Breaking through Your Brick Walls by the use of a Habits Assessment

[Short excerpt from Dr. Troy Counselman’s upcoming program: “Overcome Your Obstacles and Accomplish Anything”] You have brick walls. Whether you think so or not you have them. The most successful people on the planet have them. I would venture to say even the most successful and prolific entrepreneurs of time, say Richard Branson, would admit he has some brick walls – some character traits (whether inborn or learned) that set him back in one way or another in business and life.I don’t think anyone could argue that learning to recognize and then break through these brick walls, facing the biggest ones first and on down the line, is paramount to success. And the first step is understanding that ‘brick walls’ really are not made of bricks, which is only an illusion we have fabricated in our minds. Brick walls are made of less than paper, in a very true sense. Every brick (or paper) wall can be walked through, but only once you believe it to be true.

Most people are like the proverbial elephant that when presented with a very thin rope around one leg tied to a post will not attempt to break free believing he can’t when it is obvious to every person observing the situation that he could accomplish his getaway with very little effort.

One of the most common obstacles that prevents people from finding success is their habits. Good or bad, we all have habits.

Our habits are who we are. Think about that, it really is true. Put together all the particular ways in which you think about and go through the routines of life – those are your habits. So, in a sense we are our habits.

Take a bad habit like smoking. If I smoked you or I would say I was a smoker, right? That is part of who I am, yet it is a habit. If I quit smoking then I have changed who I am. I am not a smoker anymore. This is how I want you to view your habits because the obstacles in front of your success have most likely become your habits. And, as we all know, habits are not easy to break.

So, look at it this way, we are not just our habits, we are just as easily our potential – whatever that potential is. And your potential can destroy your habits. In the previous example, I may be a smoker but I am potentially not a smoker, right?

So, what are you potentially? Well, let’s back up a bit. First we are going to get into an honest assessment of your habits, particularly any habit that you have that is holding you back from your going forth and achieving your goals. Now, the honesty part here truly is hard.

At this point it is not about right or wrong and it is not about picking out the bad things and bypassing the good habits, just because they are good. A habit is a habit, good or bad. Has it become a habit to spend every Tues and Thurs night with your son at his karate classes? That is certainly not a bad habit, yet it is a habit. Has it become a habit to go to church every Sunday morning? That might not be considered a bad habit, yet it is still a habit. What are your week by week habits?

Let’s say that one of your biggest walls (and now a made up habit) is saying you are just too busy, you just don’t have the time available to get A, B and C done. A friend of mine who is single with no kids and works for himself created a habit schedule that he shared with me. This is what he developed (click to view).

 

Now, looking at this you might initially think “wow! He has all kinds of potential time on his hands to perform whatever task is in front of him!” And while that may be true for you (if you were suddenly thrust into his life with this exact schedule), in his mind it is not true. He sees his life and schedule as overwhelming – he thinks (or better, uses the excuse) the he has no time to not work seriously towards the things he says he wants out of life. After all, this is the way he does things; the way he likes things, and he doesn’t necessarily want to change that (that is until he really looked at his spreadsheet!).

Here is my challenge to you, especially if “lack of time” is one of your brick walls. Take a few minutes to outline your general weekly routines, day by day split up into sections of the day. Create this in whatever way makes most sense for your particular circumstances. The example presented is very basic, and basic is usually best, but you may need to do hour by hour day by day. The point is to create a visual impression of how you spend your time throughout an average week. By doing so it makes you look at your life objectively and say “really?” That is exactly what my friend said happened when he finished it. He immediately realized there were all kinds of things that could be changed, time that could be freed up (if he really wanted to) in order to achieve his goals, if he were actually and sufficiently motivated to change. So, please perform this task, even if you have a 10X’s more hectic life than my friend, you will be able to essentially generalize your life in a very similar manner. Immediately after creating this type of a list the obvious ‘holes’ will become apparent to you. Again, this is assuming time concerns are big on your brick wall list (as it is for most of us).

Hang onto this list for later as well, it will come into play when we examine progress, accomplishment and sacrifice (don’t worry, sacrifice is not as scary of a word as you might initially think ;).

[This has been a short excerpt from Dr. Troy Counselman’s upcoming program: “Overcome Your Obstacles and Accomplish Anything”]