Barriers To Action Part III

Barriers To Action Part III

Barriers To Action Part III originally from April 3rd, 2018 FPC Newsletter

Written by Dr. Ky Carlson

Barriers To Action Part III

We’ve been discussing Barriers to Action and how they can affect us in our personal growth and in our professional growth. Let’s continue to talk about the things that can hold us back. In part 1, we said that fear can hold us back from taking action and that we need to develop courage to conquer fear. Part 2 looked at how overanalyzing the situation and facts can get us stuck in paralysis by analysis. The solution is to develop the habit of being decisive. Don’t allow the fear of making the wrong decision to paralyze you. We encouraged you to analyze the facts you have, make a decision, and begin taking action one step at a time. But perhaps something else is holding you back.

Let’s look at another issue that can be a barrier to action. This is called the victim mentality. The victim mentality is one where a person is always blaming others or their circumstances for their lack of action, productivity, and success. It’s always because of someone else or because of circumstances out of their control that they never took action or ended with poor results. It’s important to note that I am not throwing circumstances out the window and implying they have no impact. They do, but ultimately if we blame others or our circumstances, then we have to realize that we give all the power away and we become a victim. We’re giving ourselves an excuse.

One example occurs when doing a dinner talk. There have been times when my dinner talk closing percentage, although I average close to 60%, has been less. I have closed 30% at times and I have an option at that point to say, “It must have been the crowd. It must have been those people. It must have been location. It must have been my staff.” While I do analyze the numbers and look for trends with different forms of marketing compared to others, or success from certain areas or at certain restaurants, how we respond to these numbers it just as important. We should use these stats to help make a better decision rather than to remove the responsibility from ourselves to improve the numbers. Ultimately, we’ve got to recognize that we have to take responsibility and figure out what could have been done differently to produce a better result. And most of the time, it’s not just one factor. We can always improve our communication but we have to be open to growing rather than just blaming our staff or other circumstances.

That’s really important because what I’ve found is that if we just blame the circumstances and say, “Well, it was the marketing, it was the people there, it was my staff” or any other factor, we end not working on ourselves and doing what is necessary to correct the problem. We end up basically giving ourselves an excuse to stay the same instead of doing the hard work of improving our talk, improving the marketing, and training our staff. Everything remains the same and ultimately, we get the same result which leads to the same cycle of blaming others and blaming our circumstances, and everyone loses. We must do what’s necessary to take action and change what we control so we can learn how to get different results.

Listen, I understand the frustration when we don’t accomplish what we thought we should to get the results we thought we should. I can tell you right now, there are times where I’ve been very frustrated and felt like a failure. Taking responsibility for the failure does not involve going home, putting your head in the sand, or your tail between your legs. It’s not about beating yourself up. That’s not helpful or productive. It’s about taking responsibility for what happened and recognizing that YOU have the power to do what’s necessary to make it better next time. It’s about making sure that you are not giving that power away to someone else so that you don’t have to feel responsible because you can’t do anything about it. It’s deciding that you can take action and you’re going to be decisive to make sure that you can accomplish more the next time around. Let go of the past, learn from it, and take steps to make it better next time.

If we allow fear to control us or always play the blame game, most likely, our situation will not improve and eventually, we quit. Having courage is hard. Taking responsibility is hard. Takin action is hard. But continuing to fail because we didn’t learn from the past is even harder. This is why we’re here. At FPC, we won’t ever quit on you. We will always be here to coach you and help you see the next steps of action. When tough times come, don’t disappear! Reach out so that we can help you to find out what’s happening so you can make the changes necessary to succeed.

John Maxwell says that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you respond to it.

Remember, we are here for you every step of the way!

God bless,

Ky Carlson

 

 

 

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