2 key takeaways.
by bill reeb
“focus on changing you” is an important technique to embrace. for your life to change in a meaningful way, it is about you changing – not anyone else.
more: what is the best use of your time right now? | are you a box or a funnel? | tension impacts performance | your perception will shape your experiences | for cpas: the road to wisdom is paved with failure | fear stifles you in every way | change the way you think
exclusively for pro members. log in here or 2022世界杯足球排名 today.
while this sounds cliché, it is absolutely true. as a consultant, i work with organizations helping them with everything from improving operating processes to succession. because every project i am involved in requires me to deal with a number of different personalities, if i want the client to achieve a successful outcome, it becomes critical for our team members to understand the following premise:
change occurs when you change!
as you know from my previous discussions, i believe change occurs as soon as you start thinking differently. what often gets in our way are feelings of inequity. for example, i will hear comments like, “why should i change when i already do more than everyone else?” or “i will be happy to change once i see others starting to commit the same level of effort i am already delivering.”
the problem is that this thinking is flawed. part of the disconnect with expecting others to “work at your level” before you change is that the odds are high that your perceptions are wrong, both of yourself and of others. the gap between your effort or contribution and that of others is rarely as wide as you imagine.
quite frankly, it may be the reverse because you might actually be taking far more than you are giving. how could this be? the reason is very logical:
we give ourselves credit for everything we think, say and do. we only give others credit for what we see them do.
this is a really important concept to embrace and one most people resist, so i am going to take you through a simple scenario. let’s say you had a project that had the deadline of last friday. because you were not done by 5:30 p.m. (your normal quitting time on friday), you decided to stay late (until 9 p.m.) and get it done before you left.
after leaving that evening, frustrated by this last-minute requirement, you spent your drive time home and some time that evening pondering how this intense scrambling could have been avoided. over the weekend, you found yourself continuing this mental dialogue and were excited when you came up with a few ideas worth trying to minimize the chances of this situation repeating itself.
on a different track, earlier that same week, you noticed a co-worker who was clearly struggling to meet a different project deadline. after surmising this, you extended an offer to stay and help if necessary. your co-worker thanked you for your generosity, but declined the need for assistance. so, in this simplistic case study, you are likely to give yourself credit for the following:
- 5 hours of friday evening work to get your project out on time,
- at least 1 hour of think time friday night trying to come up with ideas as to how to avoid this situation in the future,
- a couple of hours of think time over the weekend to arrive at a couple of ideas worth trying to avoid this situation in the future,
- and bonus time for your willingness to stay and help out your co-worker, even though you did not actually stay.
let me be clear. you deserve to give yourself credit for all of this effort and willingness. if you are like most of us, with each exceptional effort, you make a quick deposit in your imaginary “i am valuable” bank account. the bottom line is that for the week in question, you probably felt like you put in a minimum of six extra hours with a willingness to do even more, with the value-add of some creative efficiency ideas to boot.
the problem comes when you compare your effort to that of, let’s say, your co-worker who was in a similar situation (whom you offered to help). first, from a common overachiever’s lens, you probably assumed that your co-worker only stayed for an extra hour or two maximum. second, you might have diminished your co-worker’s effort even further by thinking about how disorganized he or she was and had that been you with your superior skills, the late-night effort would not have even been required. third, no one else was the kind of team player you were and offered to help you. so, huge chasms are constantly being created in our minds when we compare ourselves to others because of our flawed and invalid perceptions.
how can there ever really be equity in our business or personal life when we always give ourselves credit for everything we think, do and say and only give credit back for what we actually see others do? if this weren’t bad enough, we are likely to discount the effort we see from others with thoughts such as (1) they didn’t put in the same level of caring or effort we did, or (2) they should put in more time given their lesser abilities as it takes them longer to do the same work we do. even with what we see, our egos often get in the way of a realistic or accurate self-report as we inflate our efforts and diminish the efforts of those around us. as humans, we pay a lot of attention to ourselves, and don’t pay that much attention to anyone else, so this contribution gap we hold on to as our excuse for not changing first is mostly fantasy.
there are multiple messages in this post. the most important one is that you need to change first! it is also likely that you will have to change second and third as well. the reason is straightforward. if you want anything in your life to be different, the only person you have a chance of controlling is yourself.
the second message is … the odds are high that you have given yourself a higher value for your efforts than you deserve. even if you haven’t, you still need to consider the idea that you might be diminishing the value that others are providing around you.
assess yourself on whether you focus on changing you first or others. circle how you feel you are doing. on this subject, i:
- need a lot of work
- need a little work
- am okay
- feel good where i am
in what areas of your life are you likely giving others less value than they deserve?
what changes to yourself do you need to consider making now?