The whole point of a disruption is performance so I want to write more about that today because I think really that’s what everyone is here for, increased performance.
How do we increase our performance? How do we take it to the next level?
If you look at the top-level athletes or entrepreneurs, it’s all about that extra two per cent they have over everyone else. So how do we get that extra two percent performance?
Often we can look externally, which is when we look at things like time management plans, our team’s performance and our business strategy and try to tighten things up there, but where we don’t often look is inside and what is happening internally on an emotional and unconscious thought processing level.
Now, here we get into the concept of motivation and we can talk about towards motivation and away from motivation and the different ways we are influenced to take action, but I’d like to go even further than that. If we look at it at a deeper level, at a really, really deep level, I want to know what’s going on behind the scenes, what is the internal dialogue? What is the internal experience that is happening that is driving that motivation?
As we start to chunk all the way down to that really deep level, what we are looking for is the unconscious stories that are playing over and over again, because these stories can move us in the direction we want or they can keep us stationary or even sabotage our hard work.
So what we are looking for are our beliefs around:
- Self-worth
- What is valuable
- Success
- Sacrifice
- Control
- Independence
- Total dependence
And many, many more.
This is where we can start to look at things like self-image, the unconscious stories that we tell ourselves fundamentally turn into belief systems, and if we keep telling the same stories over and over and over again, they become our identity and who we believe we actually are.
Our belief system is a generalisation, so to use a metaphor here, if our belief system was a table then the top of that table is the belief and the references, or ‘evidence’ or personal history we have makes up the legs under the table. So the more references or the more legs that we have under that table, the stronger and sturdier that belief becomes. Now some of our stories are almost as old as we are so they are really strong and feel really certain.
If we have a lot of similar belief systems they turn into values and our values are the core of our decision-making, our motivation and our actions. When we gather all of our values together we get a picture of our self-image.
Our self-image will determine everything. It will determine how much we earn. It will determine the people that we attract into our lives. It will determine our health, every aspect of our environment and the really interesting thing is that we very rarely outperform our self-image.
If you were to achieve something that is outside of what your self image expects, something that to your subconscious seemed abnormal, like a great return one month of your business, when your self image is that only hard work pays. Then what happens is that you go into a sabotage pattern that will get you back to what your unconscious knows is a normal experience.
So in the instance where you had that unexpected great month of business you might find that a lot of unnecessary spending happens, you enrol in a really expensive course you don’t need and overloads you, or that you take on some really poor advice to get you back to where you were before just as quickly, or maybe even more quickly than the gain you made.
It can happen especially with trading as well, if you make a whole heap of money trading, and then over the next period you then start to sabotage and make a lot of really bad moves to lose it all again. You look back on it and see that if you had just left things as they were you would have really gotten amazing results, but you just felt a restless urge to tamper with it all.
And this is for everything, not just for business, if you believe you are not beautiful or sexy and you lose weight and look great you will quickly put that weight back on, or the other way around, if you are really fit and healthy and you decide, ‘I’ve been really, really good, I deserve nice food,’ or you want to experience the lifestyle of a lavish lunch because that to you is successful or fun then you will lose your fitness. The same can go for your personal savings, you get to the point where you’ve saved more money than you’ve ever saved and suddenly there is this unconscious desire to go on a crazy spending spree, renovate the kitchen or something and then suddenly you’re back at the same level over and over again.
And this is something that plays out with relationships as well. It could be that you attract someone that you think is above you, and then all of your patterns start to come in and you start to sabotage that experience because your self-image isn’t connected to that specific result of having a great partner, so you decide that they are probably going to realise you are not good enough for them anyway, so might as well show them how incapable you are of being in this relationship.
All that sounds negative, but actually the reverse is true as well. Imagine you are earning a hundred grand a year in a position, your boss turns around and says, “You know what, we’re going to change your contract, you’re going to do the exact same role and be earning 60k.”
Now what’s going to happen? Naturally you are going to go, “Well, I’m worth more, so I’m going to leave and find someone who will pay the right amount for my work.” So you get back to what you’re congruent with, or what your self-image believes it’s worth.
So the self-image is really, really important as a driver for high performance. So what we need to do then, in order to accelerate our success and get that two per cent extra, is really start to identify what your self-image is made of.
And we can look at this by going, “Okay, what are the results? What are the results that we’re getting around health, relationships, business and career?” And look at all these because your results are an indicator of your unconscious belief system. Where are you doing well, where are you getting stuck? And you might even see patterns that across different areas of life you are getting stuck in the same places, or over the same things and that is an indication of a misalignment in your life values. And this happens a lot that when I am working with someone about their business, then we also end up talking about their relationship because the two are connected and fixing the belief around the relationship can create a shift in the belief about the business.
So we start to ask questions about the unconscious belief systems and under those unconscious belief systems are the stories.
So the first thing we want is to be aware. If you are trained in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) or working with an NLP coach then it is really is easy to do a detailed personal history where we can uncover all of the belief systems, all of the values, all of the unconscious stories that are playing over and over and over again.
Now, the challenge is that it’s very hard to do this on yourself, you can do it absolutely, and we have questionnaires and things like metamodel questionnaires that we can give you, just let us know and we can send that out to you, but it’s a lot faster and more effective if you use a coach.
In a coaching session uncovering your unconscious values is really important, and for me in my programs I make sure that is session number one when you sit down with any of my coaches.
What’s your hierarchy of values in business, career, health and relationships? What’s your life values? What do you believe about life? We want to identify what are the values, what are the top five values in each area, what are the top five values in life, what are the belief systems that are underneath those values?
Then we go even further, are they towards belief systems, moving towards what you want, or are they away from belief systems, things like, I don’t want to be broke. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to be rejected. All of those things, but underneath those belief systems is the stories, and the stories are what give us fuel.
When I look at performance, that’s what I really want to dig deep on. I want to look at why is someone in this business or why is someone doing this sport, why is someone in this relationship and what are they wanting to get? What is the higher purpose of this?
And it’s interesting that sometimes what I find is that we’re telling ourselves stories and these stories aren’t going to get us what we want, they’re only going to get us to a certain capped level. So I split this into True Targets, when your values and your stories are aligned and moving together with a lot of clarity and False Targets where there is a negative alignment between what you want and how you will get there that will keep you stuck and in the same cycles, which causes a lot of restlessness and negative emotion.
The stories are the key, so let’s look at those stories. Let’s look at those unconscious stories and create some awareness around them and start to dig deep and look at it and ask, “Are these stories in effect?” And effect is that, “I’m powerless, I’m putting the power outside of myself.” Or, “Are these stories at cause?” And cause is where you are the one responsible for taking action and making a difference.
So basically you are looking to see if the stories and the goals are aligned, and if the unconscious stories going to get you what you want.
And that’s what these Disruption Sessions are about, to disrupt the norm and to get out there and play life in a different way. And the first disruption really is disrupting your internal patterns, your internal stories. So get out there and create some awareness around these stories and create some new stories that are going to take your life to the next level.
Now, if you’d love help with this we can certainly help you. Come to Live It Now for a bit of a shakeup and an awakening in a safe and supportive environment or if you want to have a session with one of my coaches, I’m happy to give you that complimentary. All that you need to do is contact our number 1300 997 669 during office hours and you can have a complimentary session to get you started and get you moving towards high performance and clarity.
Kindest regards,
Matt Catling