#GrowYourLife #BuildYourBusiness
Life Area: Personal
Topic: Creating Breakthroughs
The Three S’s To Create Any Breakthrough
A question I’m often asked by first time coaching clients when I first meet with them is: how will you create breakthroughs for me through your coaching, and how will I make them last? A breakthrough occurs at that Ah-ha moment when we see the light. The light bulb goes on and what was once viewed as impossible, we see the way clear to its achievement. There are three areas to break through in order to feel lasting success in any of the Seven Life Areas:
. Physical
. Financial
. Professional
. Relational
. Spiritual
. Personal, and
. Philanthropical
I will outline below the three areas to breakthrough in order to get lasting change. They are our:
. Strategies
. Story, and
. State
STRATEGIES
One breakthrough area is our STRATEGIES. I personally live for finding strategies—those shortcuts that help people get more done in less time. What is it that gets some people to succeed while others fail who seem to have equal enthusiasm or passion for the tasks at hand? They have insights, distinctions, and strategies that allow them to achieve more quickly.
For example, take someone who was born very poor, without an education, and had emotional and financial challenges but found a way to be highly successful and living an inspired life. I don’t believe that’s lucky—luck is what you do for a day or a week—strategies are what make it consistently happen for decades. A strategy can be found in the simplest or slightest distinction and it can happen in an instant.
As I described above, there are three elements that effect the long-term success or failure of a person and whether they break through or not. For example, there are hundreds or even thousands of strategies out there for losing weight, and frankly most of them are proven to work—if you work them! We’re not hurting for strategies. There are fitness clubs on every street, dieticians, health coaches, training videos, audios, books, etc. Yet 65% of the United States is overweight and 33% is obese, and those numbers are only growing geometrically. I would suggest to you that the problem for most people is not that they don’t have a strategy—it’s that they’re not using a strategy that works for them or acting upon it. Why? Because they have a disempowering STORY.
In order to get out of a story you have to be triggered by hunger and desire
STORY
We all have stories—narratives we tell ourselves about why we can or cannot do or achieve something in our lives. To remind you of the infamous quote of Henry Ford’s that I’ve mentioned time and again: “Whether you think you can or you think you can’t, you’re right!” We’re right because our expectation controls our focus, perceptions, and the way in which we feel and act. When a person succeeds it’s because they have the right strategy, and they found it usually because they have a story that it was possible or they could make it happen. Often people are not losing weight because they have a simple story that says, “I can never keep it off.” With that as your core belief system you are never going to find a strategy, and even if you do you won’t follow through on it.
Your story may be true—you may have been through a horrific experience–but that’s not the reason why you can’t have the life you want. For example, you might have had a bad breakup five years ago, but that’s not the reason you haven’t found the passionate and loving relationship you deserve. A disempowering story is one of the things that controls people and makes them stuck in their beliefs.
Most people tell a story in a selective way so they don’t have to ever maximize their effort towards a strategy because they’re afraid they will fail. In order to get out of a story you have to be triggered by hunger and desire—if someone wants something strong enough they will break through the story that’s limiting them. We usually have to reach a point where we will not settle for anything else in that Life Area.
STATE
Of course, whether you have an empowering story or disempowering story is influenced most powerfully by the mental and emotional STATE you’re in at this moment in time. It’s human nature to develop emotional patterns—moods—that are mental or emotional states that tend to filter how we look at our life.
Those emotional states influence the stories that we make up about who we are, what we’re capable of, or what’s achievable or not. The states we go into most often then become the most powerful filter of all that will determine whether we find the strategies necessary to succeed and whether we come up with a story that will empower us. The big question then becomes, what is it that we can do to change our state of mind when we’re not able to maximize our true potential? One of mankind’s greatest scientific discoveries has been that we can change our emotional mood by a radical change in your “physiology.”
For people who are experiencing stress at any given moment, a form of relief can be to simply change your physiology—take a couple of deep breaths. Most people only use 20% of their lung capacity taking small short breaths, but 70% of the body’s toxins can actually be released when taking a full breath! By taking the time to fill your lungs and release, you can not only improve your health but also radically decrease the anxiety related to that moment.
There are many ways to change your physiology and in my seminars I prove this time after time by taking people who feel anxious or depressed and having them make a radical shift. Sometimes I do this by having them change their posture, or I throw in a swear word to throw them off, or I’ll make some off-the-wall comment like, “Picture a bunny driving a pink Ferrari,” to get their focus off their “anxious and depressed” state. For example, if you’ve been at a funeral honoring someone you cared about and everyone is in a sad state and then someone shares a story or anecdote about something that person did that was extremely humorous, suddenly everyone goes from tears to laughter. In an instant our states can be changed by what we focus on.
Whatever we focus on effects our state and our state then effects the story we have about who we are, what’s life about, what’s possible and what’s not. From that story we will often determine whether or not we will maximize our capabilities and the strategies that will help us achieve what we’re truly after in a sustainable way.
Please share this blog post with your family and friends.
My mission is to inspire people and organizations to live their highest vision.
I am a Success Strategist and Master Coach. I provide transformational coaching and training for individuals and organizations to help you Grow Your Life and Build Your Business by getting clear and focused on what you want, why you want it, and how to create it. Learn more about me at SuccessSeriesLLC.com.
There is no better endorsement than that of a friend, so if you like what you’re reading or are using my many FREE resources, tell a friend to join the Tom Hart Success Series Community, to receive email notifications of new blog posts and Talk with Tom podcast episodes, learn of upcoming events, and other news, by visiting my website and clicking on the offer to receive my FREE monthly resource by leaving their email address OR forward this to them and have them simply click here (we respect your privacy and do not tolerate spam and will never sell, rent, lease or give away your information to any third party).
