How time flies!  We’re almost through the first quarter of 2006.  How are you doing with your business goals for the New Year?  Consider this month’s column as your first quarter checkup.  Hopefully you’re making great progress toward the goals you set back in January.  If, however, you’re like the majority of the world who tends to get slightly detoured, slowed down, or even completely derailed, then this column is for you. 

Unfortunately, our great ambitions often get lost in the daily grind of running our businesses.  We get stuck in our comfort zones and usually blame outside influences for our lack of performance.  Our real focus, however, should be on the internal influences that limit our success.  The two main internal influences are resistance to change and fear. 

Overcoming Resistance
In our coaching practice, we teach a simple, yet profound formula:  (D x V) + F > R.  Dissatisfaction x Vision + First Steps must be greater than Resistance in order for change to happen.  Our dissatisfaction (or pain) and vision (picture of a better future), in addition to knowing the first steps to take, must be greater than our resistance (or in other words, our comfort zone).  To expand our comfort zone we must constantly do the things that make us uncomfortable and cause anxiety.  Expanding our comfort zone certainly doesn’t come easy and requires constant focus and practice over time.  Finding enough dissatisfaction and building enough vision are the two key factors in the formula.  Knowing the first steps to take is very minor, as most of us know what we should be doing in our business and are not. 

Overcoming Fear
Another factor that that stifles our performance is FEAR.  It may be the single largest factor that inhibits adults from achieving success.  We define FEAR as nothing more than False Expectations Appearing Real.  While it’s human nature to always assume the worst will happen, experience tells us that the eventual outcome is rarely as bad as we expect it will be.  FEAR prevents people from taking action in their business and creating the business that they really want.  Overcoming fear means removing ourselves from our comfort zones and also removing our excuses. 

Creating Change
So how do we overcome fear and create the lasting change we need in our business?  Simply put, we must find a way to create enough dissatisfaction in our business (what we don’t want), which will ultimately help us create a clearer vision (what we do want).  This is accomplished by applying some fundamental laws of nature to business.  These laws relate to pressure and space.

Ilya Prigegine won the Nobel Prize for his work on change that ultimately led to the laws of Thermo-Nuclear Dynamics.  He found that in order for change to occur, pressure must be applied.  So to get out of our comfort zones, ultimately we must also have pressure applied.  One way to create pressure is to create more space.  The Law of Vacuum says that nature abhors a vacuum and everything grows to fill the available space.  We see this applied in time management and procrastination all the time – activities always expand to fill the time allotted.  If you want something done sooner, create a smaller timeframe.  On the flip side, if you want more business, create the space for it.  For example, hire more salespeople, expand your office space, buy another truck, book the space to conduct a workshop, etc.  Creating space will naturally create pressure for you to fill that space. 

Another way to get pressure is have more accountability.  We all tend to perform better when we have to be accountable to someone else.  Develop an appropriate accountability system in your company, from the bottom to the top.  Also, make sure you as the owner have someone holding you accountable for results, whether that be an outside coach, advisor, mentor, friend, etc.  So take the action you need today to create the pressure that will ultimately create the change you want for tomorrow.

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