Results may take a while…patience and flexibility are equally important!
Sometimes our desire outcome doesn’t show up fast. Especially when it implies a significant change in our lives, or involves someone else. So we need to be patient and perseverant.
And here again, comes an important distinction.
Am I being perseverant and consistent?
Or am I just being stubborn?
Am I doing, again and again, the same thing, which is not giving me the results I want?
I think it was Einstein who was once quoted as saying something like “ Doing the same thing again and again and expecting different outcomes is nonsense”
But then, where is the difference?
Let me illustrate it with 2 examples, with imaginary names.
These are cases related to RELATIONSHIPS, but it could well apply to WORK or PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT, as we deal with in ONEGOALCOACHING
Peter came to coaching to with a 1-goal desire of establishing a new romantic relationship.
He had been divorced for almost 2 years since his wife decided to break-up the relationship. We worked together in his goal. We clearly define what he was looking for with laser precision. Even a physical description of the type of woman he was looking for, (it was a brunette…) plus all the intellectual and emotional qualities he was looking for a partner.
We followed the 18 steps “goal dissection” we used at the ONEGOALCOACHING program and he had a clear plan of action. As an exercise, he even imagined that the ice on the cake of the future relationship would be a trip to Europe.
In fact, he took that milestone as a metric, a proof that his goal would have been achieved. We continued working together for 4 months, releasing negative emotions and limiting beliefs he had, coming from his education and the relationship model he got from his childhood/teenage home.
I thought we had taken all the necessary steps, and Peter himself was very accountable and a person taking action and committed to his goal.
So I was professionally feeling frustrated as our program brags to be a fast program for achieving results…and Peter was not engaging in a good relationship yet.
We decided together to take a pause but agreed that he would continue with the process by himself.I did not hear from Peter for a while…until one day I received a letter from Paris…! And there was Peter in a picture in front of Notre Dame Cathedral…. amazingly with a woman that was looking so similar to his target…(the brunette..).
It took almost 8 months after he finished his coaching. But he had the tools, persevered and succeeded! His radar had already been set on what he really wanted…so it was just a matter of time for him to find the right person.
Sometimes results don’t show immediately.
Because of the nature of the goal, like for example, if another person is involved. Or just because we need some time as humans, to digest and process a lot of new information that came to us, pretty fast.
New thoughts and emotions may need time to settle down before an outcome comes to fruition. New actions and behaviors need practice and repetition.
On the other hand, Steven, also a divorced man in his fifties came to us after one year of taking conscious actions guided by a one time plan and a strategy that was given to him by an online “guru “dating. It was not that he didn’t have a strategy or he was not taking actions. He was very consistent and perseverant in his actions.
Soon I realized that Steven was repeating the same trend, and had a wrong focus when trying to find and engage an ideal significant other. And obviously, it was not working for him.
He was banging his head, again an again, against a wall
NO results.And he kept doing it for almost one year!
Was he perseverant?
Was he stubborn?
He was finally able to recognize that continuing with the same pattern will not translate into positive results. So he chose other options, understood his WHY and his limiting beliefs, then, he was ready to move forward. It took some time for him to release all the baggage he was carrying, but he was finally flexible enough to find new ways to reach his goal.
Flexibility is probably one of the most important qualities for success. For sure is not always recognized as it, and frequently is not even mentioned in many articles or books regarding self-improvement.
I frequently come back to my point of the benefit of having an external perspective outside us, in an issue that is bugging us or we are struggling with.
Someone that could give us honest and caring feedback on whether we are being healthy perseverant and effectively persistent or we are just doing more of the same with few chances of being successful.
In our case today, when is it time to be flexible and take another way or should we persist in what we are implementing now? This is an important question we need to ask ourselves.
So here follows a couple of TIPS:
1-Take action enough times. If you have not tried your strategy several times, you will not have enough information to take an educated decision to finally assess if it is really working for you or not
It’s common to see individuals using, as an excuse, “This doesn’t work for me”, without sufficient actions or efforts. Don’t get into that trap.
2-If you have tried it enough times, and results do not show up… sit down, take a paper and a pen and think about new approaches. You will be surprised (if you do it with a candid and fresh mind), the number of other options and strategies that will come to your mind. Analyze the pros and cons…and take what you believe is the best decision at that time.
3-When enough is enough and we need to change?
Again, in the context, we are dealing with today, it’s not easy to determine. If you need to take the decision by yourself, without any external feedback or help, it is quite difficult to say. For sure it will vary across different individuals.
There is no easy answer. Probably your common sense will guide after you have tried a strategy a reasonable number of times. Your gut feeling might help you here as well.
With best wishes.
Julio
