June 2001 -- Question: I am aware
that your company has trained thousands of corporate executives and world-class athletes to make significant improvements in their lives. My question is simple, yet very complex at the same time. What is it that inspires people to truly make positive changes in their lives? I work with many adults who seem to be “treading water” or “spinning their wheels” in their professional lives. Then it flows over into their personal lives as well. I would just like your thoughts on this issue.
Answer: There is a great quote by Victor Hugo that seems appropriate as I attempt to answer your question: “The future has several names. For the weak, it is impossible. For the fainthearted, it is the unknown. For the thoughtful and valiant, it is ideal.
You’ve heard that life is a journey – a long distance race, if you will. At LGE Performance Systems, we have discovered that each day is actually a series of sprints that must be intermittently broken up with periods of recovery. And that the journey is to be enjoyed day by day, hour by hour, and minute by minute. To achieve this, one must become connected to what is important in his or her life and this connection is a spiritual one. To be 100 percent connected to what is important in your life is essential; whether it is your children, your spouse, volunteering or your faith. It is this journey to significance that many people miss or avoid in their lives and thus they lack the “fuel” for their passion.
It is too easy to make an excuse not to do the important things in life. We learn from a very early age to make excuses. We learn how to make excuses for why we can’t take that test today, why we don’t have last night’s homework done, why that business project is late and over budget and why we don’t have time to be with our family tonight.
No more excuses!
To borrow from another popular saying, there are three types of people in the world: those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder what happened. If someone is to keep improving his performance at work
without sacrificing health and happiness, he must decide what is important in his life and get totally connected to it on a regular basis. What is your value system? What is important to you? If your health is important, make it important. If your spirituality is important, make it important. If your family is No. 1, make it No. 1.
In most jobs, business is the crisis du jour. There is always something coming around the corner. You’ve got to keep yourself together while you’re doing six other things and see your way through. People will come to you all day long, and they all want five minutes of your time. Those “five” minutes turn into an hour sometimes, and you cannot turn them away. Then, it becomes an excuse for not doing the things you want to and should be doing.
So, how is it possible to change if someone has been living his whole life a certain way? We often say he is “set in his ways” and let it go at that. First of all it may be very difficult to change, but we have found that once people get connected to reality and purpose in their lives, action plans are fairly simple to develop. It takes time and it takes disciplined training, however. This is critical to understand. People do not simply change overnight unless something drastic (a life-threatening illness, etc.) happens. Assuming that isn’t the case and someone still wishes to create positive change in his life, what is a possible process he could go through?
When it comes to affecting change in their lives, people must ask themselves why they
want to change; not just realize they
need to change. For example, many people know they
need to lose weight, stop being so defensive, get better organized or get more connected to what’s important. They already know that eating better is meaningful, or that exercising is meaningful. But, they must look inside themselves. Are they exercising just to lose weight? Why not really find out why? Because if they are trying to lose weight, they are dealing with self-image and health. If they want to get connected to someone, then it is love or self-esteem. People must identify the need they are trying to meet by changing their lifestyle. Once they identify their needs, and then start getting their needs organized – and once they behave based on their needs – suddenly they won’t be needing to make excuses any longer. Once they become emotionally connected to whatever is important to them, then prioritization is easy. They will have their values lined up, they will know what their needs are, they will listen very closely to their needs and say “no” to many of their wants.
So, if this is you we are talking about, you must separate your needs from your wants. For example, regarding food, a need is nourishment and calories for energy, whereas a want is that hot fudge sundae at the ice cream stand down the street (nothing wrong with that now and then). Then, the goal becomes that your wants actually become your needs. When you
want to eat well or exercise, you will live your life to meet that goal.
These are just a few ideas that we have utilized in coaching executives and athletes in positively changing their lives to become more productive, healthier and happier. I encourage you to continue studying and asking questions because, at the end of the day, our first steps to improvement must occur within ourselves. In fact, well-known actor and director Rob Reiner once said, “Everybody talks about wanting to change things and help and fix, but ultimately all you can do is fix yourself. And that’s a lot. Because if you can fix yourself, it has a ripple effect.”
