Today I was watching a seminar by Joseph Grenny called “Change
Anything”. He said if we want to change
our performance/habits, we need to think of why we do what we do and said the
big point was, “I can only control my behavior by taking control of the things
that control me.”
One thing I know I need to work on is my penchant for procrastination. This is a behavior I have identified as
something negative in my life that I would like to eliminate. But what makes me do it? Why does it take control of me? Is it because something else is more
enjoyable so I do that first? Is the
task at hand distasteful so I find just about anything to do instead of
tackling it? Have I scheduled too many
things at the end of the day and am too dog-gone tired to do it? He says we know we should change, we want to
change, but we don’t change. Okay, hands
up, how many of us have gone through this?
Yep, me, too!! He then asked us
to think about the last time we succumbed to the behavior, and what were the
triggers/environment over which we stumbled and fell back into the actions? Tony Robbins has said that the two motivating
factors in life are pleasure and pain.
What pleasure am I getting by procrastinating, and does it outweigh the
pain of not doing what I should be doing?
Grenny then gave us three steps to changing any habit: (1) learn what’s influencing you today; (2)
remove things that motivate and enable old behavior, and (3) add things that
motivate and enable new behavior.
So… perhaps in an effort to resist procrastinating, I
could set my timer for 15 minutes and “do that thang” for that little bit of time. Or put the TV remote away in a drawer so that
I wouldn’t be tempted to just turn on the TV instead of doing the task I don’t want
to do. Or reward myself for being proactive
and taking the bull by the horns with a "guilt-free cup of tea/sit in the rocker
blissfully happy and proud of myself" moment. These
are just a few brainstorming ideas I had with myself.
As we begin our week, I challenge you to think about these
questions – what is controlling you?
What is tripping you up? What one
thing/habit/behavior would you like to eliminate/improve upon in the next seven
days? Just one little thing, that’s
it. Ask some family members or friends to join you –
get a group together and see what you all can brainstorm and accomplish as a
team. Make it fun.
Grenny and co-author Kerry Patterson have written the book, “Change
Anything: The New Science of Personal Success” and I’m featuring it this month
as our Book of the Month. I encourage
you to get it from your library or purchase it to read and then pass along or
add to your personal library. Invest in
yourself this week and discover how you can change anything. I’m going to go tackle that “thang” now… see,
it works! I can do it, whoopee!!!!!!!!! Where's my timer....
Blessings,
