Change to become more successful!
Change is the only constant, do not let our successes become the blocker for our further success.
Change is the only constant, it requires continuous effort from humankind to understand the change that leads to success, and make us successful. In my earlier article, I talked about the success mantra, and also wrote about accepting the change when required. Sometimes the way we perceive our success becomes a blocker for becoming more successful. We accumulate some habits knowingly or unknowingly along the path of being successful, and mostly we never realize that those habits start blocking our way forward.
Today, in the time of the Covid19 pandemic, even nature wants us to change the way work, the way we eat, the way we use natural resources, and other words the way we live. We will get over this pandemic, with a lot of learning and change. We need to change for humankind, and ourselves, after all, what got you here, won’t get you there… Let’s change…
I penned down an article for successful people and want to become more successful. Know the changes that are required to reach from here to there. We might have achieved many goals, crossed milestones, but with all this, we may not reach there, it requires constant monitoring and change in us. The article is highly influenced by the book ‘What Got You Here Won’t Get You There’ by Marshall Goldsmith.
Marshal is one of the world’s preeminent executive coaches, and this book is his experience of coaching successful people to become more successful. I recommend this book to everyone who thinks that they are successful, they don’t need or need advice for being more successful. This book covers 20 habits that hold you back from the top, honestly, you may link many of them to yourself.
Readout my take away from the book here.
Success Myths
The book starts nicely, directly hitting the critical point in the very first chapters with nice examples. Being a successful person, we are in the delusion of success,
- We too much believe in our skills that made us successful,
- This gives us confidence that we can succeed in the same way,
- Which means we will succeed in the future,
- Why not we, as with all this, we are committed to the goals and beliefs. in fact, they are obsessed with the goal.
Successful people are the ones who want to become more successful, but the change required to become more successful is hard to finds, it is hard for them to believe why to change.
Accumulated hold back Habits
Successful people having strong success myths described in the last section generally accumulates some of the following habits that hold them here, and don’t let them there. The higher we go, the more we prone to behavioral issues.
Some of them holdback habits are
Too much me
Successful people accumulate some habits where they value too much of being “me”. With this, wining becomes necessary for them in all situations even if it is not important, they argue too much and go at the level of putting down other people, or sometimes they withhold important information to stay important and disclose when the time to the limelight. They also try to add unnecessary value to other’s ideas, to remain in the light. When we listen to other’s ideas, even if it is of great importance, rather than saying “Thank you” to the person, they may suggest some un-valuable things.
With such a state of mind, it is hard to value other’s ideas, and consequences might be that other people stop giving their opinion, which boosts this habit. We express our opinion, no matter how hard hurtful or non-useful it is, just to realize our rights of “Too much me”.
We can’t be masters of everything, but people with a habit of putting “too much me” keep telling the world how smart are we, and this can some times lead to embarrassment when we arguing with other people with that expertise, we also tend to not value other’s expertise.
Defend and Oppose
With this holdback habit, we tend to defend what we say and oppose each and everything that others say. We tend to use words like “if”, “No”, “But” and “However” a lot in our conversation.
When someone comes with an idea, our first reaction is “Let me tell you why it won’t work”. No matter what the idea is, our mind first starts finding negatives from the idea.
Success Bias
We are so biased of the success that we feel we can make fun of anyone, pass judgment, or make even some descriptive comments, and they would ignore them in respect to our success. It is not true. The damage by our word is irreversible doesn't matter how hard we apologize later.
Some have a bias for some people, and they play favoritism.
Failed to recognize others or eat up their credit
Even some successful people have this habit of not recognizing others well and encourage them for their work. Even worse, some leader eats up the credit of others, and use their idea as their own idea.
General interpersonal holdback issues
- Always making excuses, and blaming others to the issues
- Expressing regret or Gratitude when it is needed most
- Speak more and listen less.
- Talking in anger
- Not ready to listen to bad news
- React more and respond less
Knowing your holdback Habits
The only way to know about your habits that hold you back is the feedback. ThoughtWorks has a great culture of feedback, everyone gives feedback frequently, and it is advised to get feedback from all the diverse roles, teams, so you know them fully.
The ‘self’ we think, and the ‘self’ rest of the world sees in us is mostly different. The only way to fill the gap is by getting feedback.
Some organizations have 360-degree feedbacks and encourage people for one-on-one feedback with peers. We should know the art of taking feedback, and share a vision and agenda for asking the feedback. Consume the feedback peacefully.
This is just one way of feedback, there are other ways to get feedback from others.
- Observe others, if we find some problem with them, try to see that problem in ourselves. It's hard but, but be honest we will get immediate feedback without really talking to anyone.
- Observe others, and see how they react when we talk to them or talk in general in the meeting, their physical expressions, physical movement, ignorance, or so. Note down all of these, you see some pattern.
The Change Begins
The right time to start the change is now, identify the right thing you want to change and start it now. Make and plan, and tell the world that you are improving, yes, in fact, publicize to the word, that you are changing, and ask for a favor. Remember, and convey the message, that you can’t change the past but start today to improve the future. Leave the past behind and move forward.
Generally, change begins with apologizing, the author calls it a magic move. Please mean it when you apologize to someone.
Improve your listening skill, My friend Gary Butters says -
we got two ears and one mouth, so them in that proportion.
If your statement not adding any value then don’t just say anything other then ‘thank you’. and yet this is the next key thing you do. Starting thanking people in your life, have gratitude towards them.
And so on, identify that change that you want to make, and be clear why you want to do that change. eg. Complete the statement
“if you get rid of this holdback habit then ……………
Measure the change
The change becomes easy when you can measure it, if you can measure it then you can achieve it. and the best technique to measure is follow up. Once you declare you are changing, just set up follow up with your peers, and people who signed up to favor you in your journey of change. Ask them about how much have you changed, what next they expect etc.
You are here, define your there and let the journey begins
Conclusion
Let the change continue till the last bread, and keep improving every day for humankind and self, and be better you.
