Journey to Success

After a period of growth and change it’s natural to enter a period of reflection. In every climb to the summit, there is a need to build a base camp to pause, rest and gain nourishment for the journey ahead. What you learn about yourself can unlock future success and being uncomfortable is good for you – it provides you with the opportunity to reevaluate, work on your core thinking and move forward.

On February 20th, 2008 in Windsor, Ontario I had the honor of partnering with AM800 to deliver a Personal, Career and Leadership success seminar. It gave me the opportunity to share some personal struggles and help others to understand how to move from adversity and uncertainty to success and fulfillment.

The Truth – Most quick fixes don’t get at the core problem

Many people are looking for quick fixes to help them leapfrog to a new level of happiness and fulfillment either at work or in their personal lives. How-to books and personal growth gurus promise formulas that deliver instant results. These success-merchants feed off of a person's desire for instant gratification.

On a recent appearance on the Lynn Martin show on AM800 in Windsor, Ontario, a number of callers asked me for advice on how to get unstuck from their personal situations. Many expressed that they were facing a dilemma with no clear answer as to the direction they should take.

Instead of viewing dilemmas, frustrations and uncertainty as big negatives, start to see them as an opportunity to reflect, look deeper into yourself and weigh your options. Change brings uncertainty and it also brings opportunity. The opportunity is the choice you can make to get closer to what you are passionate about – a chance to use your gifts and talents to maximize the impact on others and create fulfillment for yourself.

Success is an inside out process, not an outside in one.

Most of the people who you view as successful have likely gone through a period of major challenge, or even despair and were able to discover a path that lead to greater success.

As a professional speaker, trainer, author and coach enjoying a great deal of business success and personal satisfaction right now, it is easier to share with you that this was not the case back in 2004. At that time I found myself paying the price for a number of bad choices. My business model was proving to be unprofitable and I was burdened by excess business debt. My health was quite poor and my relationships with friends and family were shallow. At the time it would have been easy to blame others for my predicament. Instead I went through a period of personal reflection, hired a personal coach and made a series of decisions that have since contributed to a much more positive outcome. It certainly is easier to talk about this now, looking back on that time four years ago, especially since today things are more positive.

What were the most significant steps in the turnaround? First, I had to decide what I really wanted to be when I grew up. And this was at the age of 36 – do not fear if you are older or younger than this. A friend in his early 60’s is doing the same kind of reflection and enjoying the results. This involved looking at my gifts and talents and accepting myself for who I was. From this base camp of acceptance, I had to confront my thinking and behaviour and whether it was supporting or hindering my progress. We now use this tool to help managers and staff eliminate the defensive thinking and behavior that negatively impacts their success and the organization.

For me, I accepted my spirituality and Christianity as my central strength, recognizing that I had many blessings and that through my work I could be a blessing to others. I discovered that there were two elements of my personality that were not serving me well – and in fact were hurting others around me. The first culprit was the Judge. The Judge is the part of you that is constantly evaluating you and others as being good or bad. The Judge is most concerned about finding faults. When you judge yourself, you reduce your self-esteem and become defensive. When you judge others you become less supportive and lose the ability to encourage people and help them grow.

The Judge in you will make you tend to focus on being right, rather than effective. By needing to be right, you will find yourself enjoying making others wrong. By making them wrong, you give yourself the illusion of being better and yet you have weakened yourself and the people around you.

The second element that doesn’t help you is the Victim. It is the Victim that causes you to be weak and blame others or circumstances for your situation. And in the same way as a rotting carcass at the side of the road attracts scavengers that pick apart the carcass, other people in your life will start to reinforce this by commiserating and you may find yourself surrounded by either dominant people or weaker people who you become co-dependent on for either direction or sympathy.

Acceptance is the key – accept yourself for who you are – both strengths and weaknesses. Acceptance is refreshing because it keeps you from beating yourself up and your self-esteem will get a boost. Through acceptance you will open the door to future growth and development. Accepting others for who they are is also constructive because it allows you to focus on positives and less on negatives.

Your vision of success – in many ways we tend to focus on what we don’t want – I don’t want to be broke, alone, lonely, sick, unemployed. Regrettably at the subconscious level, your mind will bring energy to what you focus on. Your situation today – physical and mental is a direct reflection of your thinking in the past. This has been well documented over the years: As a Man Thinketh, Think and Grow Rich, The Secret and others have shown that your thinking has a tremendous impact on your success and happiness.

Regrettably, there is a tendency to accept that if I just focus on being rich, money will just come to me. Instead, view a change in thinking as getting deeper to your core thinking.

That evening we just scratched the surface. The seminar was video and audio taped and so you may want to get your hands on this recording to help with your own personal reflection when it becomes available.

Cheers and accept my best wishes for your future success and happiness.

Greg Schinkel, President Unique Training & Development Inc.

www.UniqueDevelopment.com

www.LeadershipWizard.com

info@uniquedevelopment.com

Toll free 1-866-700-9043