The Truth about What’s Holding You Back
Every great start begins with a painful stop.
The first step toward the right destination is to stop going in the wrong direction.
Casting vision isn’t doing. Dreaming of how you want to change things won’t change them. You’re problem isn’t lack of dreaming – it’s lack of stopping.
The first step after dreaming is stopping; it’s the hardest step. Lack of stopping is the main reason you can’t start. It’s impossible to continue on your current course and change direction at the same time.
Stopping so you can start:
- Courageously embrace your vision – exciting part.
- Identify attitudes, activities and habits that are good but not useful – challenging part.
- Start stopping – hardest most courageous part – get help.
- Begin starting activities and behaviors that create your preferred future – scary unknown part.
- Stop things you started but didn’t work – disappointing part.
- Adjust course (frequent fresh starts) – essential ongoing part.
Suggested stop list:
- Stop neglecting yourself. Get the training you need. Find a mentor. Nurture your spirit and take care of your body. Take care of you so you can take care of others.
- Stop neglecting those most important to you. One of life’s tragedies is sacrificing what is really important on the altar of the insignificant. Things that last forever are more important than things that don’t.
- Stop neglecting your vision.
- Stop procrastinating.
Everyone is always headed somewhere. The number one reason you aren’t going where you want to go is you’re busy going in the wrong direction.
If you were wondering:
I’m still big on the power of positive focus – it fuels the dark dirty work I’m talking about today.
What helped you stop doing the wrong things so you could do the right things?
What “stopping so we can start” suggestions can you offer?
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Good morning Dan, great post to end (stop) the week and reflect on your comments. I particularly was moved by point number two ” sacrificing the important on the altar of the insgnicant” The graphic generated by that thought curdles the blood with the fire of its veracity. In truth stoppage can be both an external or an internal event. The abrupt halts imposed by our environment are usually never subtle and will often confront us by surprise. Sometimes we see them coming but more often than not they jolt us back into reality with a thundering and deafening roar. Not too long ago I was reminded that my enthusiasm was stifling everyone and alienating those not entirely convinced that my urgency was necessary and smothering everyone. That very quickly put a stop to my flapping tongue and made me raise my ears, sit, and listen. The external halts can be painful and always humbling and arrive from non-recruited help. It is the internal stopping which is so much more difficult to initiate as it requires first awareness, then understanding followed by the courage to take action. Preemptively having a trusted circle of friends, colleagues, and team members on the look out for each other’s misguided direction can be a resource to help us slow down and put on the brakes. My biggest challenge in stopping even when nudged by my circle is acceptance of a reality which has yet to surface on my radar. That is why I believe self awareness has to be the initial step before we can start slowing down and get our bearings to head in a different direction achieving understanding as we change our course and trek forward. Internal stopping is much more onerous but they often end up sustainably changing our behavior and habits. A while back, way back when my suggestions were constantly rejected I had to stop, and enlisting help from my circle, discover that my bullying tactics were obscuring my messages, and engendering disdain and anger. It did not happen over night but with assistance, awareness finally showed up and I as able to change my body language and tone of my voice easing the discomfort which was preventing my connecting. To this day I struggle to make sure I am not coming across as coercive and will not infrequently take the pulse of my circle to confirm it. Like so many other things in my life it is a work in progess with subtle revisions occurring all the time. Have a great holiday weekend my friend. 🙂
Al, you’re willingness to share your own experience is a great help. Thank you.
Dear Al,
Thank you for sharing your story. I felt like I was reading my own. There are so many emotions floating around this topic and the challenge of stopping things that seem good/right because they don’t propel us in the direction we hope.
Your wisdom, frailty, strength, and humility shine through today.
Thank you,
Dan
Al is a featured contributor on Leadership Freak. Read his bio at: http://leadershipfreak.wordpress.com/al-diaz
Powerful post Sir Al! Thanks!! The self-awareness, reflection is a great tool and all it takes is a quiet space, a little nerve and commitment. I have to comment about your enthusiasm, as we seem to travel on intersecting paths. In my own reflection, I think my enthusiasm, coupled with humor sometimes may be miss-perceived as not taking things seriously. So it may be how to combine enthusiasm with clear urgency.(Just picked up Kotter’s book A Sense of Urgency-will let you know if it clicked.) My other take home from your post is it is truly a team focus that keeps the journey a success.
