And as you're noticing a change from the inside out, I look forward to reading your comments, observations and views below.
To your success from the inside out
Evelyne
Evelyne Draper is an NLP Master Practitioner and NLP Coach. She offers NLP coaching for business people and people who want to improve the quality of their lives. Very often people are not aware of how much their attitudes and beliefs influence how successful they are in business and in life. She is passionate about helping people achieve the results they want. For more information, go to http://www.nlpskills.org/. Evelyne lives in Wellington, New Zealand, with her partner Michael, and when she's not helping other people get what they want, she likes to go on long walks in and around Wellington, along the beaches and exploring nature.
