Goals Get off autopilot and take charge
Imagine that you’re in a boat and the autopilot is set for East, but you decide you want to change directions and re-evaluate your goals and go West. You take hold of the wheel and using all your might, you force the boat West. As long as you hold the wheel steady, the boat keeps on going West. But pretty soon, you get tired of fighting the boat’s inclination and let go of the wheel. And once again, you’re heading East — because that’s the direction the boat is programmed to go.
As John Baker notes in Life’s Healing Choices, “That’s how it is when you try to fight against your own internal autopilot. By your own willpower, you try to force new behavior. You try and you try, but pretty soon you get tired … and you let go of the wheel … and you revert back to the way you’ve always acted.”
You see … if you don’t even know you’re on autopilot … and if you don’t know how to reprogram yourself for the goals you want to achieve … you will revert to any one of a hundred negative behaviors. Low self-esteem, lack of purpose, stinkin’ thinkin’, comfort-zone attachment, fuzzy goals, work-life imbalance, relationship shambles, career stuck-a-tivity, or whatever you’ve been programmed to do.
Unfortunately, that describes too many people. Maybe it describes you to some extent. You don’t achieve all the goals you’d like to achieve, or you don’t have the life you’d really like to live. Why is that?
Because your mind is on negative autopilot.
So how did your mind get stuck on a negative autopilot? And how can you turn that around? I’m going to share the answers in the next few issues of the Tuesday Tip
Let’s look how your mind gets stuck on a negative autopilot.
►1. Exposure
It’s actually a two-step process that gets you stuck on a negative autopilot. The first step is exposure.
When you were born, your mind was essentially empty, but not for very long. You began hearing, seeing, and receiving thousands of messages. Exposure was happening and you weren’t even aware of it.
Some of those messages were negative. Indeed, some of the messages from parents and teachers had to be negative or you wouldn’t even grow up to be an adult. You heard such things as “No … Don’t touch that … Who do you think you are? … You’ll never amount to anything … You’re just like that loser Uncle John … You’re always messing up … and … How many times have I told you?”
For some of you, you were exposed to way too many negative messages. And they were subtly programming you to believe or not believe in yourself. Or to achieve a lot of goals or to not go that far in life.
Unfortunately, for most people, the negative programming from others doesn’t stop when you leave home, graduate from school, or become an adult. When you get a job, your exposure to negative conditioning continues and sometimes accelerates. You are exposed to a variety of comments that imply other people don’t believe in you, or your ideas, or your potential. And all of them are building a negative autopilot in your mind.
I call those negative messages that happen on the job Killer Statements because they kill off your energy, your enthusiasm, your initiative, and your job effectiveness.
Of course, there are thousands of Killer Statements that get in the way of you becoming all you could be. Here are a few of them. Which ones have you heard before?
1) We tried that before.
2) Our place is different.
3) That’s not our responsibility.
4) That’s not my job.
5) We’re too busy to do that.
6) It’s too big of a change.
7) We don’t have the authority.
8) We don’t have enough help.
9) We’ve never done that before.
10) Why change it? It’s still working.
11) You’re right, but…
12) We’re not ready for that.
13) We don’t have the money, equipment, room or personnel.
14) It isn’t in the budget.
15) It’s too much trouble.
16) Management will never go for it.
17) Where’d you dig that one up?
18) We’re getting by without it.
19) That’s what we can expect from the staff.
20) Let’s form a committee. (as a way of stalling things)
21) Just keep your mouth shut.
22) It won’t work here.
23) Maybe that will work in your department but not in mine.
24) Let’s sleep on it.
25) It can’t be done.
26) That sounds good in theory, but…
27) It’s impossible.
28) We’ve always done it this way.
29) You’re not here to think.
30) Let me think about that, and I’ll get back to you. (and then they never do)
Whether those or other Killer Statements were aimed at you or simply spoken out loud in the workplace, they have a negative programming impact on you.
Exposure to negative messages is the beginning of how a negative autopilot got into your mind.
But take heart. There is a simple and effective tool for getting rid of all that. It’s called Affirmations, which is essentially talking to yourself, saying the right things, in the right way. And most people don’t know how to do that.
Next week I’ll talk more about how you create a positive autopilot in your mind and get the results you want to see in your life, relationships, and career.
Dr. Zimmerman’s Tuesday Tip, Issue:1277- Goals: Get off autopilot and take charge
For a copy of Dr. Zimmerman’s latest book, The Champion Edge: Skill Sets That Fire Up Your Business and Life, go to https://www.businessexpertpress.com/books/the-champion-edge-skill-sets-that-fire-up-your-business-and-life/
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