5 Unblocking two barriers to success: Time and Money
We have throughout been emphasising the importance of developing self-awareness, and from that process gaining greater clarity about what it is we are trying to achieve. However, once we understand what we are trying to do inevitably we also become aware that there are blockages – barriers – in our way that, as things currently stand, prevent this happening. Our job is to understand what these barriers are and then to find out how to remove them from our path. The coach has another crucial role, then: he or she has enabled the client to get clarity on where the destination leads, but now the coach has to help the client understand what needs to be done to get there. That is, how does the client demolish the barriers that are preventing access to the ‘promised land’, which is where the client wishes to go?
To be clear: the client has a clearly defined outcome, with a sense of what that sounds, looks and feels like, and which is compelling to the subconscious mind. There is also an appropriate time frame. The time frame acts as an accelerator; without it, there is drift and no urgency: As the famous conductor Leonard Bernstein said: “to achieve great things, two things are needed: a plan, and not quite enough time1”! With these in place we can begin to explore what the potential barriers to the achievement of those outcomes could be.
Activity 5.1
What are the top three barriers to success?
When you consider the barriers to performance and achievement, what do you think the three most commonly identified perceptions of obstacles to achievement are? (See Figure 5.1.)
In our view, based upon the hundreds of people we have coached and the experience of the coaches we have trained, the three key and classic barriers to achievement are: TIME or MONEY or PEOPLE2 (or a combination!). Yet in truth these can never be the real obstacles to achievement. Why? First, because nobody is ever really in a unique situation that has never been done before: other people faced your barriers in similar, if not identical circumstance, so why were they enabled to push through and succeed, despite – like you – having no time or money or people connections? Second, because on examination we find that the principle of the self-fulfilling prophecy3 is true; what you expect, you tend to get. The real battle is not external factors such as time, money or people, but the internal ones: factors such as our belief systems, especially our belief system about ourselves.4 This is often called the self-concept. If you are confident5 and have belief, then much more is possible. Holding the expectation that one can succeed not only mobilises the latent, subconscious powers, but it also does something else: it shifts us emotionally, and one critical shift is that it drives out fear – the fear of failure and the fear of rejection especially.
Figure 5.1 Three performance barriers
If this sounds rather remote and touchy-feely, then consider this. In our right mind – which is to say, our fearless mind – we can objectively consider any barrier such as our lack, say, of money and realise the blindingly obvious: that you can in this day and age borrow the money, find investment and investors, and pursue your goal. This is not to say it’s easy, particularly when this is the first time you have attempted it, but it is possible.
So, the real barrier to performance is not money but sufficient confidence and specific belief(s) and we will explore later in this chapter how to overcome and improve both these intangible areas.
However, before that it is worth seeing how the three barriers in a way are analogous to the Motivational Maps’ RAG model (see Figure 5.2).
This is not to claim an absolute correspondence between the Map profile and the particular set of problems a client may have or encounter. But clearly, people issues are relationship issues and deep relationships are invariably grounded in our past; achievement issues from the point of view of business are generally condensed into the form of money or lack thereof, and achievement happens in the present tense, the now; and time is a critical ingredient of all growth and growth always has a future orientation. It might be useful to consider, when practically coaching the client, whether or not their dominant issue is in an area where their RAG score is lowest or especially weak.
Activity 5.2
Coach yourself! Rank order the issues of Time, Money, and People (TMP) for yourself. Which one creates the most problems for you? Now review your own Motivational Map profile. Which of the RAG triad are you dominant in? Is there a correlation between your RAG strength and your TMP issue? What are the implications of this for you?
With these points in mind, and leaving people barriers for Chapter 6, as they are generally considered the most difficult of all to deal with, we can focus now on TIME! How does time act as a barrier to performance?
Figure 5.2 Possible alignment of Time, Money, and People with RAG
You will have heard it said that we all have the same amount of time in the day, those 24 short hours! So why is it that some people are able to achieve so much in seemingly so little time, whereas other people struggle to get things off the ground?
