I should eat healthy, workout, take time to really get to know my employees, spend more time with my kids, get up earlier… the list goes on.
Shoulda, coulda, woulda. Why do we have such a hard time doing the things we KNOW would help us thrive in life and work? I mean is there anyone that really doesn’t want to be healthy? Is there anyone that truly doesn’t want to have a great relationship with their kids or spouse? Is there any boss that wants their employees to hate coming to work?
As a coach, I’ve had many a conversation with people (that have told me they want to lost 20+ pounds…) who when it comes to the decision of hiring me will say “well maybe I should just eat healthy foods.” Yep, that could work. But they probably won’t because they haven’t already. Even though they know they “should.”
Don’t get me wrong – I struggle with this too. I “should” be able to coach myself. I mean I literally have all the tools. I “should” know how to stay on track with every area of my life. Yet I still have (and need) a coach. Why? Because despite our best intentions, there seem to be some really real reasons we struggle to “thrive.”
Some of the most common reasons we fail to thrive:
- We’re “busy.” I was really guilty of this! I’m getting better… yet still need to remind myself that “busy,” for me, is never thriving. Generally it keeps me from thriving. Here’s a blog I did a while ago about “glorifying busy.”
- Love / hate relationship with technology. It helps me communicate with each of you, gives me a huge network of people, and connects me with family and friends all over the world. It can also suck me into a black hole of mindless scrolling. Two hours later I realize I’ve spent much of the time watching cute animal videos, reading three different versions of the same news story and commenting on funny memes. I could have written (at least 1 of) those books I always talk about in the time I’ve lost on Facebook….
- Choices, choices, choices! We have so many options we lose focus. Having options is wonderful! Except when given too many options many of us end up with paralysis of analysis, our brains end up in overload and we do the thing that is easiest for our brain to process. Thankfully “less is more” is slowly becoming popular. Smaller houses, less stuff, a lot more flexibility with work hours, a renewed focus on family, mindfulness. When we are constantly striving for more “stuff” it can shift our focus away from what is truly most important to us.
- FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). How quickly do you respond to an invitation? Most of us could check our calendar, if we’re open book the event, and respond. But we don’t. Why not? We might miss out on something better, right? Instead of being clear on what we want and making the most of opportunities, we wait. We hesitate. We need to be intentional about investing our time, money and focus on things that will really move us forward to reach our goals.
- Games our brains play. When we don’t do what we think we “should” we beat ourselves up. We say “see, I’m no good because I didn’t do x,y or z.” We are our own worst enemy. The story we tell ourselves is we’re not enough. We’re not worthy of success, being healthy, having a loving relationship, etc. Self-sabotage can hold us hostage if we don’t have people encouraging us and (gently) kicking our tushies.
- Not clear on our priorities. The number one challenge – in life or in our businesses. When we’re not clear or think everything is equally important, it is easy to get caught in the minutia and feel momentarily “successful” being busy…
I’d love to hear your thoughts! Hope you’ll join me next time when I’ll be talking about what it really looks like to thrive and how we start to do that.
