THE NEED TO PURSUE YOUR OWN DEFINITION OF SUCCESS

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Most entrepreneurs will be all too aware of the pressures that go hand in glove with being self-employed. The pressure not only to succeed but also to be seen to be successful, is inherent within the very fabric of our society. 

 

WHEN SUCCESS CAN FAIL

We are taught to want to ‘succeed’ from a very early age, and once past infancy the forces at work, driving us forward: our parents; our teachers; and our friends, are irresistible. We become conditioned with the need to compete and in a competitive society this is a useful driver to have. However, if we become conditioned to value our worth by what we believe the world thinks of our success, our thought process and behaviour can create huge dissonance with our core values.

 

TIME TO REFLECT

Most of us at some time in our lives have uttered the plea ‘stop the ride, I wanna get off!’ but seldom do we question that urge. What many of us do not appreciate is that we do not need to ask permission of a third party to stop the ride, in fact all the controls we require are in our hands. This does not mean have to mean walking away from existing life styles, nor for abdicating responsibilities. Rather, it is a call for regular pauses, short periods of reflection to re-evaluate our understanding of our lives, our aspirations and our emotions.

 

OWNING SUCCESS


How often do we question how we personally measure success & why? Our social and cultural conditioning measures success by whether or not we surpass those around us. We spend our time, therefore, making comparisons with our peers and competing on that basis. We often fail to explore what success really means to us. As a result we spend our time chasing goals reactively preset, and which may have absolutely nothing to do with our innermost desires and core values. Only by matching our lives to those desires and values can we attain our own true success and fulfilment.

IF WE DO NOT TAKE PERSONAL OWNERSHIP OF OUR GOALS BUT INSTEAD ABSORB THOSE HANDED TO US – ULTIMATELY, THEY WILL NEVER STICK!

It is for all of us to challenge our own thinking and, possibly for the first time, take a serious look at what makes us tick as opposed to what convention dictates it should be. If we take the time to take a look, we may be pleasantly surprised.

 

. Alan specialises in helping executives, entrepreneurs & their staff to manage stress levels, conflict resolution, self confidence & potential burnout! In doing so he employs mindfulness, emotional intelligence, life coaching/CBT, & more than 3 decades of experience as an international sales executive.

 

 

FEAR OF FAILURE: The Claustrophobia of Creativity

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‘Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt’

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

 

Fear of failure is, more often than not, the fear of not measuring up to others in our peer group. It can also be a fear of falling short of what we believe to be other people’s expectations of us. Such anxiety does not originate from within us but is acquired over years of social conditioning and learnt behaviour. The good news is that it can be identified, observed, & left far behind us.

 

SEEKING APPROVAL

Our desire for external appreciation, approval and esteem is perfectly natural for us. We are after all a social animal and so need to find cooperation within a very complex social structure. This desire, however, can compel us to abandon any consideration of ourselves in favour of a futile search for external affirmations of our worth. The desire to please others in order to feel of value becomes a need that can never be fulfilled –  and can distract us from focusing on our own potential and fulfilment.

 

OTHER PEOPLE’S EXPECTATIONS

If we are trying to live up to the expectation of others this is often because we imagine what they want, what they are thinking. In such cases we are second guessing what they are thinking and are invariably wrong. The fact is, we have no idea what other people are thinking.

 

“FAILURE IS NOT AN OPTION”

How often do we hear this brand of 1980s movie mantra rattled out as the worse kind of tough love / hard motivation in the workplace? Well, we’re human beings which means we are going to fail – so we’d better get over it. What really sets us apart is our ability to learn from mistakes/weakness/failure, whatever we want to call it. Every advance of the human race has been hard won through trial & error. From Shakespeare to Michael Jordan the ethos remains the same: the worse thing we can do is not even try.

 

MINDFULNESS

Through regular mindfulness practice we can make positivity of outlook, clarity of intention, & compassion, our moment by moment priorities. As a result, the external approval we once sought so desperately fades in importance and we no longer have that overwhelming need to satisfy others. Instead we find a profound sense of our inherent worth & our core values. With this comes an underlying strength & calm which gives out very positive energy to everyone we come into contact with.

Whatever we seek to achieve, we should allow ourselves the luxury of the compassion, the patience, and the common humanity we so easily afford to, for example, our close friends. We see our friends strive and fail and yet we are there supporting them all the way. We are no less entitled to the same understanding. Once we have thrown off the shackles of fear ‘lest we fail’, we will meet challenges, be they in business or at home, with an enthusiasm that views errors and failure as merely signposts on the way to greater successes and achievement.