The key issue here is, as elsewhere, our beliefs. We are constantly in a struggle in which we believe that we do not have enough time. If we believe that we do not have enough time, then we know that that will become self-fulfilling; furthermore, it will also produce great stress and anxiety in us as we anticipate that we will fail. Yet we have seen from the Pareto Principle that 80 per cent of our time is concerned with the ‘trivial many’ and not the ‘vital few’6 things we should – or might – be doing. In other words, there is always lots of time available: the 80 per cent of our time, whether at work or home, which we are using, or misusing for the ‘trivial many’ activities. Hence, what this comes down to really is: prioritisation – an accurate assessment of what is important in our life and work, and a focus on increasing the amount of time we spend there. Maybe, then, our 20 per cent on the vital few becomes 30 per cent of our time. Note what that does: it actually increases the amount of time we spend on what is important by 50 per cent! Would that make a difference? Well, if you said you had 50 per cent more money to invest in a project, then that usually would be significant. And let’s not stop at 30 per cent. Suppose you made that 40 per cent, then that would double your time on what is important and still leave you 60 per cent of your time to indulge in ‘trivial many’ activities. Therefore, the key thing here is to audit yourself.7 Work out what you need to do more of, to do less of, and what stays the same.
Activity 5.3
We have extended the usefulness of this tool for coaching to include not only DOING, but also HAVING and BEING as both these additional states can waste or refresh time for us. If we are, for example, constantly BEING angry or upset, then we are not in a position to be productive; if we are constantly in a position of HAVING arguments with others, the same applies.
Without judging, just jot down all your ideas about your life or work currently. What do you want to have less of, do more of, or continue being? People who complete this usually find there is a pattern that emerges. We often find, for example, that when people review the use of their time that their issue is either predominantly about what they are ‘doing’ or ‘having’ or ‘being’, and so is not equally spread across all three categories. Of course, this applies as much to ‘less’ as it does to ‘more’ – we may be doing/having/being too little in certain key areas and too much in irrelevant areas. There may not be, but is there a pattern? Effectively, this coaching tool enables you – and your client – to stop for a moment and think seriously about what is happening, and what truly is important; it helps sort priorities so you and they can gain more control, which is very motivating.
Figure 5.3 Stop–Start review
But let’s be clear: time is perplexing and fascinating to everybody. We think we know what it is, but there is a sense in which it is like some giant from Greek mythology who we constantly have to wrestle with and seem never able to defeat. Only perpetual vigilance (so do the Stop–Start review often!) suffices to come anywhere near overcoming this giant. Philip Zimbardo8 claims that the word ‘time’ itself is the most popular noun (based on Internet searches) in the English language. Yet for all our inability to get to grips with ‘Time’ and defeat it in an absolute sense, we need to be aware that our powers are far greater than we traditionally think; even here, even with an enemy of this stature and seemingly relentless power. And again, we come back to the issue – the critical issue – of what we believe.
As we coach ourselves and others, it is as well to remind ourselves of the famous research that Professor Ellen Langer9 conducted in 1979. In a week long experiment a group of 75-year-old men were isolated on a retreat camp in which everything – their clothes, their décor, their furniture, their food, their music, their radio broadcasts and newspapers – replicated how it was in 1959 when they were only 55 years old. Before they entered the retreat they were assessed on their physiological and psychological condition. In only one week of immersion in the ‘life’ of how they were living 20 years ago the conditions led to some astonishing results: on all markers they improved. For example, average eye sight, memory retention, physical strength, all improved. And when independent people who were not privy to the experiment were asked to guess the ages of the men from pictures before and after the experiment, the men on average were rated three years younger than when they arrived! Experiencing their past in such a vivid manner enabled them to believe they were younger, and so they became younger!! Astonishing, or what?
The implications of this are very similar to those of the placebo effect10: If people believe that a harmless pill or medical intervention is doing them good or healing them, the belief alone can sometimes be enough to effect the cure. These facts consistently disturb the scientific types who like tidy explanations, want to control life, and generally won’t accept any ‘fact’ that isn’t approved by science, or more precisely, scientism. But the reality – and the facts – all point to the power of belief to be able to, metaphorically, move mountains: the mountains, or the blocks and barriers in our life. Henry Ford put it this way11: “If you think you can do a thing or think you can’t do a thing, you’re right”.
To help you reframe the time issue in your life, the ABCDE12 model can be extremely useful. We will use the ABCDE method on the time issue, but the tool can be used on any other issue – such as money and people – too. Essentially, the ABCDE model is a cognitive behavioural tool that provides a five-step process that enables individuals (and coaches to help individuals) to re-think, and so reframe, and so re-believe, what they normally assume. In this way, too, it enables individuals to stop reacting and to start responding far more effectively; and it does this by controlling our self-talk – our own internal dialogue – and turning on its positive tap.
