First, Know What You Want

Going for it is the worst thing you could do.

Going for it isn’t the secret.

One of the reasons that we struggle to know what we want and get what we want is our shame at the train of past failures we drag behind us. We’ve tried it before and it didn’t work. Not knowing and not getting becomes a bad habit formed by relentless practice. We’ve practiced being unable to work out what we want clearly enough and we have also practiced not getting what we think we have been clear about.

Let’s look at the anatomy of this repeated failure by first looking at the anatomy of a successful decision.

A successful decision involves three stages – Decide / Act /Get. First we make a clear and unambiguous decision, we take the appropriate action and we get the result we wanted. More than that though, we also notice that we have got the result and that underscores our ability to repeat this in the future.

Now let’s look at the anatomy of failure.

First we lunge half heartedly at a decision, it’s not clear enough or it’s too ambitious or it’s not even our decision. Perhaps we are copying someone else or have let ourselves be unduly influenced by others. As the decision is poor so our actions are poor, half hearted and ineffective. We notice only too clearly that we have not got what we wanted and this reinforces our conviction that we are not the kind of person who can get what we want, that such things are the preserve of a special club that we not a member of.

Under these circumstances ‘going for it’ is probably the worst advice you could follow. Trying to screw up your motivation, creating a big vision, finding a stretch goal are all bits of useless advice I’ve seen offered to people to change their lives. Unfortunately, this way lies more failure.

So what can you do? The most effective answer is to rehearse the pattern of success using small decisions and easy actions until you eradicate the habit of failure. Pick small decisions that are yours and you can be clear about, take the actions, notice when you get the result. Repeat. Get good at becoming the kind of person who can decide something, act on it and get the result.

Going for it won’t work. What will work is taking enough small steps that you learn to trust yourself again. After all, that’s how you learned to walk so it seems like it might be a successful strategy for learning to know and achieve what you want. When you say “Yes” it means “Yes”. When you say you are going to do it then it is as good as done.

Learn more about how to become this kind of person…

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How shall we use this meeting?

It happened to me again today. Four times in fact.

In the book I spend a lot of time reviewing the reasons why it might be so hard to know what we want beyond the simple things like knowing we prefer the vegetarian sushi. The three main reasons are:

1. Lack of practice
2. We’ve trained ourselves to look in the wrong direction
3. We’re scared of what finding out might mean and overwhelmed by the volume of choices

Today’s experience reminded me again of how something that appears to be so straightforward is so rare.

Let me back up a little and explain.

A couple of days a week I’m a Business Advisor at my local Enterprise Agency. It’s a non-profit that provides help and coaching for local people who want to startup in business. On a typical day I’ll have five one-hour appointments with people who want to make what is a pretty major step.

The appointments are short, only an hour. I’ve not met them before And the diary is packed tight.

I want the session to be as effective as possible. I’m a coach. I know that often they will want some technical info about starting a business and I’m happy to give it to them but more than that I know, even if they don’t, that the real secret to success lie within them and its my job to pull it out so the client can see it clearly, perhaps for the first time.

Inevitably my first question is something like What would be a good use of this hour for you? Readers will recognise this as a form of the most basic coaching question – What do you want? I rarely ask – What do you want? –  so bluntly because I’ve found that question is too stark and too powerful for most people. Usually, I soften it to…

What do you want to get from this hour? or What would be a good use of this time for you?

Bear in mind that most of these clients have booked a meeting because they are interested in starting a business; what percentage do you think can tell me how they want to use the hour or have come fully prepared to say what they want? 50%? Higher?

My heart soars when a client brings out a notebook with a list of questions they have thought about but how many are like this?

It’s actually less than 5%. The most common reaction is a blank stare or the slightly panicky look of some who has been caught in a spotlight. Often they have not brought a pen or any sign of preparation at all. And I’m talking about people from a wide range of backgrounds, social class or experience; it has nothing to do with culture or education.

To soften the impact I’ll repeat the question in another form as gently as I can.

If you could walk away with something when we’ve finished, what would you want to walk away with?

Or

I normally like to set an agenda so we make best use of our time, if you could get something from this meeting, what do you really want?

At this point about half the clients will get it and dredge up a list of stuff to start with and we’re off. The other half though normally start telling me a story at this point Well I’ve been working for… these I’ll have to stop before you tell me your story, let’s think about this hour – What would be the best use of our time? or something similar.

That normally does the trick and once we have a quickly scribbled agenda on the corner of my pad we can start.

Often one of their questions is about how to be successful and aside from the practical and marketing advice the first insight is sitting right there between us. How they have approached this hour is a fairly reliable indicator of how they value and use time. And that in turn can be a predictor of business success – particularly in your own start-up.

Step 1 is often becoming more like someone who knows what they want because its largely true that people who know what they want stand a far higher chance of being people who get what they want.

Reminds of this great quote from Drayton Bird:

A wise man said the secret of success comes in three parts. First, decide what you want to do. Most people have no idea. Second, decide what you are prepared to give up to do it. Most people aren’t willing to make real sacrifices.

And the third part? Do it. Most people just talk about doing something – and that’s as far as it gets.

And for you? Well why not conduct your own experiment in setting quick agendas before your meetings or noticing more about how you value and use time. Do you know what you want from the next 20 mins?

You can find out more about becoming that type of person here:

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Though thousands of new brain cells are formed and produced via the hippocampus each and every day, many die quickly after birth. When we can keep them alive for this crucial period after birth, we are able to effectively boost the power of the human brain by adding new brain cells to the bank of existing cells.Though neurogenesis is most active during prenatal development, there is growing evidence that certain activities also induce the growth of new brain cells [neurons] in the brain. Provided below are 7 researched and proven ways to grow new brain cells and provide a safe haven for effective neurogenesis.

via 7 Scientifically Proven Ways To Grow New Brain Cells, Neurogenesis | 4 Mind 4 Life: Mental Health Tips.

Here’s more information on regrowing brain cells which I mention in the section of the book: Stop Thinking And Come To Your Senses. If you’re interested in reading more about the research then have a look at the Wikipedia page for Fred Gage.

Learn more about the stimulation of an enhanced environment:

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