Want practical, effective thinking habits that’ll maximise your leadership results?
This Leadership Bulletin outlines a simple but precise three-step process that’ll have your mind actively supporting you to create your targeted outcomes.
But before we look at what you can do to create your ideal, let’s take a peek at what happens when you ruminate about what you don’t want.
When You’re Ruminating About What You Don’t Want…
- Your anxiety increases.We become anxious, when we imagine what we don’t want to happen happening, right?Let’s say you’re experiencing a sense of hopelessness about how you can deal with low morale in your team. If you’re consistently thinking, “OMG, I’m never going to get them motivated” your anxiety is going to amp up.High anxiety’s rarely conducive to good outcomes!
- You draw yourself toward your undesirable outcome.What you focus on is what you see!How come? We human beings have a need to be right—even when being right isn’t in our best interests! This is because when we think we’re right it feels like we’re in control of our world. And we want to feel like we’re in control of our world don’t we?Two examples:
Going back to the “low morale” team, when your belief is that the team’s demotivated, you’ll notice any sign of demotivation that may be lurking. It’s plausible that your filters would screen out anything but extreme cases of high motivation.
If you and I have a discussion about the poor economy, we’ll subsequently unwittingly set about collecting evidence to support that belief. We’ll notice different indicators in the news and in others’ conversations that reinforce our existing thinking.But conversely, if you and I have a conversation about how the economy is quite healthy and getting better, we’ll then collect evidence to support that belief.
Hmmm, are you starting to see how useful this thinking can be to you in your leadership role?
How You Can Manage Your Mind
So then, what you focus on is key to what you perceive, how you interpret things, how you think, what you believe, how you feel and, ultimately, what you create!
A secret to creating enhanced results is therefore to manage your perceptions, interpretations, thoughts and feelings.
It’s not going to work for you to want something and yet don’t think it’s attainable. You’ll experience emotional conflict—and the emotional conflict typically cripples your chances of success.
Here’s my recommended three-step process to help you move towards your targeted outcome:
- Get very, very clear about your targeted outcome.
- Focus on what you want to happen, your targeted outcome.
- Take several minutes to imagine what it’ll feel like when you’ve realised your targeted outcome. Hang on to that feeling for as long as your can. Anytime you have a smidgen of doubt about whether or not you’ll get your outcome, again focus on what it’ll feel like when you’ve created exactly what you want.
Your Leadership Call to Action
Don’t be a leader who lets your mind run wild! Take charge of what you think and therefore how you feel. You’ll be pleased with the impact it has on your results.
Habituate applying the above three steps—They work! You’re going to be pretty pleased with your outcomes.
As always, email me describing your experiences—or to investigate the support that’s available in this sphere.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Carolyn Stevens has worked with leaders for more than 25-years—hundreds of them.
She’s supported leader after leader (including those who previously struggled to confront the difficult, let alone persuasively deal with the it) flourish—and become confident, courageous and impressively influential.
Carolyn is authentic and results-oriented. She draws on an eclectic array of approaches, tools and techniques to suit the situation.