The five steps of the ABCDE model in altering how you believe13 and feel about a barrier are:
A is for Adversity – identify or define the block or barrier or ‘adversity’ encountered
e.g. there’s not enough time to complete my work
B is for Belief – note your thoughts and interpretation about the adversity
e.g. a. I just have too much work to do; OR b. I can never get organised; OR c. I am not as efficient/effective as other people; OR, d. etc.
C is for Consequences – recognise what the consequences of your belief are
e.g. for Belief a. feelings of I can’t cope, feelings of I may as well give up, feelings of what’s the point?
D is for Dispute – the negative belief with alternative evidence and better ideas
e.g. for Belief a. i. when I plan my day in advance I find I get a better response; OR, ii. I could easily limit time spent on processing too many trivial emails and that would free me up a lot; OR, iii. I am good at organising my holiday itineraries and I can use those skills here.
E is for Energy – which is generated when we feel – that is, through believing – we can overcome the adversity we have initially experienced
e.g. for Belief a. i. I’ll feel better if I write out my plan for the day the night before I go to work; OR, ii. I’ll limit my time spent on emails to 1 hour a day, and do them towards the end of the afternoon, so I am fresh to do my best work in the morning; OR, iii. I will set aside 1 day a week for a month to overhaul my working space, including my computer folders and directories, to make it easier for me to access the tools I need to be effective.
Clearly, these are just examples but the principle remains the same. When you reframe a barrier or what we are calling here an ‘adversity’ and realise that the beliefs about it are more destructive to your peace of mind and effectiveness than the adversity itself, and hence you reframe the situation in this way, there is a massive surge of energy, because you have found your hope – you believe you can cope, you are self-efficacious, and so your self-esteem is boosted.
We are looking at time as the barrier here. So go through the five-step process yourself with that in mind. But if you feel that time is not an ‘adversity’ to you personally, then try it as a run-through example, and afterwards choose your own adverse situation and run through this process again; it could then be about money, which we are coming onto, or even a person or people, which we deal with in Chapter 6.
Controlling your self-talk through the ABCDE Model
- - My adversity is I DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH TIME TO DO WHAT I WANT ...
- - I believe ........................
- - I feel .............................
- - Evidence to the contrary ...................
- - My energy level is ...........................
Note how you feel at the end of the exercise if you have done it sincerely.
Activity 5.5
Now find a partner – could be a friend or colleague, or if you are a coach, then a client – and work as a pair on exactly the same ABCDE model as in Activity 5.4. Use another ‘adversity’ and this time go through the process for one of you with the other prompting and asking for greater clarification. Pay particular attention to DISPUTE – finding evidence to the contrary – as actively and energetically establishing that one’s original beliefs are false is vital to the process.
If you have done Activities 5.4 and 5.5 fully, then it should be clear that it is possible to have a clear goal that feels right for you, and yet simultaneously to become aware of how your current priorities and focus could potentially be revealing a subconscious ‘adversity’ to your achieving what you want. To demonstrate this point here is Bevis’s true story.
Bevis's story
At the start of my coaching career, trying to get my fledgling business off the ground, my coach offered to elicit my subconscious business beliefs to shed some light on potential barriers to its development.
He repeatedly asked me: “So in the context of your work what is important to you now?” After an hour there were a list of words on the flip chart in front of me; some were obvious, some less so. We tried prioritising the top ten in rank order. The coach then tested me with questions such as, “So, if you could only have one of × or y, which would you choose?”
This proved a painful and difficult process. Finally, when we had established them, my coach still seemed quizzical and asked if anything was missing?
“Nope”, I said, confident that they truly were the most important things to me in my work.
Suffice to say, my coach came back several times, prodding and poking me verbally – was there anything missing? And I just couldn’t get it – couldn’t see it.
Finally, my coach gave up trying to get me to realise for myself what he could see plain as day. He said, “So, do you not think focusing on money might be important for you to run a successful coaching and training company?” The proverbial light bulb went on! Not only was money not in my top 10 current work values, it wasn’t even on the flipchart of the 64 beliefs that had come up through the process. It seemed that money wasn’t at all even on my subconscious radar; but he was right: if I was to run my own business I would need to pay more attention to and focus on the practicalities of money!
