It’s Annoying: Your ‘History’ Has a Habit of Repeating Itself…
Discover How – and Why – as Author Paul Gorman Interviews Max Eames
Don’t you just hate it? Whatever your personal or professional goals might be, unhelpful remnants of ‘personal history’ can linger unnoticed, acting as stumbling blocks to your success.
This tends to hold true even if, deep down, you have dozens of reasons for wanting to change something – anything – that seems stubbornly ‘stuck’ in your life.
And you’re probably wondering why.
Here’s the reason, and it’s no great secret: in order to bring about dramatic results, sometimes you have to ask yourself some very tough questions – and you have to look deep inside for the honest answers.
The truth of success psychology is actually very simple: genuine change starts from the inside and works its way out. There’s no other way to achieve it. And here’s the first question you will want to ask yourself before mapping out a personal or professional course of action:
Have you actually made the decision to start bringing about
genuinely positive changes to how you’ve been living your life?
It’s no surprise that most people, when asked this question, respond with an emphatic, ‘Yes!’ And they do it without blinking an eye. But a sizeable majority, at that early stage, haven’t actually decided to change; that is to say, not yet.
And literally thousands fail to make it beyond this point – but never discover why. There’s a fundamental reason for this. And it holds true for each and every one of us: we never ever decide on something without first having a reason to do it.
When you decide to pursue a different set of outcomes – and you know your deep-down motivation – you have the essential ingredient for bringing about long-lasting change: desire. So the next question you’ll want to ask yourself is this:
What are your reasons for making the decision
to change how you’ve been living your life?
It helps to know what make you tick as a person – that’s where a good coach or psychotherapist comes in. And deep down, you probably have a dozen – if not a hundred more – fundamental reasons for wanting to change. Once you have settled on a few reasons for pursuing your goals, the next question you might want to ask yourself is this:
What are the three most resourceful changes
you could make over the next 90 days?
If you were able to arrive at three specific changes that, once realised, would give you a true sense of accomplishment, then you would be invoking what is known as a ‘compelling future’. Compelling futures give you a taste of what is potentially on the horizon. They jump-start you into doing whatever it takes to bring what’s in the distance a good deal closer to home.
But if you find it difficult to create a compelling future, you are not alone.
Many people have a tough time answering questions about their immediate or longer-term futures. Some people live for today, and don’t want to step out of the here-and-now. Others are stuck in the past, forever influenced by the difficulty of the there-and-then. But if you can learn to do it – if you can learn to fix your eye firmly on the horizon – you will find it much easier to embrace growth and change.
Here’s the best news of all: this is something any one of us can practice and learn. And when YOU have mastered it to some degree, you’ll find yourself forever able to shape your own vision of the future. Eventually it becomes the predominant focus in your mind’s eye.
Yes, once you know the ‘why’, the ‘how’ is easy. You’ll discover that you no longer have to labour over setting short-term and longer-term goals. Your mind just sets them into motion. And every time you manage to achieve a positive change, your preparedness for growth and adventure is enhanced a hundred-fold.
But you’ve got to keep this in mind when you are crafting a set of goals: you can’t give shape to a goal unless it firstly arises from within a dream. So make sure your particular goals are congruent with your most vivid and technicoloured dreams. Only then can you measure you potential; only then can you mark your progress along the way.
Now here’s a word of warning: never knock a person’s dreams – especially your own. And if you’ve long-ago given up on the whole idea of having goals and dreams, this next question might make you pull a face – particularly if you are finding it difficult to create a compelling future:
If you could perform a miracle in the next 90 days,
what are the three biggest changes you would make
to the way you’re living your life right now?
Believe it or not, the right ‘miracle question’ has transformed the fortunes of many people just like you. And doing whatever it takes to move toward a new way of life will soon start to feel ‘right’.
This can be the year that YOU begin to realise your dreams, so do your best to expand your horizons. Tap into the ‘secret science’ of success psychology as if your very future depends on it… because it probably does.
An experienced coach or psychotherapist can assist you while you take a look at some of the unhelpful beliefs and behaviours that might be holding you back. Nine times out of ten, these are nothing more than ‘habits’ that have become so familiar you’ve become unconscious to the price you’re paying for continuing to abide them.
Max Eames grew up in California, but settled in the United Kingdom after completing an honours degree in Florence, Italy. His varied career has included work as a chartered architect and a restaurateur.A London-based psychotherapist, coach and author, Max facilitates long-lasting personal transformations for those who recognise the need to challenge both self-defeating behaviours and self-limiting beliefs.
