Loading ...
The Self Sabotage Habit – Why You Don’t ‘Just Do It’
I’ve about decided that most self sabotage is just a matter of old habits. No matter how frustrated you feel with your self defeating behavior, it may actually be nothing but learned behavior… learned behavior that can be changed if you ease off and quit battling it so strenuously.
According to Robert Middleton, a prominent consultant to service professionals, about 75 percent of all the business challenges he sees are in the mental arena (self image and mindset). And Tony Robbins figures it’s around 80 percent.
Two Different Types
So let’s consider for a moment the two different types of people in business. There are the fast starters who always get a jackrabbit start on any project. They get more done and cover more ground than the average Joe or Jane.
Then there are Joe and Jane – the average folks. Face it, most people fall into this category. They’re still “thinking about getting into it” when the self starter is half done. And when the slow starters do finally begin, their progress is halting at best. Results dribble out at a painfully slow rate.
Fast starters and high achievers are good at executing & implementing. They know what to do and they “just do it,” without hesitation, and indecision. If they need to think things over, they do it while in motion.
Most people, however, don’t. They waffle and wait and weenie around.
Maybe It’s the Advice
After reading many, many books and listening to more CDs than I can count, I’ve just about decided that the conventional wisdom on this topic is a load of crap. Set goals, they say, and break them up into mini-goals. Set timelines and deadlines.
But if you’re not a high achiever, you’ve already discovered that this formula isn’t the magic answer either. You’ve set goals, lots of ‘em, and still nothing much happened.
As Middleton and Robbins suggest, there’s something else going on inside. It’s a mind thing.
So we go looking for “why” we keep behaving that way. “Well, my father did this,” we think, “And my mother didn’t do that.”
Baloney… understanding “why” may be the least effective way to get results ever invented. Never worked for me, and it probably hasn’t worked for you either. Just think back. Try to remember a time when “why” ever got you into motion.
So to heck with all the received wisdom floating around, and let’s try something different.
How About A Different Approach?
Instead, let’s – for just a moment – forget the slow-starting behavior pattern we already have (and don’t want) and turn instead to the behavior pattern we’d like to have in its place (fast starting, high achieving). In other words, let’s treat this like a behavior (or habit) that we’d like to start.
How do you start a new habit? You just start doing it. Duh.
- Riding a bike – you get on and start trying to peddle
- Typing – you practice 1 or 2 new letters at a time
- Driving – you start in an empty parking lot and learn 1 pedal at a time
And of course, along the way you make lots of mistakes. You fall off the bike and skin your knees. You misspell a bunch of words. You get confused and hit the wrong pedal – good thing you’re not out in real traffic. But gradually, by making mistakes and learning to recognize them, you shed those mistakes and become more expert.
What if It’s Simpler than We Thought
So how might you learn to start fast? Or learn to finish the things you start? What if… what if you went about it the same way you learn to type: by starting small, adding one letter at a time, and consciously practicing the fundamentals over and over. Yeah, what if…
You want to play the guitar? The piano? The saxophone? It’s all the same method. Start practicing simple little basics till they get easy. You don’t spend a single minute struggling to stop being a non-guitar player. That’d be sort of silly, wouldn’t it?
So if you want to become a fast starter, or learn to finish everything you begin? same story. You start with small bites that are easy to finish and gradually, consciously build a big habit from small tiny steps.
And along the way, be sure to praise yourself for the progress you’re making.
What You Don’t Need
The cool thing is, you won’t need any manual for this. No set of 49 DVDs in deluxe simulated leather binder. No downloadable 33 week course complete with 3 coaching Q&A calls per month. And no guru. Just you, practicing one more basic little step every day, every day, every day.
And you know what? When you don’t demand overnight miracles, it can be surprising how much you can get done in a day – without any miracles.
We already know all this, but – well -
You know the difference between a psychotic and a neurotic? A psychotic thinks that two plus two equal five. A neurotic knows that two plus two equal four… but he just HATES it.
And most of us are like that neurotic guy. When it comes to admitting what it’ll take for us to build real, honest-to-gosh success habits, we know it takes daily repetition and constantly stretching to do more and replacing our small habits with bigger ones – we KNOW it, but we just HATE it.
New habits always take repetition. That’s why they call them habits.
But the cool thing is, when you take little baby steps all the way, they don’t even take huge motivation. Just enough oomph to keep the little steps going.
Start with the little stuff – the simple “boring” finger exercises (like you do with a guitar, piano, saxophone), and as you go, look for ways to combine your new basic knowledge into something real in your everyday life. If it’s music you’re learning, you begin trying to play real songs.
And if it’s success in some venture, you do it exactly, precisely the same way.
Now you can’t say you don’t know how, because now you do. So go do it. And please do leave a comment below. I’d love to hear what you think (or are going to do) about it.
Cheers from warm and smiling Thailand,
Charles
Posted in 
