A few years ago when I first started out as a business coach, my time keeping was awful, and it always meant that I was rushing everywhere, often being late for meetings, and seldom feeling in control. Consequently my sales meetings often ended without the result I needed, simply because I was not properly prepared, and I hadn’t planned how I wanted the meeting to go, nor what I expected the outcome to be.
The starting point to changing this was when someone pointed out that I didn’t need to be late, it was really just me trying to show that my time was more important than my potential customer. In other words it was laziness or rudeness, but in either case it was likely to put my prospect’s back up, and quite probably lose me the business.
Once I properly understood this, and apart from exceptional circumstances, I believe this to be absolutely true of all people. So I had to change the way I did things, and plan ahead so I would arrive early. The down side of this is that it can mean a lot of hanging around in lay-bys (for which I haven’t yet been arrested), but the upside means that I have time to prepare myself mentally, compose myself physically, and I then conduct my meeting with confidence and purpose.
Just one other thing. To make sure I don’t waste time, I always have business books in the car to further my learning, or I take a list of people to call, or perhaps I might now sit and write another blog.

No doubt some, if not many of those who read this will be aware of the book and DVD “The Secret”, which essentially states that by thinking hard enough and often enough positively, then somehow the things you wish for come through “the ether”. This is not an original idea of course, many have suggested such a thing, Napoleon Hill being one such exponent who wrote the book “Think and Grow Rich”.

Now, I can understand why there could be many people who doubt such beliefs. In fact if it were really that simple, surely everyone would do it. But of course it isn’t so straight forward, and above all you have to firmly and resolutely believe that something good will happen if you think it hard enough.

We all have silly examples of it, although often it can be negative as well as positive. Hitting a golf ball into a lake or a bunker when it would and should be easier to hit it onto the fairway or the green. But there have been times when I have been certain something good will happen (e.g. a new client from a sales meeting), and although I can’t completely explain why, I somehow know what the outcome will be of a forthcoming event or action.

It is not realistic to think that you can suddenly become such a person who always attracts good things, but the power of positive thought can have incredible outcomes, so start as with everything by taking the first steps. Say positive things, (even if you don’t completely believe them) and start to write down all the good things that happen to you, however small, every day. Wake up in the morning and think of all the things to look forward to, and bit by bit you will start to attract more positives into your life.

Fear of anything can have a hugely limiting effect on people. Fear is generally a reaction to the unknown, the “leap in the dark”, and the imaginings of what might happen as the result of an action you might take.

For some reason, before we do something new we start to predict the outcome in our own mind. For many people the scenario that they paint is very negative, with a whole string of things that could go wrong, and the consequences that they might bring. Of course, depending on how bad those consequences might be the more we start to falter, and ultimately we convince ourselves that perhaps we might be better off staying where we are right now.

So fear of failure is one limiting action, but sometimes it can be fear of success, when the outcomes we predict are on the face of it very positive. Questions often seem to spring to mind, particularly if business related, along the lines of “If we start to expand, how many people will I have to employ?”, “Perhaps we will have to move to new premises”, “ What about the effects on tax?” etc etc. Again the more we question ourselves, and create worry in our minds, the less likely we are to change things.

One other fear is “What will other people think? Will they be smug if we fail, or will they be jealous if we succeed?” Sometimes we may ask our friends and colleagues what their opinion is of the action we propose to take. Some will be positive because they think that is what we want to hear, and a few will be negative. Of the negative ones, some may be offering a genuine opinion based on facts, but others may be offering negative feelings to stop you from changing, thereby stopping them from having to do things to improve their lot, (bringing people down to their level syndrome). But whatever the opinions offered, the more you seek them, and the more you wonder about the outcomes, yet again you are more likely to maintain the status quo.

To take the “leap of faith” can be very scary. BUT imagine all the good things that could happen, don’t worry about what other people may think, and go ahead anyway.