Dan, I think your topic today is extremely valuable, but maybe a little less so for me personally since most of the time I haven’t had trouble with course corrections or new starts. Maybe that’s because I had a great mentor early on who taught me your exact point today: Every new start means something ends. Under his guidance I learned as an essential step of converting dream to reality to list the thing(s) that I would quit because they would take me farther from the goal, or just to free up time and energy. For example, I started life as a writer, moved to operations and the military, and decided a year ago to refocus on the writing as a sideline. As part of chasing that dream, I made a choice to streamline my reading. I’ve managed to “limit” myself to five magazines and 2-3 books a month, and I cut my blog list down to half a dozen.
Key thing to stop: that escapist behavior that you use to medicate yourself. The extreme example is addictions, but most of us have something we go do when we don’t feel like doing what’s in front of us. An occasional escape is good, as long as it doesn’t become your refuge from your commitments.
I enjoy your posts, and views, – and sharing them – thank you!
I personally resonate with stopping the ideas, stopping the dreaming to get to action. Sometimes, I use the metaphor of putting a post in the ground and creating action around that, when I am uncertain. Then re-evaluate the post and direction, after doing action. A similar question along this line, that I ask myself and clients is – what do you need to say NO to, to get to the bigger YES.
However, I do have clients that are in the opposite camp. They are all doing without a larger vision and direction. They are learning to stop the doing, step back, reflect, and do the dreaming and the visioning, before scattered action.
Hi Dan,
I have to say I always enjoy your posts. This one has been so like me. Last year when my husband died, I felt like I died. Not that I wanted to die, but I didn’t want to live without him. I realize I had to go through a grieving process and I wanted to hurry up and get through it. Needless to say, I had to make some major stops and starts this past year.
Before his death, I wasn’t working and my husband wanted me home. I really wanted to be a stay at home wife so I enjoyed being there for him most every day with supper cooking at 4:10 when he pulled in the driveway.
My “stops” were not of my own accord. I knew there was a major overhaul to be done in my life. The problem was, my level of conscious awareness was not where it should be and hadn’t been for a long time. I didn’t have an excuse to stay where I was in life-I wanted a man to take care of me so I didn’t have to take on the responsibility myself.
I bought a few-ok, more than a few, programs-subliminal, meditation, affirmations and some other self-help cd’s and online programs. As I started to see my way of thinking wasn’t serving me(or anyone else for that matter), I noticed a big change in my thought process and how I looked at things. Now I WANT to do something with my life other than be a good little wife. The changes I experienced was a tremendous raise in my conscious awareness and I see so many things I never saw before. This was the key for me to make the changes I needed in my life.
My big revelation came when I realized I had found my life’s purpose. Here I am, 54 years old and I’m just now discovering it! Without the tragedy in my life, I would never have searched any further than another human being.
Today I am waiting for my incorporation papers in the mail. I’m starting a life coaching business here in Michigan. I hope to help businesses and individuals in this area and in turn helping to boost our economy any way I can.
Since January I have been volunteering in our jail ministry through my church. I’ve been able to incorporate the principles I’ve learned through life coaching with the Bible to teach to the ladies there. I thought of how low someone’s level of consciousness would have to be to do something to land them in a place like that. I’ve already noticed a marked improvement in a lot of them with the way they think. I’ll tell you Dan, I really believe there’s a big opportunity here in coaching these people. Soon they’ll be released back into society, most of them just going back to what they came from. I want to give them something they can give back to be productive citizens.
Wow, long post! Maybe I just needed to get my burden off my chest! Oh well, I feel better! Thanks for taking the time to advise us readers every day and for taking the time to read our posts!
-Oh, one more thing, I took a basic and master life coach certification course through Steve G. Jones online and it’s helped put all this together!
I know this was a warped belief to begin with, but I used to have this idea that we reached some state of “having made it” as adults. My sister in law died in her sleep at age 30, and she was just finishing nursing school and embarking on her “real” career. Her 6 year old, 3 year old, and 6 month old really didn’t care (or know) about where she was “at” on the journey toward professional success. All they knew what that they missed her and the love that she uniquely gave. Although in the 17 years since then, I have not lived that lesson every day, it is still there and I find that small voice asking in my head constantly, “are you there for your children emotionally and physically?”. There is nothing I could do career-wise that will eclipse that.