It did not surprise me that money was not on my radar, given my background. But if I was going to make a successful go at the career change I was planning, then I would need to change my subconscious beliefs, my priorities, or put more simply my career motivators! Only that would enable me to make the journey from Leisure Centre Manager to business entrepreneur and coaching expert.
This realisation – this light bulb moment – that Bevis had is crucial for all of us if we want to perform and achieve, if we want to surf for success, if we want surmount the dangerous reefs and shoals that are barely visible to us as we move forward. These are the barriers – adversities – that we need to surface, confront and redefine.
If we persist in remaining unaware of the potential subconscious issues, we are likely to struggle to achieve our desired outcomes. But with that awareness, we can:
- a) consciously work to pay more attention to the area not naturally in our awareness; and
- b) if necessary work with a coach to reconfigure our beliefs, to raise the profile, as it were, of one particular belief14 or motivator to be more important than it currently is; and
- c) use Motivational Maps to ascertain some of the key areas of concern that might be affecting us.
Activity 5.6
Ask yourself in the context of your work/business/career what is important to you NOW?
Write down all the words that spring to mind. Aim for at least 50! And if you run out of ideas, don’t quit, but pause and ask yourself the same question again. Give this process at least three goes.
Once you have your list of words, circle the ten most important. Choose at least 9 and a maximum of 12. Now that you have this list quickly prioritise the list 1–9/12. Double check the order. Ask yourself if you could only have one of the things in your current top two (in your work) which would it be? If you need to change the order because of your answers, then do so. Continue to check all the way through your list so that you are as confident as you can be that these are your top work values in the right sequence.
Activity 5.7
You now have your top beliefs. But how do they align with your goals? (See Figure 5.4). Do they match? Are there any incongruences? And, if you continue to focus on these beliefs in the priority order that they are in will that support the relationships, the personal growth that you desire, as well as the achievement or career you want? Re-examine the goals you created in Chapter 2.
Figure 5.4 Top three goals and top three beliefs
To help you consider whether your goals and beliefs align, ask yourself: does this belief or motivator help me achieve this specific goal? Three simple examples might be:
Goal: To achieve financial independence. Motivator – Builder motivator low?/Belief – ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees’15
Goal: To become go-to authority in sector. Motivator – Expert motivator low?/Belief – ‘I did really badly at school’
Goal: To become key team member Motivator – Spirit motivator high?/Belief – ‘I don’t get on with people very well’
Now consider the following questions. If your goals and beliefs align, good. But
- If not, what is the number one area where you will need to focus to help you achieve your goal?
- Which belief(s) will you need to pay less attention to in order to achieve your goal?
- How will you ensure on a weekly basis that attention is placed upon above?
- How can you ensure that attention is taken away from B? What decision needs to be made, what action needs to be taken, what do you need to stop doing?
Now re-visit Figure 5.3 and the Stop–Start review in the light of this fur ther analysis of your own position. What more do you need to do? Commit to action.
Case study 5.2
Daniel's story – his dilemma
Daniel is the manager of a construction firm, which he built from scratch over three decades. Now in his fifties, he was concerned about his balance of life. Over a coffee and informal chat, he admitted that he felt like his PA was running his life, and that he knew that he did not want to have his current lifestyle in five years, yet he didn’t know how to stop. We casually suggested he may want to complete a Motivational Map to potentially shine some light on the issues and this is what came back as the coach report (see Figure 5.5).
We now need to dig into a deep understanding of how to read a Motivational Map through its numbers. To do this you need to understand that:
- Every individual has all 9 motivators in their profile but at different levels of intensity;
- The maximum intensity is 40 points and the minimum is 0 points; this records the strength of a motivator set against the strength of the other 8;
- The PMA score measures the satisfaction the client is experiencing from the motivator at that moment in time – which generally is a stable number – and is out of 10 maximum satisfaction, and 1 minimum;
Figure 5.5 Daniel’s Map numbers
Figure 5.6 Daniel motivationally divided
- Taking, then, the actual motivator score, 20 (out of 0–40 range) represents the tipping point – higher than 20 equals a score that has traction for the individual; below 20 equals a score that indicates the motivator is not something one wants.
Considering Daniel’s scores, we see that there are actually four motivators – Builder, Spirit, Searcher, and Director – all well above the 20 number and quite closely scored with a range of only 4 points (28–24). So, when we sat to debrief him, Daniel appeared to see, especially around the Director (desire for control) and his Spirit (desire for autonomy) motivator, that clearly these two desires represent an internal conflict (see Figure 5.6): the more control you have, the more autonomy you sacrifice, and vice versa. Being in control restricts one’s independence of action because of the increased responsibility that it entails!
