Have you ever been in a situation where you know there’s a problem or a block, but you don’t want to face up to it and so days, weeks, months, possibly years pass by and you’ve not managed to get past it?
This has happened to me a lot and when people would call me out on my faults or the things they could see weren’t working it would make me want to say, “I work really hard and I’m doing my best, the reason that hasn’t happened yet is because of X, Y and Z and there’s nothing I can do!”
The truth is, the reason it riled me so much is because I knew they were right and I didn’t want to admit it to myself…the problem is that failing to take responsibility doesn’t really get you very far!
When I realized all of this I made the decision that I wanted to be honest with myself, I wanted to take responsibility fast, so that I could move past problems and blocks quickly. The way I do this is by having an ‘honesty meeting’ with myself at least once a month.
Once a month (or once a week) sit down with a pen and paper and ask yourself these questions:
1. What’s not working? Think about all of the things that aren’t really working, what things aren’t you making progress with? Do you feel like there are any blocks? Be really honest.
2. Once you’ve written all that down, ask yourself why it’s not working. Why are you experiencing those challenges? What’s really at the bottom of it all?
3. How can you take responsibility for it all? What could you do right now to start taking responsibility and moving past the problems?
4. Do it – take action right away!
It’s also good to do the same exercise, but looking at what’s going right – often when you analyze what’s you’re doing really well you uncover your own success formula, which you can then apply to the things which aren’t going so well.
Tell me, how do you get past being stuck?