Get out of your own way

From coaching my clients I can say that on many occasions the reason people don’t achieve the success that they deserve is that they get in their own way.

I am not saying that they do this deliberately, far from it, most of the time these things are done at a sub-conscious level.

What do I mean?

Let me give you some examples of the things that I have seen.

The need to get things right:

I see this a lot, particularly with accountants, when they are planning something new they need to understand all the details of what they are doing. Have all the answers to the questions that they think their customers are going to ask them. This stems from a fear of not getting it right. What is forgotten is that success rarely comes the first time you do something, instead it comes after you have ‘had a go’ and learned from what didn’t work as well as what did.

So STOP trying to be perfect and START taking those first steps on the plan you have already created.

The ‘blame’ syndrome:

You will know someone like this…

They never get to the ‘important’ things on their to do list because something else was more important or more urgent, or someone needed them badly and they could not let them down. There is always something or someone else to ‘blame’ for why they haven’t made progress on the thing that they said they wanted to do.

Excuses are a way of letting yourself off the hook, but they only hurt the person making them...you. So, take some responsibility and do the things that you intend to do. Start making promises to yourself then keep them!

If you are really bad at holding yourself to task then ask a coach to help.

Don’t know when to take a break:

Business owners so often work late into the evening, or at weekends they continue working ‘flat out’.  There is no way that they could consider a holiday because they simply “don’t have the time”. But when you work such long hours and for such extended periods then you become less productive, because you are tired it takes you longer to complete tasks and often mistakes are made while you are doing them.

Next time you are under pressure because you have too much to do to take a break, instead of ploughing on with what needs to be done give yourself permission to take short breaks and to finish work at a sensible time.

So, in summary you can get out of your own way by, stopping the strive for perfection and doing something; being accountable to making the time to do the important things you want to do and making sure you take breaks both during a working day and proper holidays on a regular basis.

‍

We can support you to overcome these habits, just take a positive step and  just get in touch.