A lot of my clients have been upping the ante on themselves recently.
Expecting more, or different kinds of success than before.
One of the biggest insights they’ve been having is that it’s they themselves – not the world, not other people, not circumstances – who’ve been holding them back.
Here are 4 common self-made blocks. Which ones do you recognise?
Having too much to do
You know this is one of yours if you are forever more optimistic about what you can do in a day, a week, or a year versus what you ever get done.
It’s not that things don’t get touched, but you never feel able to give anything the kind of attention it deserves. Which means that even though you may be achieving some things, you never quite get a lived-in sense of being successful.
When I work with senior business folks it’s something I hear a lot: “if only I wasn’t so busy”. Like it’s out of their control to manage what they’re doing. Sometimes they struggle to understand that they are at least in part responsible for their own busy-ness. But if they keep believing the answer lies outside them, they keep blocking their own progress.
When they see, however, that they create their own reality, they feel liberated to choose which of all the things that call for their attention will get focus – and indeed what won’t.
Needing other people’s approval
“But I can’t just stop doing things,” was what one person said to me recently in the midst of a conversation about her busy-ness.
She’d been hired for her deep knowledge of a particular market that her hiring firm wanted to leverage. She had ambitions about what she could deliver and could see the breakthrough this would offer her new company.
But her new colleagues were mesmerised by her general ability to open doors, and kept inviting her to be part of their sales process. Which was great for them and the firm, but was leaving her performance targets languishing and her feeling unfulfilled. Not to mention exhausted and cut off from her family due to the hours she was putting in.
When we unravelled what was holding her in this place, she had to admit she was enjoying the kudos she was getting from her colleagues. Pushing back on their requests felt uncomfortable.
Being truly successful, however, means being okay with feeling uncomfortable and not caving into it.
In time my client figured a way to help her colleagues learn some of her magic so that they could have her expertise, but not at the cost of her own success.
Dumbing down
But standing out can be uncomfortable. And there’s often the unconscious temptation to want to fit in and be part of the crowd.
To do that, we can find the lowest common denominator and pitch our bar there It can be cosy just to go with the flow of things, and ignore that our own bar may be higher.
But that can again meaning holding ourselves back from our own success. Which I guess at one level seems good for the group.
At another level, however, it’s not good for anyone. It doesn’t serve us personally. And, if we’re honest, it does the group no favours.
Avoiding
Quitting, leaving, giving up.
The act of walking away from your true success takes many forms.
Obvious ones are saying no to a challenging opportunity, or resigning your position just as your about to make a major breakthrough.
Less obvious ones show up in how you absent yourself.
Like the guy I worked with who found himself in an unexpected and wonderful loving relationship. And concurrently discovered online gaming, to which he could lose entire weekends.
Just as he was on the cusp of creating something real that he’d worked ages for, he sabotaged himself by disappearing into a somewhat unreal online world.
Or the clients who would flourish with coaching support, but choose not to commit.
So many of us talk about wanting to be a success in life. By the same token so many of us hold it at arms length.
Why? Well, I guess it’s because the success we dream of is unknown to us or untested and therefore quite scary. Part of us tells ourselves “it can’t be done”. Safer, then, to stay where we are.
But if you really do want to push through on yourself and experience work and life differently, at least part of the how to is about really facing up to. and moving past your blocks.
How do you block yourself? And how can you move beyond your self-imposed limitations?
photo credit: neoliminal
