Self-Defeating Behaviors in Your Professional Life
by Beverly Nelson, Ph.D.
During our LifePath retreats, participants often describe a tendency to "get in my own way" by not overcoming self-defeating behaviors. These behaviors can sabotage our best plans, our most inspired ideas, and our relationships with others. Wouldn't you want to avoid a big professional calamity if you could?
Listed below are some suggestions for you to consider. It will take an open mind and willingness on your part to look at these behaviors. We often try to rationalize or defend ourselves. Don't. It could cost you a successful professional future.
Procrastinating
If you're always putting off your agreements, making phone calls, etc., people stop relying on you and pretty soon they start overlooking you. Trust is one of the most important components to a successful relationship with anyone and to a successful professional LifePath. You can build trust by not procrastinating. Henry Ford has said, "You can't build a reputation on what you're GOING to do."
Not Following Through
You know where "good intentions" lead? Follow through requires follow up. If you don't have a follow up plan set up ahead of time, you won't follow through. And, if you get into the habit of promising something and then not delivering what you have promised, you will lose respect. The best plan is to be realistic about what you can accomplish, state this, and then delight yourself with results. Sometimes you can even surprise everyone by following through earlier than promised.
Not Preparing Well Enough
If you don't take time to prepare, instead of shooting from your head, you'll shoot from your hip. Then more often then not, you'll proceed to shoot yourself in the foot. When you feel confident about what you are presenting, others will feel confident about you. Confidence is another key component to a successful professional LifePath.
Getting Involved with People Who Drain your Energy
Yes, there are people in the world who will consume your time, energy, and effort if you let them. If you keep giving these people the benefit of the doubt, it'll backfire and you'll be the one who has to clean up the mess. It is in your best interest to "hang out" with positive people who bring out the best in you.
Always Having to be Right
There are those people who act as if they know-it-all but who are uninformed and those who do know what they're talking about, but act as if they are always right. Are you one of these? Always having to be right can create so much resentment, that you'd better always be right; because you're building up a large contingency of people who can't wait to see you fall on your face.
Taking Things too Personally
When people take criticism too personally, instead of seeing that it is about fixing a problem, the problem becomes bigger and it takes longer to fix. Take problems seriously, not personally. Then, quickly seek a solution. The longer one stays attached to the problem, the more unmanageable it becomes.
Having Unrealistic Expectations
When you confuse what is reasonable (i.e., what sounds sensible) with what is realistic (i.e., what is likely to happen), you set yourself up to fail. This applies to you being unrealistic about what you can deliver (as mentioned earlier), as well as expecting others to deliver what is unrealistic and then judging them.
Quitting too Soon
You have more control over trying and quitting than you do over succeeding or failing. If you always quit, you'll never succeed; if you always try, you'll eventually succeed.
Not Learning from your Mistakes
Successful people don't make fewer mistakes than unsuccessful people. They just don't keep repeating the same mistakes. It's important to remember that if you can't admit you've made a mistake, you can't learn from it.
Playing it too Safe
As you know, the world is in such a rapid state of change. Doing the same thing over and over expecting it to be safe, may turn out not to be so safe. It is important to be willing to take risks and be open to new ideas.
Good luck on forging a new attitude and new routes to a successful professional
|
