3 Ways to Step Over The Problem Barrier
Most of my blog readers are positive about personal development, achieving goals and self-growth.
When we set new goals or dream big, our brain creates excitement – excitement inspires action. So why don’t people take the desired steps to personal success?
Humans are analytic thinkers and to help keep us safe, part of our brain searches for potential problems and threats. When the balance is right excitement/doubt we can make good informed choices and predict possible barriers.
It is easy to focus on a problem. When the emotional warning system goes off it is easy for our whole focus to be directed to this threat. We predict a problem and then our minds runs away with itself, predicting the negative outcome of the problem, before we know it our mind is filled with barriers, problems and threats, which creates procrastination.
These 3 ideas will help you overcome the problem barrier, helping you to take action to achieve your goals
Step Over The Problem Barrier – Focus on the Size of the Chunk
Good goal setters have 3 steps to achieve each goal. For big goals, each step will have 3 milestones.
Procrastinators over-think their problem. They focus on the problem and create new problems from the problem outcome, there mind spins off in number of negative directions.
When thinking about a step towards a goal, they break this step down into to many un-achievable chunks.
A Manchester Life Coaching client of mine did this recently. One of her goals was to run more (overall goal to be more healthier) often. When she thought about this action, she burdened herself with too many actions, steps and problems.
Her mind work liked this “I need to go for a run, that means I need to get up early in the morning and find my gym kit. I probably won’t know where it is, so I will have to look everywhere, in all my draws, cupboards and wardrobes. I will probably find it in the wash, which means I will need to wash it the night before. I’m running out of detergent so I’m going to have to go to the supermarket – shall I drive or walk? I ‘ll drive! Just remembered I’m running low on petrol so I need to fill up at the garage before I go to the supermarket. Where shall I run, I could run down past the river, bit its been raining and it will be muddy, do I want to get muddy? No, I will run through the town center, but that’s means running past people, who can get in the way, if I see someone I know I will have to stop and talk to them and that will break up my run, what’s the point in going now?….”
With too many thoughts you will negatively self-talk you way out of any goal.
Good goals achievers have small chunks – generally 3 steps
- I will go on a 3 mile run tomorrow at 6:00
- I will get my running kit ready the night before
- I will feel good about myself once the run has been completed
Step Over The Problem Barrier – Focus on the Emotional Motivation
Motivation is easy to understand – we are motivated by pain or pleasure
If you focus on the pain of the barrier you won’t, emotionally, feel strong enough to take action to achieve your goal.
My Manchester Life Coaching client with the running goal, would focus on feeling tiered, being sweaty, the cold weather, people watching her and her own negative self-talk.
The same happens when you focus on the pleasure of not taking action, you are emotionally drawn to this perspective, thinking “I can always do it tomorrow”
The client I was working with would think about staying in her warm house, eating a tasty curry and watching her favorite TV show. This created motivation to do nothing!
Pain and pleasure is a powerful combination. If you change the perspective of the emotional motivators – think about the pain of doing nothing and the pleasure of taking action you are highly motivated into working towards your goals.
I got my client to focus first on the pain of not taking action. She thought about how she would feel if she stayed overweight and how this would affect her lifestyle, her relationships, her self-esteem, her health and anything negative that she linked to not taking action.
To boost the emotional motivator button I then focused her attention on the pleasure of running. My client was convinced is she ran she would feel a lot better about herself, you feel positive and would enjoy telling her friends about her run, she would feel a lot fitter and healthier, it would give her meaning and would make a big difference to her life in the long run, but more then anything she would be proud of herself for setting a goal and achieving it.
To take action focus on the pleasure of the outcome from the action and the pain of not taking action.
Step Over The Problem Barrier – Question the Barrier
Your mind is designed to protect you.
The focus on a barrier is purposeful, to help you to be realistic about the goal.
But as we have said at the article start, if you over think the problem(s) it can create procrastination.
Ask for the positive intent to your barrier “what is the positive intent for barrier” your subconscious will give you answer, question the answer 3 times.
By questioning the subconscious you will be empowered to take action.
Chris Delaney NLP Life Coach, Hypnotherapist and Career Advisor is available for booking for One to One Private Sessions, Group Training Sessions and Public Speaking Events
Chris Delaney is also a published author “The 73 Rules of Influencing the Interview – using Psychology, NLP and Hypnotic Persuasion Techniques”
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Chris Delaney NLP Life Coach, Hypnotherapist and Career Advisor is available for booking for One to One Private Sessions, Group Training Sessions and Public Speaking Events
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