Examining beliefs to increase your personal effectiveness

More often than not, we get asked – how can I make my life more effective? How can I enhance and improve my personality? What can I do to improve the quality of everything I do?

The first step to all personal effectiveness is to accept yourself for who you are. It doesn’t mean chasing goal after goal, just because. Instead, it means to sit down, take a stock objectively of your strengths and weaknesses, and then decide what it is that you need to work on. It is important to know that merely changing yourself won’t necessarily make you more effective. Instead it is imperative that you transform yourself, and not just in one direction, but in multiple directions.

Now, the question is how does one go about personal assessments? The simpler way would be to find a transformation coach, but even to be ready and receptive to coaching, one needs to sit and do some self-work. Here are some things you need to do.

1. List all the things that you ‘think’ you want to change.

For instance, I want to manage my time better. Or, I want to be a better listener, or that I want to ensure that I crack any deal that I negotiate for. List as many as you can.

2. Deep dive into each of these aspects of self-discovery that you have listed.

Break them down. Why is it that you were not able to crack your last deal? Was it because you said something by mistake? Was it because you jumped the gun? Because you did not understand the real problem that the customer wanted solved? Or maybe because, you stretched a meeting to an hour, when it could have been effectively wrapped within 30 minutes, and the meeting went out of your control?

3. Once you break down multiple problems, cross-reference.

You will notice that the broken-down elements of the things that you want to change, will have commonalities. There will be some patterns, some repetitions. For instance – you don’t listen well. That could be the reason behind why you might feel that you need to be a better team player, or that you are not good at negotiating well, or that your networking ends up being just social, rather than delivery-oriented, productive and professional network.

4. Deep dive again.

This part isn’t easy. Let’s see through an example why.

So why is it that you don’t listen well? Is it because you come from a place of ‘I know better’? Or that you’re impatient? Because you think some things are obvious and don’t even need to be said. Or maybe, because you are wired in a way that you think, listening to someone well means you might get pulled into doing something for them which you might not agree with?

Whatever that subconscious belief is, this is where you need a coach. This is where you need someone to probe you deeper, to dig in further, to question everything till the point, where you reach and ‘DISCOVER’ your subconscious belief.

5. More self-work

Again, an area where you will need a good, seasoned, effective coach. Think of a sports scenario where one has an injury, or if you sing the wrong notes in music, you can’t just jump into the field and retrain randomly. That’s where you need a coach, to help you correct the wrong style, to regain your strength, and to ensure that you have a backup, a support system, every time you falter.

The same coach, when you’re ready, leaves you free again to play the field, or sing your heart in front of an audience.

This is the stage where the coaches actively work with you to ensure that you are aware of your beliefs, while in action, not after the damage is done. They also help you discover a lot of other related, or sometimes tangential subconscious biases and assumptions, that act as roadblocks for you.

So, if you really want to work on personal effectiveness, this is time to get working on your beliefs. May you discover, shatter those that block you, and grow manifold!