Break through the Brainblocks

The Office Coach

I SEARCHED for the word “goals” in the folder that contains all 201 articles that I have written for The Herald and the search yielded 51 results.

Given that my articles focus on personal and workplace effectiveness, it is clear that goals must be important to success.

I understand the importance of goals, I understand how to set them and I know how to measure them.

So, why do I have many unfulfilled goals? I did some research . . .

Dr Theo Tsaousides is a neuropsychologist, author, speaker, and entrepreneur based in New York. His book, Brainblocks: Overcoming the 7 Hidden Barriers to Success, teaches that our brains are wired to take action and that, if we can overcome seven key inhibitors, we can build our dreams “one action at a time”.

He quotes a 10% success rate that I can relate to i.e. that only one in 10 people achieve their version of success.

What is interesting about Tsaousides’ work is that it addresses why 90% of people fail.

In other words, he teaches what holds us back (Brainblocks™) and how to overcome them. “Brainblocks™ are the daily habits of feeling, thought, and action that keep you stuck”.

Tsaousides says the seven Brainblocks™ are self-doubt, procrastination, impatience, multi-tasking, rigidity, perfectionism and negativity.

No doubt, at least one (and maybe all seven) are familiar to readers. Here they are in a little more detail:

Self-doubt: you are unsure that you have what it takes. You may suffer from self-doubt if you lack confidence, if you confuse lack of experience with lack of ability, if you see challenges as threats or hear feedback as criticism.

Procrastination: Google “86 400 seconds”. That is how many seconds there are in a day.

I have not yet been able to find the author of these wise words,

“Imagine there is a bank account that credits your account each morning with $86 400.

It carries over no balance from day to day.

Every evening the bank deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use during the day.

What would you do? Draw out every cent, of course? Each of us has such a bank. Its name is “time”.

Do you wait too long to get started? Do you perceive time as endless and forgiving, without realising that time – unlike money – is the only resource that you cannot recover when you lose it?

Impatience: success does not come overnight, yet we live in a world where people are peddling quick-fixes at every turn; “flat abs in 7 days”, “how to make a million dollars, fast” and so it goes on.

But success takes time and it takes a sustained effort.

In his book, How to Train with a T. Rex and Win 8 Gold Medals, swimmer Michael Phelps, explains this concept to young children when he outlines what is takes to win eight gold medals, for example, eating enough broccoli to fill the back of a pickup truck and swimming the length of the Great Wall of China – three times!

Multi-tasking: Dave Crenshaw coined the term “switch-tasking” and defined it as “attempting to do multiple attention-requiring tasks at the same time”. When most people say they are “multi-tasking,” they are actually switch-tasking.

Each “switch” in attention incurs switching cost, which includes a loss of time, decrease in performance and an increase in stress levels. How good are you at focusing on just one thing at a time until that thing is done?

Rigidity: do you want change without having to change? Unfortunately, changing what we think, say and do is a prerequisite for achieving success. Admitting our weaknesses makes many of us feel vulnerable and that makes us feel afraid. Fear is what renders us rigid. What are you afraid of?

Perfectionism: the Pareto Principle teaches us that 80% of our success comes from 20% of what we do (hence its popular name: the 80/20 rule). This principle describes what many of see every day; that 20% generates 80% of our human resources problems, that 80% of our revenues is the result of sales made by 20% of our sales staff. Our challenge is to make sure that we focus most acutely are the activities that lead to the most impact, that move us forward towards the attainment of our goals.

Negativity: ruminating on all the reasons why something will not work, why you cannot achieve something serves no one. All it does is drain you and everyone around you of energy. Looking at all the reasons why you cannot achieve your success is the most dangerous form of victimhood; it blocks action.

Shifting the question from “why?” to “why not?” is part of the key to removing this Brainblock™

If you have unfulfilled goals, then it may be time to take a step back to about the Brainblocks™ that are holding you back from achieving your successes.