Here, then, we come to the belief question: what is more important for Daniel – to be in control or to be autonomous? As his Map indicated, Daniel realised Spirit was now (keep in mind motivators change over time) more important to him than managing people; his discomfort at work had actually been this internal conflict. Part of him still longed for power and control; and another part of him wanted freedom and independence. This was manifesting in his business as indecision.16 He knew now that he did not want to still be doing what he was currently doing in five years’ time, yet he didn’t know how to change or what in fact to change.
Daniel admitted he had actually been considering opening a new office in another area of the country, a move which would put considerable pressure on him personally and the business financially. But he felt compelled to take this action, though it felt uncomfortable and at odds with himself as to why.
We went deeper into his Map with him, whilst establishing his detailed personal history. We spotted that the Builder motivator at number 1 meant that he was really competitive and goal-oriented, but again there was another conflict in that he had Searcher at number 3, which was much more about collaboration in order to achieve purpose.
Builder (I want to be commercial) 28/40 versus Searcher (I want to make a difference) 24/40.
But being commercial means liking the tangible, the physical rewards, whereas making a difference more often focuses on values and the intangible (not always, however). Likely result? Internal conflict – two motivators pulling in two opposing directions. Not as severe as the Spirit and Director conflict, but now we have two internal oppositions in Daniel’s top 4 motivators!!
Let’s be clear about this: these motivational oppositions are exactly analogous to value conflicts; and when they are internal, as they are in Daniel’s case, they represent that misalignment of our goals and our values at a deep level. It doesn’t matter how capable Daniel is, what his advanced skill-set or knowledge-base is, if he feels divided internally, then he simply cannot function at the highest level. So, these internal conflicts have to be resolved.
As his Map is revealing so much, what does the coach need to prioritise? Here the PMA scores are really helpful, for these tell us how he is feeling about the realisation of his motivators in the work place (see Figure 5.7). Note, interestingly, even motivators that are not important – for example, in Daniel’s case, the Friend – can be satisfied, and 9/10 means they are (though being not satisfied is also equally possible).
Figure 5.7 Highlighted PMA numbers for Daniel
If we look closely at this we see that Daniel does not go to work to belong socially, yet with 9/10 as his rating he is more than happy with his sense of friendship at work. What this tells us, as coaches, is that – PROBABLY17 – he has good interpersonal skills, is friendly and staff like him. But as the Friend motivator is the lowest and he is satisfied, this is not an area of concern or one to work on. What is more striking is his second motivator: Spirit, 4/10. He desires autonomy but is chronically dissatisfied with his current state of independence, probably the discretionary use of his time, and his ability to prioritise his own actions. This is making him more than uncomfortable, especially if we take on board the point that we have already made: namely, that he is internally conflicted too!
Using these insights from his Map, Daniel realised that all his motivational efforts had been about avoidance, moving away from situations rather than towards what he truly wanted.
The classic example of why this is ineffective is in the example of people attempting to lose weight. Typically, in trying to lose weight the focus is always on losing what you don’t want – avoidance in other words – so that when the weight is lost and the discomfort of being overweight disappears, so the motivation to continue evaporates, and the yo-yo principle kicks in and one is back to their old weight or worse! The avoidance motivation principle (‘away from’ pain in Freudian terms) has, as its underlying rationale, fear, and this always has a paralysing effect.
Motivational Maps, instead, considers what you really want (‘moving towards’ pleasure, in other, Freudian, terms). So, the implication is, the only way to effectively lose weight is to stop focusing on the weight and instead to focus on what you really want. What is that? Health, or attractiveness, or some other quality! There is some subtle analysis here which the coach can help the client unpick; what we are talking about is really one of the profoundest issues we face in human life: distinguishing between causes and symptoms, between the visible (what we seem to see) and the invisible18 (what is below the surface but driving the real action). Too frequently managers are managing symptoms – a fire that never goes out – because, for whatever reason, they have no time to investigate causes. But this is not for the effective coach.
