Three Steps Toward Getting What You Want
You won’t produce the results you desire until you define and engage in the behaviors that get you there and stop the behaviors that don’t.
Wanting things to be better doesn’t get you what you want.
Define the want:
The first step toward getting what you want is defining it.
You want to be a better leader. Better in what way?
Use what you don’t want as a platform. Dig into what you don’t like and ask the second question. What do I want?
You struggle with tough conversations, for example. What do you want?
Pivotal step:
Forget about long lists and complicated strategies. Define one simple behavior that improves your ability to have tough conversations.
Procrastination, for example, hinders leaders from having tough conversations.
I’ve never heard anyone say, “I wish I’d waited longer to deal with that problem.”
Pivotal step: Schedule one tough conversation a week. Once you get it on the calendar, go figure out the rest.
Complexity or simplicity:
The decision to schedule one tough conversation every week is too simple for leaders who love hiding behind complexity. After all, you already have all the skills necessary to schedule appointments.
Fearful leaders create complexity and then hide behind it.
Choose one simple behavior, that addresses a reason for failure, and do it. Make it so simple anyone could do it. Pick up the phone and say, “I’d like to figure out how we can get this project back on schedule. When are you available?”
Three steps toward getting what you want:
- Explore what you don’t like.
- Define what you want.
- Choose one simple, meaningful behavior and do it.
What simple behaviors might address common leadership issues?
Amen. People think success just drops out of the sky. But it is a matter of constantly calibrating the good and the bad in yourself. Much easier said than done. Great post.
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Thanks Roy. Moving forward is deceptively easy. I think fear usually holds us back.
Very true
For starters behaviors won’t make anything happen.
Thoughts preceed and create behaviors.
First things first.
Trevor Blake took 74 dollars and Three Simple Steps and turned them into two companies he sold for over 400 million dollars.
10 dollar book with specific instructions and the proceeds go to cancer research. See Trevor does not need the money from his book sales.
Just ask yourself is following the instructions from this Dude with these results makes sense?
Great book I got it on audio on my phone. Simple to understand.
Uncover, discover, apply.
Think, then behave, that is the order in which this machine works.
SP
EA. go ahead try behaving before thinking see what happens.
Kevin I do not find it interesting I find what you shared DEAD ON!!!! Good job DUDE!!!
Nap Hill did not write Behave and Grow Rich.
Bob Proctor and Salky Gallagher do not have a course called Behave into Results. Think and Grow Rich, Thinking into Results.
So who is gonna dispute the epic results from Hills masterpiece? You have to dispute if you do not place thinking where it belongs, first.
And YES thinking what one does not want brings results just like thinking what one wants brings results. Choose your thoughts wisely!
Just try to deny thoughts come first, go ahead. You are thinking abou if you think thoughts or behaviors are more important.
I do not even know where to start if people have not sneazy gotten this part figured out.
Good job Kevin you clearly get it.
SP
EA
Interesting suggestion to consider “what you don’t like first”. This contradicts other methodologies like NLP. Their claim is that by thinking about what you don’t want, you actually invite that into your life. Example – Rather than saying, “I don’t want to be fat”, you are supposed to imagine yourself thin and seeing yourself thin. Then, the behaviors and actions occur naturally.
Thinking about what you don’t want – actually, since we tend to focus on the negative – making what you don’t want a ‘goal’ is one solution. Set a negative goal and it sets you up to me more aware, which gives you more opportunity to notice when you are thinking negatively and consciously stop that thinking, take action in the opposite direction, and that results in getting one step closer to where you want to be.
Example: I have a goal to set my ego aside and be rejected by withholding my thoughts and feelings from others and go along with the crowd.
This sets me up to be more aware that I am subconsciously not contributing to the team to avoid being judged and possibly rejected, and instead taking action because I know my input is important to the process – even if my ideas ultimately are not incorporated. Often my ideas are revisited by the team when the previous ones don’t pan out.
The previous post, “12 Ways to Become Extraordinary,” lists #12 as ‘Fear Failure’ – that subconscious fear is the ‘point of pain’ that I need to constantly push myself to be aware of and take action to push past.
The thinking is always happening. It is the conscious awareness of it that needs to happen so the appropriate action(s) can be taken in spite of it.
Beautiful!!!! Proctor, Gallagher, Morrisey, Mathews would ALL be mighty proud of your grasp and understanding!!!!
Good show Leanna!! Good show!!
Lynn Grabhorn great too if u never heard of her!!! Great videos on youtube.
Take care!!
Carry on THINKING FORWARD!!!!
SP
EA
Thanks Kevin. I find that focusing on what I don’t want helps me identify what I want. Success includes identifying problems – thinking about what we don’t want – and then designing solutions that include real steps forward, not simply thinking positive thoughts.
Thank you for these very simple tips. It is indeed a matter of knowing what we want and determining a simple behavior. Yet how many of us often skip this easy but vital step?
Thanks Joedalio. Too many! 🙂
Dan, as a former psychotherapist, now coaching, I wholeheartedly agree with your statement: “Make it so simple anyone could do it.”
Thanks Alan. Glad to have your affirmation. I’ve learned that complexity blocks progress. Never look down your nose as something a child could do.
Well said!
Thanks Rajiv!
Love this post Dan. In a way you’ve answered the question I didn’t even know to ask this Monday morning!
Diana
Thanks Diana. Nothing like a new question to instigate new thought.
Nice ideas, but if like to check something.
The ‘complicated strategies’ thing, especially for vocationless numpties who’ve ended up in Leadership positions. They have to try and prove worth somehow and over intellectualising ordinary things is a give away.
But then you switch the language to ‘complexity’, a word which is not the same as complicatedness. Complexity is a natural state of things with many relationships, that are sensitive to change over time. Complex systems include ecology, society even the biological workings of an individual. You cannot create complexity, the universe does that for you, but complex systems often rely upon a few profoundly simple rules. It’s the living interaction that makes it complex. Complicatedness on the other hand is a product of design (a plane) or ignorance (wrong strategy).
I think you mean “fearful leaders create over complicatedness, and then hide behind it”. Kind Regards!
Thanks nosapience.
Here’s the definition I found of complex: the state or quality of being complicated. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/complexity
Aha a definition from popular literature, as opposed to the context in which you seemed to apply it. Try this one on The Cynefin Framework to understand the difference between complicated and complex from arguably the foremost complexity practitioner: http://youtu.be/N7oz366X0-8
No offence meant, to your sexy little brain nugget of insight.
Like it – one psych tactic when trying to come up with a lifetime goal is to think about what you absolutely hate. Your goal may well be the polar opposite of that. 🙂
Thanks Stuart. I love the power of negative to highlight positive. Sometimes its easier to think about what you don’t like.
Absolutely, most of us can talk all day about what we don’t like. 🙂
Oh yeah!