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"Motivating yourself and others"
Why people fail and how you can overcome it.
By Sam Tornatore
Expert Coach
Why do people fail at things? Why do some people have acontinuous pattern of failure? What brings it about and how does it start? Is there a pattern that, once identified, can be broken or changed, resulting in a life of excellence and results?
Thankfully, the answer is yes. We search for success or excellence, and, when we don’t achieve it, we need to look at the “Why”, what the reasons were. If we do not identify the core reasons, we are doomed to simply keep repeating them.
This is just common sense. Unless you remove the causes, then the results will be the same. Let’s start off by understanding the one and only key ingredient for success. While many people claim they have this “one thing”, often this is the “one thing” that is or was true for them.
However, there is one universal ingredient that is the one and only thing for everybody. In fact, without this “one thing” your success will elude you. It is the glue that surrounds all the other things and if you remove this, then failure is certain.
What is excellence? Definitions are boundless on this one topic. I consider excellence to be: the process of constant improvement, and getting better than your best. Each and every one of us has gifts, talents, skills and attributes that are truly unique.
It doesn’t matter who you compare yourself to on this planet, I guarantee there is a least one thing that you are better at than that person. Think about it. Compare yourself to anybody. You may be a better athlete, or better at poetry, sewing, speaking, dancing, caring, listening, a better piano player. You may be a better parent, friend or relative.
If you look hard enough, you usually will not have to look for too long until you find that uniqueness; often a number of uniqueness, in fact. That is your gift. In fact, you have one thing at least that nobody else has and nobody else can bring to this world. Only you have it.
In running seminars and teaching Australians how to “Beat Procrastination” for over 19 years, many people are amazed at the strengths and talents that they really do have, once they do a little bit of self analysis. So excellence is about drawing out this talent, and making it better.
It is not a competition thing that we compare ourselves with others. It is about being better than you have been before. It is about being the best you that you can be.
Expert in Beating Procrastination
In my seminars I often ask professional groups of people: what does it take to succeed? I then ask, what are the specific activities, attributes, skills, patterns or formulas, required to achieve a level of excellence?
Time and time again, people can easily tell me what it takes to get a result. They can tell me the amount of prospecting, sales conversions, ratios, percentages, skills, quantities and qualities. Usually, it’s a fairly comprehensive list.
I then conclude by asking them, if this is what it takes, then what level of excellence are you? The best way to measure this is in terms of 0-100%. Often, the average is between 30 and 60%. It is not knowledge that is required because everybody knows what it takes, yet the results are not there yet.
Knowledge is not the solution. The solution is missing one vital ingredient: ACTION. It is in the doing that excellence is achieved. People of excellence will step up to the plate every day. They know what to do. They know how to do it and actually go about doing it.
Excellence is simply knowledge, in action. So why do people procrastinate and not take action? The answer lies firstly in the cycle of failure that many people experience. In fact, any time we fail, we can usually see this cycle taking hold of the process.
When we start something, whether it be a new job, new project, business, new anything, we start off in the first stage which is the ‘excited’ stage. This is the stage when we are going up. We have a “Go forward, Go up”mentality.
We focus on the good things, and we don’t listen to the negative people: We are motivated and we are off and running! Remember starting a gym for the first time, or setting a new years resolution? There is no doubt this is a powerful stage, where we start to get things done.
Soon afterwards we get into the next phase and this is how we start to fail. We tamper off in our excitement, and we move into the “avoidance behaviour” stage. Here, we delay, defer, and put things off to another time. At this point, we have a significant choice to make.
We can recognise this stage, and go back to what excited us in the first place. Alternately, we can keep going avoiding the behaviour. If we keep going, we start to go downhill in the cycle, by entering into the 3rd stage. The “excuses” stage.
Here, we make all sorts of excuses for why we are not doing what we should be doing. Most people have a favourite excuse for not taking action. The one excuse I have heard the most - especially from my 25 years of management - is “not enough time”.
This is an interesting excuse. People often complain about not having enough time. However, in reality, we all have there is. Each of us has 24 hours; no more, no less. It is what we do with our time that determines how effective we are.
Expert Speaker
After we have given enough excuses and we have not succeeded, we totally fail when we in the final stage, and that is the “blame” stage. We blame everything, and everyone, as to why we did not perform. It becomes the government’s fault.
It becomes the company’s, the customers’, the suppliers’, the staff’s, all sorts of things. We start doing the finger pointing. But have you noticed,that when you do that, you have three fingers pointing back to yourself?
We’re going around blaming others for action and responsibilities we should have taken ourselves. When you think about it, blame is a fairly immature thing to do as well. You want power in your life?Take ownership and responsibility.
If it is going to be, it is up to me! So, this is the cycle of failure.
FAILURE CYCLE
Avoidance
Behaviour Excuses
Excited Blame
Mini Constant Failure cycles
Failure is not a problem it is the person who is constantly getting excited, avoiding the behaviour, and then making a journey of continual excuses and blame that is a concern. Everybody fails from time to time, and it’s okay: that’s how we learn.
What’s not acceptable is the person who lives their life getting excited about things, avoiding the behaviour to get the things accomplished, and then making a journey of excuses and blame, and who does it time and time again.
Their life becomes a life of excited starts, and incomplete finishes. Failure is not a person, it is simply and event. Vince Lombardi, famous coach, once said, “Failure is not getting knocked down it is not getting up again.”
You can get up one more time, learn, do more, be better. I have taught many people in my seminars that it doesn’t have to be that way! All my success with high-profile people and companies, rests with understanding the avoidance behaviour which in a nutshell is “procrastination”.
Procrastination is the thief of time, that robs us of excellence. Have you also noticed how it consumes our mind? We feel guilty about it? It creates anxiety? We feel bad, and pretty soon it consumes us, to the point that it is bigger than Ben Hur.
But have you also found that when we do the thing that you procrastinate about, it was never really that bad? The answer, and solution, comes down to why we procrastinate. Make no mistake: it is a real problem, with real, draining, effects.
A problem, that, fortunately, also has a simple solution; once you identify it. There are four major reasons why we do it. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “Do the thing and you will have the power.” This article was taken from my new recording, ‘How to Beat Procrastination’.
To find out the four reasons for
procrastination, and how to beat procrastination forever,
like over 100 000 Australians, please visit
Click Here to Go to Website - Don't Procrastinate
Or, if you a specific question feel free to contact me, on
dennisrich101@yahoo.com
Do It Now
Sam Tornatore
Go to Sam Toratore's Website
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