Case Study 5.3
Daniel's self-awareness
After discussion, Daniel understood this and realised too that his drive to succeed in business was largely driven by ‘away from’: away from poverty and some of the experiences he had had growing up in non-affluent circumstances. Knowing that, he could immediately see a pattern of boom and bust in his life where every time he had become comfortable he had metaphorically risked it all; he admitted that he did not want to go through that again. From this we set him the task of writing a new goal for what he actually wanted to achieve in his business and life, with the focus being on meaning more than materials, and on freedom and autonomy over control and power. This felt the right thing to do and was in alignment with his values in his Motivational Map.
At the next session Daniel had a new clarity: he wanted to reduce his work to four days a week; he categorically did not want to open up a new office (even though he strangely still felt compelled to do so). Further, Daniel decided to hire a new Finance Director, so he could let go of a number of elements of his role that he had always done. And he also became aware of two more limiting beliefs which were part of the source of his inability to let go of control.
BELIEFS WHICH BLOCK DANIEL’S NATURAL CONFIDENCE
- “I have 80 mouths to feed” and
- “I have to be the first one in and the last one out of the office”.19
Limiting beliefs are only limiting if they move the client away from their chosen goal. Daniel’s new goals were now about personal freedom and progressing towards an abundant personal retirement; it was easy to see how those old beliefs, which had caused him to work very hard, were now no longer in alignment. It isn’t easy to take an hour off, never mind a whole day, when you believe you have to be the first one in and last one out of the office!
The first step, then, is to break the power of the beliefs we subconsciously adopted when we were young. To become more aware of your own limiting beliefs do the following exercise.
Activity 5.8
Read to yourself your number 1 goal – your most important one – and ask: How do I feel?
How do I feel about it? (Not, what do I think about it?).
Now dwell on the answer to this question. Is there any discomfort? Are there any doubts? What thoughts come to mind? Pay attention to any sentences which may start like: I can’t, I’m not good enough, I don’t deserve to, I’m not …, I need to be more …
But if this still proves difficult, take one further step: imagine your life as if it were perfect. See yourself in: perfect health, the perfect weight and shape, with the perfect partner and family circumstances, in your dream role, with ample resources, and with the perfect work/life balance!
Can you imagine this? If so, ask what is it you believe about yourself which contradicts this perfect image? If not, slow down – take each component – health, weight, etc. – one step at a time.
Write down any limiting beliefs and thoughts about your Self that emerge as you go through this process. Also make a note of any inner conflicts that emerge, where part of you wants one outcome and another part of you wants a different, opposing outcome.
Finally, make a list of any negative memories from past events which you feel could be draining energy away from a desired outcome. Maybe you become aware that your drive to succeed is in part, like Daniel, largely driven by the need not to fail, which has emerged out of an emotional episode in childhood.
Activity 5.9
Create a bullet point list of Significant Emotional Events (see Figure 5.8) in your life and what emotion was present.
Are there links between the emotion and any patterns in your life? Daniel, for example, connected his early fear of poverty – I have not got enough – with being motivated only when he was at risk of losing it all. Hence the pattern of troughs and peaks in his business.
Limiting beliefs and negative emotions, then, are primary underpinning sources of the barriers, ‘adversities’, that obstruct our progress, but which present themselves as topics such as lack of Time or Money or as a People issues. So they are especially pernicious as they are invariably invisible. Their danger becomes particularly pronounced when our minds imagine futures in which our mistakes repeat themselves. The key next step, therefore, is to tease out what the beliefs are about these emotions and then re-frame then using the ABCDE method in Activities 5.4 and 5.5.
Summary
Figure 5.8 Significant emotional events
- Time, money and people seem to be but are not the real barriers to success!
- The true but invisible barriers are lack of confidence and belief.
- By developing awareness of your own specific barriers and obstacles to success you are well on the way to letting go of them.
- We all have 24 hours in a day, so there is always enough time to achieve a truly congruent goal. What is likely to be missing is having our values aligned to our goal.
- Using the Stop–Start Review can help us gain more control of our time and prioritise effectively.
- Beliefs are only limiting if they move you away from what you truly desire.
- The ABCDE method can help us reframe negative beliefs and enhance our performance.
- Becoming aware of significant negative emotional events from the past shines light on the source of limiting beliefs and some of the patterns in our life.
- Once you are aware of where your values, beliefs and motivators misalign to your goals, you can make a conscious choice to make changes where previously those choices didn’t exist.
