This article is inspired by a conversation that I had last week with a great teacher and coach Geoff Cullum.
Geoff is a fantastic guy and has recently moved from Wellington to Nelson (my home town). Geoff has coached me in the past and I have a huge amount of respect for him.
Last week Geoff and I caught up for a chat. As you can imagine we are both into personal development, personal growth and self-mastery. We got to talki ng about buying and reading books to advance our knowledge for business and personal growth and between us both we reckoned that we have invested heaps of money in books, audio books, courses, etc and I am sure you have too – think of your bookshelf at work or at home – how much have you invested over the years in business, personal development, self improvement books, courses and resources?
I am sure like Geoff and I you have spent a penny or 2…
If you visit your local book shop, how many books are there on ‘How to live a great life, How to own and build a fantastic business, How to become a millionaire? There’s heaps, think of the internet, there’s heaps of websites, heaps of free tips and free E-Books on the same subjects, you can find them in seconds.
When we have so much information available to us these days, and so many people learning and reading about business growth, leadership, management and personal growth – how come we do not have millions of millionaires, millions of fantastic businesses, millions of inspired transformational leaders? Because lets be honest there’s millions of answers and millions of experts.
Have you ever read a great business book and got really fired up and ready to take action?
Perhaps it was ‘Michael Gerbers ‘The EMYTH’ or ‘Think & Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill’ or ‘How to Win Friends and Influence people by Dale Carnegie’ or maybe you attended an energetic business or motivational presentation and got some great ideas on how to grow your business, new insights about you, learned new leadership skills and you may have said to yourself:
‘Right, that’s it, next Monday I am a new person, a new leader and I’m going to do X,Y,Z….and by the end of next week things will be different, better, improved’….
And guess what? By Wednesday of the the same week….what you had planned to put in place has not happened.
So…What did happen? Because the idea, the new business growth strategy, the new habit was important for you/for your business and yet it’s not been implemented, it’s still in your head, just not as fresh now, not so charged, so you put it in the ‘start next Monday basket’ or the ‘too hard basket’ and deep down you feel frustrated, you feel internal tension because you set out to accomplish something and you have not.
So…What’s really going on?
My story is that the missing link between acquiring new knowledge, new ideas and new concepts, and having them truly benefit our businesses and our lives, is integration. And what I mean by integration is acting on the knowledge, putting things in place and forming new habits and behaviours with what we have learned.
So…What stops us integrating?
We have all formed thinking and doing habits in our brains, driven by our beliefs, values, life experience and perceptions. We could call this our conditioningand our conditioning drives our attitudes and behaviors (what we do). We have developed heaps of programmes that operate in the background (in your subconscious) helping you to get through the day – like driving your car to work, you don’t have to think about ‘how to put the car into gear’, this just happens and its the same with your daily routines and how you think about and run your business, in a sense you’re on auto-pilot.
Our brains are truly powerful, amazing tools, enabling us to do so many things automatically, and our brains are also wired for survival and they help us to avoid pain (which is nice).
Putting your new strategy or idea into place is essentially a ‘change’ to our brains current operating system and it does not like it, intellectually you may say you love and embrace change, but unconsciously your brain fights it, because we’re creatures of habit and that brain of yours as fantastic as it is – just wants to do its job – keep you thinking and doing what you have always done so that you will always get what you have always got…Survival.
And even though your new idea, strategy or habit will help you improve your business or yourself, at a subconscious level your brains is thinking:
“Danger! Off course – that’s not what we usually do on a Monday morning, lets just do what we have always done and we’ll get through the day.”
This is what makes the integration difficult, this is what we are up against, essentially interrupting our current programs and installing new ones.
Question is….Would you rather be surviving or thriving?
Like me, I reckon you’d rather be thriving, that’s why you want to acquire new knowledge, get new skills and ideas in the first place, so here’s a few pointers on how to integrate your ideas, knowledge and plans more effectively:
1. Self awareness is always key: recognize what’s going on inside (not outside), understand that your subconscious is your most powerful tool and that it can also be your biggest obstacle to integration. Also accept that resistance to integrating is just ‘normal’ and there’s nothing wrong.
2. Keep focusing on the ‘Pleasure’ that you will gain from integrating the new idea, habit or strategy: use pictures, notes and affirmations to remain focused on WHY implementing the new habit, idea or strategy is important to you.
3. Take 1 small action each day, small actions repeated over and over again form new habits, commit to just 1 action each day and if you do not take the action, don’t waste your time and energy beating yourself up, instead re-focus again on the ‘Pleasure’ – your reason for putting this new idea, strategy or habit in place.
4, Communicate your new strategy to a staff member, your team, a friend, a family member, or a coach – have someone hold you accountable to ‘integrating’ your ideas, plans, strategies.
Geoff’s pointer:
5. Select a few of your favourite books or resources, the ones that really resonate with you and commit to mastering and integrating the ideas, concepts, knowledge within these books/resources and don’t buy anymore until you do, you’ll be much more focused and you’ll save yourself some money and space in the long run!
Darren Ward