Month: August 2021

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated!” Confucius.

In last week’s blog, I talked about challenges and how some people overcame them to produce some outstanding results. It occurred to me as I wrote it that we’re all born with unlimited potential but sometimes we can simply get in our own way. On occasions, we all make life more complicated than it needs to be.

Sometimes the biggest limitations we have in life are the ones that we impose on ourselves and have in our own minds. When I was completing my coaching skills training in 2001, I was taught a very simple but powerful formula. I’ve subsequently used this with thousands of people to help them identify and deal with the obstacles to them being the very best that they can be.

The formula is:

Performance = Potential – Interference

It was devised by Timothy Gallwey who previously worked as a tennis coach. He said that on a tennis court the biggest opponent isn’t the one you’re playing against but the one up in your own head. His book “The Inner Game of Work” is all about helping people overcome mental obstacles for maximum performance. He has also written books called “The Inner Game of Tennis” and “The Inner Game of Golf.”

Gallwey claimed that performance in any activity, from hitting a tennis ball to solving a complex business problem, was equal to one’s potential after the interference factor had been subtracted from the equation. Performance rarely equals potential.

A little interference is all it takes to greatly diminish one’s actual performance. Some common examples of interferences (obstacles) are self- doubt, fear, lack of confidence, self-condemnation and negative self–talk, procrastination, self-consciousness, busy mind etc.

One of the biggest interferences is fear, or as I like to call it “False Expectations Appearing Real!”

I was once told we are only born with just two fears ­- the fear of noise and the fear of falling down. Every other fear that we have is a learned behaviour. The good news about interferences including fear is that as it’s a learned behaviour, we can unlearn it! It requires us to form some new habits and behaviours

Changing our daily habits and rituals allows us to get out of our own way, as 90% of what we do each day is habit! In his book “Habit busting” Pete Cohen gives guidance and tips on how to break habits. He suggests that it takes 21 days to break a habit. So, patience and determination are required to achieve a change in habits.

This week why not pause for a few moments to reflect and consider how you get in your own way. Decide if there’s something that you would you like to change or if you’re happy to keep things as they are.

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk

“If we did all the things that we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves.” – Thomas Edison.

In last week’s blog, I talked how the Covid pandemic has presented many challenges and that lots of people have had to show great resilience.

We all face challenges, adversity, obstacles and set-backs at times in our lives. When in the middle of periods of misfortune or challenge it’s easy to lose perspective, become downhearted and wonder if things will ever improve. We can feel unable to be open about how we’re feeling or show our vulnerability.

This kind of phase in our life can have a detrimental effect on our levels of confidence and belief. However, sometimes we have to experience difficulty and tough times so that we can develop a greater appreciation of the good times and be grateful for the periods of pleasure.

When you set out to achieve a goal or a dream, whether it is starting a business, pursuing a new career, beginning a new hobby, looking to lose weight or commencing a fitness regime, it’s easy at the first sign of a setback to give up and settle for what’s known.

There are countless examples of the challenges that people encountered on the road to success.

We may never have heard a record from the Beatles, if they had taken rejection as a sign to not pursue their passion. When they first started out, a recording company turned them down and said “we don’t like your sound and guitar music is on the way out.”

Many people may not have viewed a Disney movie or visited Disneyworld if Walt Disney had given up when he was fired early in his career by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.”

He suffered business failure, bankruptcy and was turned down an incredible 302 times by banks when he was seeking funds to establish his theme park. He never gave up on his dream to create Disneyworld. It took him years of hard work, raising finance, dealing with disappointment but Disney stayed focused on his goal.

The Harry Potter movies and JK Rowling’s books are hugely popular across the world with lots of people. They may have been denied that pleasure; if she had let difficulties, she experienced in life hold her back. Prior to the books being published, she was virtually penniless, depending on welfare payments to survive and help to bring up her child as a single parent. She was divorced and suffered from depression. Her series of seven books have sold more than 450 million copies, won innumerable awards, been made into movies and transformed Rowling’s life.

Experiencing adversity can be a lesson. It can re-awaken us to the things that are far more important than money and material possessions; our health, our family and our friends.

An illness teaches us to be humble, to see every day as a gift, to live more in the moment and motivate us to lead a healthy life. A sudden loss in the family brings into sharp focus the cycle of birth, life and death. Losing a job can be a scary place for many people and create uncertainty. However, it can be the springboard for something new and exciting and the start of a whole new adventure.

Adversity can come to our lives to suggest that it’s time for us to change direction and do something new.

This week, why not pause for a few moments to reflect. Ask yourself what lessons you have learned from any challenges and adversity that you’ve experienced in your life. How can you better apply these lessons to your life moving forward?

To arrange a free no obligation consultation, please contact Stephen Pauley via the contact form or by e mail: Stephen@befirstclass.co.uk