This is just the start. Next comes the action plan. In this challenging economy the next is find what you can do plan and execute a strategy.
This is just the start. Next comes the action plan. In this challenging economy the next step is to plan and execute a strategy.
Dear Dan,
I agree that the things that last forever are more important than things that don’t.
Introspection, analysis and challenging existing stereotype beliefs are the things that helped me to do right things. I think the greatest things we can stop are our internal inertia and our own perception. We need to overcome our inertia and start looking things from others perspectives. We also need to question our beliefs from time to time. Our beliefs may not be right all the time. Sometimes we are so obsessed with our beliefs that we are not ready to accept even good things. That is the dangerous thing. We need to see our perception putting ourselves in others shoes. That provides broader view of others beliefs and perception.
Our blind belief is perhaps the greatest thing to stop and it hinders our growth. We are also very rigid in our principles. I mean to say, holding your principles are good but rigidity that always guarantees your failure is not good. I never advocate compromising your principles and values but we need to check that things that last forever are more important than things that do not.
What strikes me about this Dan’s words and the comments is that we’ve all habituated looking at “dark” stuff as though it’s bad, hard, ominous, worthy of some kind of drama, etc…
I’m in the healing business, so I make a living off of liberating people from this stuff, mostly by shining a light at it!
I’m curious to know what it would take, as both a culture and a species, for us to recontextualize this notion of our “dark” stuff as being scary, heavy and hard. There’s got to be a better way, and it’s in our thinking. If we think differently, we approach, take action and resolve with a whole different energy!
It’s our thinking that has us related to something as being hard. Bringing light, freedom and celebration of my wins at growth and development has made a big difference for me.
In the context of leadership, I’d love to know what others think it would take to change this particular mind habit across the broad spectrum of people.
Wow, this was awesome! So true. Thank you again for reminding me of something very important 🙂
Dan,
Great post, much meaning to apply. I read this and began thinking of a few people that should read this. Struck a few minutes later on how I need to light a bright flashlight to walk about within; examining what I need to stop, adjust, and honor differently than yesterday.
Might have a subsection of the stopping so you can start for #5…stop things you started that others can be doing…let go! The more you let go, the more you can do.
Hi Doc. Thank you for your insightful comment. When you mention the importance of letting things go it made me think. Its hard to let go and at the same time it’s both wonderful and hard to be free. Letting go is hard not only professionally but also when it comes to raising children. We don’t want to lose controll. Both parents and bosses refuse or can’t let go and this leads to great agony! Both for firms and individuals. Puh.. I would really love if all to be better at letting go. At the same time – I would really love that we all became good at taking responsibility and – even more important – enjoyed our freedom.
Just a thought: After the creation God let us go … He gave us the world and gave us freedom to do with it exactly what we wanted. Ok, it didnt turn out the way He and we hoped for and wanted.
Since then, humans have done wonderful things too. We have made great art, science and we can exercise great love and charity when called for. This is however yet an other discussion. I hope however you enjoy the allegory. There are many angles here that can give good conversation and lead to interesting insight in the subject of leadership and upbringing.
To be free is a great responsibility. It is also a great priviledge and a success criterion possible to be enjoyed if we are free in spirit and willing to refuse to be held back.
What I’m trying to say is:
First – someone has also to let go.
Secondly – someone has to take hold.
This is two sides of the same coin.
Thanks for your thoughtful response Anne.
It a dance is it not? As a parent of a 22 year-old, we move in/move away, even though we want to move in more. We also reflect on our own parents’ dance as well and lessons learned.
To riff off of your comment (with tongue in cheek somewhat)…to be free is sometimes has bindings. (I snowboard and you have to have bindings on your board…also is when I have felt amazingly free, carving down a slope.)
🙂 The picture is great. Carving down a slope….. That’s life for you. Great fun and great hasard. Thank you for the dance. Take care
This may be a little ‘out there’ for some, but I’ll share it anyway. Two books that are helping me stay focused on what I want (and now that I’m OLDER, finally, make sense).
Napolean Hill’s Think and Grow Rich, and Wallace D. Wattle’s The Science of Getting Rich. Even with these two guys walking by my side, I can fall off my path, if I’m not fully paying attention…works for more than money…