Alan Keyse is a fully qualified Business and Life Coach who now applies his 30 years of experience as a sales executive to coaching Emotional Intelligence to business leaders, executives, managers and their staff. Alan specialises in stress reduction; conflict avoidance; & employee engagement. 

 

 

HOW TO ENHANCE YOUR OWN SELF BELIEF

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Belief is the key to all work related to changing life strategies regardless of whether someone is setting such plans for their home life or their business.The belief referred is not that associated with faith, but instead is concerned as it applies to facts, to our reality and to objective judgment. So what it is we need to believe in order to take control of our lives?
BELIEF IN THE POWER OF POSITIVITY…
We can all agree that allowing negative thoughts and actions to preoccupy us, contributes nothing towards positive change in our lives. If, on the other hand, we recognise the positivity that already exists for us, there will be a change in our thinking – and that can only have a beneficial effect.
BELIEF IN OUR POTENTIAL…
We need to recognise, acknowledge & connect with our strengths – we all have them – the stuff we are good at. At this point, if we can hear a voice saying ‘I’m no good at anything’ then that is a trip wire alerting us to the fact that we are allowing excess negativity into our thinking. If we allow negativity to run the show the results will be predictable. The truth is that by the time we reach maturity we already possess everything we need to achieve our own fulfilment – we just have to reveal it.
BELIEF IN OUR CIRCLE…
Lets make sure that we are surrounded by people who are truly in our corner, and who bring positive energy with them. The power of intention – our will to make things happen – is a matter of fact and it works so much better the more of us there are all wanting the same thing.
BELIEF THAT IT’S OUR DECISION…
Of course, we are not in control of what others think and do, but we are totally responsible for our own thoughts and behaviour and, importantly, our reactions to people and events. It’s our choice to turn off the autopilot & once we take ownership of what happens next, it gives us much more clarity as to the choices we have to make.
This all leads to one thing: BELIEF IN OURSELVES….
This is what it all boils down to. We can set our goals and formulate our plans but the engine room is to be found in believing we can do it. Once we back our abilities, once we create an environment where our strengths can be enhanced by drive and optimism, there’s nothing that can stand in our way.
“If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves”.  
THOMAS ALVA EDISON 
Alan Keyse is a fully qualified Business and Life Coach who now applies his 30 years of experience as a sales executive to coaching Emotional Intelligence to business leaders, executives, managers and their staff either in one-to-one sessions, in groups, or speaking to larger audiences. 

 

BUILDING INNER MOTIVATION

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In the first of two blogs I shall be discussing the nature of, and the need for, inner motivation. In the second piece I shall detail some straightforward things that can be done on a daily basis to help generate and sustain it where it matters – from the core.

As with all change be it in our thinking, our actions, our behaviour, and our habits, it all originates and is sustained from within ourselves – and from nowhere else. The same is true of motivation be it in business or in our private lives.

Motivation begins with a thought, a desire for achievement. Achievement, that is, on any scale: it does not have to be an Olympic gold. Whatever it is, we have to want it badly enough to push ourselves on, to challenge our own boundaries, and to move towards preset goals instead of waiting for our lives to simply ‘happen’. Ultimately there is nowhere to hide – it comes down to how badly we want it so, if it is not already the case, now is the time to take responsibility and to take control.

 

When reaching out to achieve a goal, we can sometimes find obstacles in our path so there may be times when we ask ourselves, wouldn’t it be easier to compromise our goal? Wouldn’t it be simpler to lower our expectations of ourselves? These are the times when we feel ‘on the anvil’ and it’s right here where our inner motivation really needs to kick in and make the difference.

 

While the motivation must from within, we can boost it through external inspiration from any number of sources: our loved ones; famous figures; stories of hardships overcome; a novel; the list is endless. Inspiration can help us to fire our motivation, but it cannot be anything more than an occasional boost – it is from far deeper within us that we find the real power to realise our desires.

 

It is for each one of use to throw down the gauntlet at our own feet. With our goal well set we can rise to our own challenge, remain focused – reinforced in our motivation to finish what we started. In that way, if our path appears blocked by an obstacle, our initial and only reaction is in deciding whether we go around it, under it, over it, or straight through it. Basically, we’re not stopping for anything!

QUICK TIPS, EASY WAYS – no such thing!

