Are you the CEO of your organization or is someone else running the program? How well do you know your Board of Directors? How many sit at the table?
I know it was the term CEO that kicked you out, but stick with me a moment longer because YOU ARE running a company! Just look at the company you keep. Look in a mirror, who do you see? The CEO? All right. Confused? Ok, I’ll stop with the riddles.
You are the company that you run, and believe it or not, some of you even come up with a full board of directors that sits full time, while others have found you stranded and fired.
I know, you’re sitting there with your brows knitted and wondering what the hell this lady is talking about. Well, this should clear things up for you.
Have you ever wanted to achieve something so desperately that you could taste it? This ‘something’ was something that you promised yourself that “this time” you would go ahead and win! Then the unthinkable happened, you did not comply. It was just one more time that you didn’t get the job, or you froze when it was time to get up and talk, or the diet you started in the morning was lunchtime history. More proof now that once and for all you are a true loser. Another notch on the belt of failure. Let me ask you something, do you really think you’re a loser? If you answered Yes, then you are WRONG and I will prove it.
Do you feel like your best efforts are sabotaged all the time? Well, you’re right, they are. That is the job of one of your Board members; to make sure it fails. Why? Because it is part of the story that you wrote for yourself or that others helped to write over and over again. It is a fundamental belief in your subconscious, and what you “BELIEVE” about yourself will always come true.
It is like this. If you ‘look’ fat, then every time you start your new diet, you are destined for failure. It has to be this way, because your subconscious is there to MAKE SURE that the story of who you are remains true to the story. If you hate working out, then every time you commit to exercising on a daily basis, you will quit shortly, and if you say you are a messy person, then every time you clean your room, you will be cluttered in no time. It is your subconscious that really directs events, not your conscious voice.
Have you ever named yourself as if you were a fat, ugly piece of garbage? Your subconscious does not judge whether this is good or bad, true or not. Hear the same story over and over and it eventually becomes true. Your truth! It will stay that way until you do something to change it.
I’m sure you’ve heard a familiar voice inside your head that says “you know you deserve a good meal after losing like this”, “today you can take a break from exercising, look how hard you worked yesterday” why bother when I know you are too fat, too ugly, too dumb, also whatever. “In fact, after about 10 minutes of this scorn you agree with the voice, and now you think that you will never be able to achieve anything important.
Do you know the voice or voices I’m talking about? I’m sure you’ve met one or two of them at one point or another. They are the members of your board and govern your actions when you give them free rein.
Get to know your subconscious mind and the people who sit at the Self-Concept Roundtable. Their joy in life consists of spreading good doses of self-doubt.
Sometimes he is the same guy, I call him Monsieur Saboteur, and sometimes they change, and he is a very unpleasant woman, but his message generally carries the same theme: “You will fail, do not bother trying” and so on. The voices get so loud that they override your own desires and longings until you say “Why bother?” You stop doing what you intended to do, they get up and cheer, another job well done for them and another failure for you … Surprise, surprise.
There are good news. It no longer has to end this way. I can show you how to get rid of this self-destructive monster, fire your board members, and put you back in charge. Interested?
In Tim Gallwey’s book, The Inner Game, he calls the board members’ message interference. Interference can consist of obstacles such as fear, self-doubt, self-limiting concepts and assumptions that decide to go out and play when faced with challenges and changes.
I have discovered through my experience as a business and life coach that people fear 3 things: Fear of success, Fear of failure, and Fear of change.
To be successful, we must play our inner game if we want to overcome the self-imposed obstacles that prevent us from reaching our full potential. “Tim’s formula for success looks like this: Performance = potential-interference, P = pi. Based on this formula, performance can be improved by increasing potential “p” or decreasing interference “i”.
It makes sense to me, but how can you increase the potential or decrease the interference?
The first thing to do is go in and find out which member of your board is resisting the desired outcome. What is your objection to the objective in question? What is your fear and how can we overcome it? This is called Consciousness.
Once we know the problem at hand, we can address it.
As a change agent and coach, I have worked with many people and organizations to help ease the transition of change and demonstrate how embracing ‘change’ can be an exciting opportunity and something we can look forward to as well.
If Consciousness is stage one, what is stage 2? Well, says Gallwey, to play the inside game, choice and confidence are the next two ingredients necessary to overcome interference and increase potential.
I also believe that the answers are inside.
One of the lines I’m famous for is “choose the life you want to live, instead of living by default.” This means don’t let life pass you by. Be responsible for who you are and where you want to go.
You can choose to be afraid or not. You can choose to love or not. You can choose to be successful or not and you can choose to increase your potential and trust yourself and your abilities. Honestly, all it takes is trust.
Are you ready to trust your abilities, choose the life you want, and see that Skyrocket Potential as you realize your Inner Game and play to win?
Gallwey’s inside game formula is great and a great place to start, but in my opinion, there is still one STEP to go. That is reprogramming your hard drive (your subconscious mind) so that it stops blocking your choices and really insists that you go where you want. It is as easy to program “I am a winner” as it is to be a loser.
This requires a bit of effort on your part, but not as much as you might think and the result far exceeds the time invested. Once you activate the power of your subconscious mind, you have the power of a homing missile working for you. NOTHING can get in the way and divert it.
How can you get this? Yet simply, in fact, this is one of those things that is simple, but not easy.
First of all, you must go back inside and revisit your beliefs. You have to examine where each and every one of them came from and find the “story” behind them. Ask yourself, how do I know this? Who told me or did I learn it myself? Who first told you that you were fat? Was it your grandparents? Your parents? Boyfriend. At some point in your life, this image got stuck in your subconscious and you have been repeating the story over and over again until it became your truth.
The way we act is often not of our own free will. Our beliefs come from the stories we have been told over and over again when we were children. In fact, your fears may not even be yours, but those of your mothers or grandparents. It is true. Think about it for a moment.
Why are you afraid of spiders? Are other people in your family afraid? Have you ever examined where your fears come from? Well, what we have to do is change the stories.
Our subconscious does NOT know the difference between truth and fantasy, so your job now is to rewrite your personal story. If you are overweight, write in a book that your perfect weight is 135 pounds (be realistic). Imagine yourself with that weight and keep that vision in your mind every day for several minutes several times a day, especially when you are in a relaxed state, right after waking up and when you go to bed. See yourself winning. BE THAT WINNER!
Keep writing in your journal over and over again what your perfect weight is. Do this often. It takes about 12 weeks to break a habit, but in about a week (it took me 3 days) you will notice that you will not be tempted by foods that make you fat. In fact, don’t be surprised if you don’t want to eat anything. You will no longer fight yourself, but have just hired a formidable ally who will do all the hard work for you. It’s Easy Breezy as Covergirl likes to say from now on.
This works for ANYTHING you want to change, be it smoking, self-esteem issues, even relationships.
As CEO, you have the right and the position to rewrite your own personal history and now understand where your true power lies. You will be delighted at how easily it will change your life. Soon you will be the person you always wanted to be, but did not know how.