Notes
1 Cited in The Time Paradox, Philip Zimbardo, Rider Publishing (2008).
2 There are, of course, other barriers or blocks to success, and this book is really about just that: performance itself, and its three components we are discussing throughout, can be a block to success. Which means - lack of direction, lack of skills and knowledge training, and lack of motivation itself are all impediments to achieving what we want. But the principles of overcoming any barrier remain the same.
3 “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy”, Robert K. Merton, Antioch Review, 8.2 Summer (1948): “The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false definition of the situation evoking a new behaviour which makes the original false conception come true”. Merton, the originator of the phrase, clearly saw it in a negative light: ‘a false definition’, and equally clearly there are many negative applications of it. But another, more neutral, way of putting this is: “If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences” - W.I. Thomas, The Child in America (1928). If we then create positive ‘definitions’ - or expectations - then we can expect positive consequences.
4 Authentic Happiness, Martin Seligman, Random House (2002): “Optimism and hope cause better resistance to depression when bad events strike, better performance at work, particularly in challenging jobs, and better physical health”. Both optimism and hope are clearly ‘belief’ based.
5 The word confidence comes from the Latin, con = with and fidence = faith, so derives from the idea of being ‘with faith’; clearly, faith and belief are synonymous, so what this comes down to is that weird and strange fact that beliefs at some root level determine all the outcomes of our lives.
6 Joseph M. Juran rediscovered the Pareto Principle, and coined the phrase ‘the vital few’, in his work on Quality in the 1950s: Quality Control Handbook, McGraw-Hill (1951).
7 It is important, of course, to understand that we should not attempt to make 100 per cent of our time wholly about engaging in the ‘vital few’; that way madness lies. In any case it is impossible, as the 80/20 principle will also reassert itself, and we will find activities we considered ‘vital’ either prove not to be, or no longer are as things change.
8 The Time Paradox, Philip Zimbardo, Rider Publishing (2008). Zimbardo cites over 7 billion hits on Yahoo for ‘time’, with less than 3 billion for ‘money’ and less than 1 billion for ‘sex’.
9 Ellen Langer, Counterclockwise: Mindful Health and the Power of Possibility, Ballantine (2009).
10 The Placebo Effect can typically be 50-60 per cent effective; sometimes even higher: http://bit.ly/2taY4Mq.
11 Ford also said, germane to our topic: “There is no man living that cannot do more than he thinks he can”. More at: http://bit.ly/2tmZ6QO.
12 The ABCDE model has gone through various adaptations from its origins with the psychologist Albert Ellis. Critically, it was taken up by Martin Seligman in his various works, including Authentic Happiness, ibid.
13 As Martin Seligman observes in Authentic Happiness: “It is essential to realise that your beliefs are just that - beliefs. They may or may not be facts”, ibid.
14 In Chapter 8 we deal with the topic of values, another word that might be appropriate here. Values really are beliefs that we attach a special emotional significance to. And the motivators themselves, given their emotional nature, partially generate values, or beliefs that we are attached to. So, for example, a strong Searcher motivator might indicate a value like ‘serving the customer is important’ or a belief such as ‘having a strong sense of purpose’.
15 So, the goal is to be financially independent, but how will that play out when money does not motivate and our (probably inherited) belief is that money is difficult to make? The coach works on the belief directly, and the motivator indirectly. Indirectly means, rather than trying to change the motivator, we ask the question: If I don’t want to make money intensely, what practical steps, systems, processes, protocols do I need to implement, so that I can still achieve my goal?
16 Motivational Maps is a non-stereotyping tool and this should be obvious because motivations change over time. That said, we frequently find certain occupations, roles and positions which do have ‘typical’ profiles. One of the them is the owner Managing Directors of SMEs in the UK. Frequently, we find that the combination of the Director and Spirit motivator in the top three of their profile is an unexamined source of problem to them. Entrepreneurs tend to be ‘independent’ Spirit mavericks who like controlling people and resources, and the internal tension of these two motivators can lead to powerful and detrimental effects.
17 PROBABLY - is a key word in interpreting Maps; nothing means any one thing definitively; one must always consider context; and always never force an interpretation on the client. That said, the Maps do have an amazing predictive ability.
18 Clearly, this is a point very germane to Chapter 3 and the discussion we had on the Pareto Principle and the 20 per cent - the vital few - that are often overlooked.
19 See Chapter 4 for a fuller list of disempowering beliefs in seven important categories, and also a complementary set of empowering beliefs to remedy them.