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QUICK TIPS, EASY WAYS, SIMPLE STEPS?

In life development there’s no such thing!

I write a blog relating to issues I come across on a regular basis: decision making; obstacles to clear thinking and focus; self confidence; workplace stress; early depression among executives, and so on. Just recently a coaching website very kindly agreed to published one of my missives with the condition that they could affect minor alterations to fit in with their style and theme. I willingly agreed and thought no more of it until one of my regularly readers brought my attention to the title of the piece which had been edited to begin with the words ‘Five Easy Ways To……’

‘Five Easy Ways’, ‘Ten Quick Tips’, ‘Seven simple steps’, are all anathema to me and unfortunately do my profession, at best, a huge disservice. Before proceeding I should say that the website concerned reacted promptly when I pointed out my feelings and they quickly changed the title to one I could agree with.

Blogging by its nature cannot explore a topic in any depth. It is there to promote interest in a given subject and to provoke the reader to ask questions of themselves and to challenge some of their perspectives. These mini articles of 300-500 words, however, may offer insights and illustrate behavioural triggers that can help people to begin to understand how life management and/or change may be brought about, but that is all. In our social media centric age we seek snippets of information, fast solutions, and ‘drive-thru’ concepts – but in my profession, to offer people anything other than complete reality is, to put it mildly, profoundly misleading.
There is no reason that the universe should be designed for our convenience.

John D Barrow (British cosmologist)

Our social conditioning began when we were small children so we have decades worth of beliefs, of knowledge, of family and social norms – some very good, some we are better off without – to balance. In my experience there is no such thing as a quick fix when it comes to addressing how we see and think about our world.

When discussing managing our businesses or our lives, it takes hard work, clarity, focus, planning and time. With these factors in place we can achieve anything we set our minds to. Straightforward it may be – but simple it aint.

IN MANAGEMENT, IS FEAR EVER A USEFUL SUBSTITUTE FOR RESPECT?

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Following on from a recent blog about the benefits of acknowledging weakness , a blind alley that individuals, managers and organisations need to be aware of is when fear is confused for respect.

Actually, such confusion should never arise as they are so completely different, but alas it is all too common. Fear, if unchecked, can create and spread a sense of malaise within a corporate body that can, at best, impede growth and at worst will wreak havoc within the entire structure of an organisation. Pretty soon, management and staff can find themselves operating in the blind: a culture of fear.
HARD TIMES, TOUGH CALLS
In recent times, many companies and organisations, large and small, have found themselves in a position when difficult decisions needed to be taken in order to ensure survival and growth (albeit modest). Such measures impact in a very personal way on the lives of individuals be it restructuring, cost savings, maximising on synergies etc. That is not in question here – a good entrepreneur at some point will have to take decisions that require a strong stomach – they are there to lead, even in the teeth of the storm.

FEAR IS NOT FAST TRACK RESPECT
Managing through fearful times is not the same as using that fear as a tool of management. That is a poor substitute for leadership, in fact, it indicates a lack of any leadership at all. If management by fear becomes a de facto policy, we should ask on which planet would a negative, vulnerable and scared workforce operate better than one that is positively motivated, focused and inspired – recession or no?

A kingdom founded on injustice never lasts

SENECA

WHEN THE TIDE TURNS
When the ethos of excess pressure and fear (aka bullying) exists then this is a sign that troubled times lie ahead – and such a culture will begin to display structural flaws most particularly when an economy begins to emerge from recession:
An organisation’s strongest and most able people will be gone at the earliest opportunity (if it has not already happened) – with predictable results
The chances of enticing high achievers will be jeopardised. How can a business take full advantage of increased opportunities when it’s most able people work for the competition?
Leadership through fear is like ‘one club golf‘ and has no inbuilt flexibility and a very limited life span.
Shaking off the effects of a fear culture takes time and radical change – but since when did the world of business and opportunity proceed at a leisurely pace?
If fear runs through an organisation there is very little that can be done without a radical and imaginative approach from the executive. This has to come from the top and starts with the core values of the boardroom. A good executive can lead it’s people through the toughest times but once opportunities become more plentiful, the whole corporation will come into its own.

In the depth of winter
I finally learned that there was in me
an invincible summer

ALBERT CAMUS, French Nobel Prize winning writer

In the next blog we shall look closely at how individual managers, regardless of the scale of their responsibilities, can maintain awareness of their performance and in doing so ensure that their people are lead and not pushed.