Are You Living The Successful Life ? Does Your Behaviour Impact Those Around You?

Have you wondered why you continue with life as usual, even though you are not experiencing enough happiness, and you know you want things to be different?

Your full happiness and satisfaction with life is largely based on the natural expression of yourself.

That's great you say, so why does it seem so hard to set up my life to fully express myself the way I really want?

There are some also very natural and normal aspects of you that tend to block change.  We all have the ability to change, as we desire, it's just that we succumb to the 'forces' within us that seem to want things to stay as they are.

A large reason for being stuck in place, suffering from anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and stress is that you do not fully understand what you are up against and how to deal with it.

Here are some of the main factors keeping you where you are.

1. Already A Success

First we need to establish that you actually are completely successful right now whether you feel like it or not.  You are always successful at living; your current life experience is clear evidence of this.

Your life experience is the result of your thoughts and actions, and you are actually always thinking and doing something.  Even if you call it nothing!

And every thought and action has a result, an outcome that is its evidence.

The question is, are you totally successful at the life you really want?

If not, how can you be?

The key here is to discover new thinking and behaviors that provide the outcomes you want, and replace them for what you are doing now.

You can read about what could produce the results you want, but one of the most effective ways is to model what has proven to work for others.

2. Blocking Change

Another important point to clarify is this; everything that exists is always in motion, constantly changing, and this should include you and I.  But we seem to want the opposite, for everything to remain as much that same as possible.

Plus, there is a part of our natural human thought that wants to protect us and keep us safe from any form of displeasure and even disruption. This is what most call the ego, that part of our mind that helps protect our fragile self concept, our feeling, and the picture the ego holds of us.

This ego also comes into play when you are trying to change something about yourself which it senses as uncomfortable because it is unknown or may disrupt the habits already established. The ego doesn't want you to feel uncomfortable.

How can you override, go around or through the ego to make the changes you desire.

With this you will need to take command of your thinking manually yourself.  Your ego has had free range up to this point, so expect the possibility some mental and emotional resistance.

Developing strong deeply seated compelling reasons for the changes, you will find the drive to persist as you are taking command from your ego.

When you find examples of what is effective for others you gain a confidence that bolsters your determination.  It's feels more definite knowing that what you are attempting at least has worked for others.

3. Once A Body Is In Motion . . .

Science tells us it is likely to keep in motion.

You keep doing the same things you have always done because that's what you know how to do.

Your thought patterns, how you perceive things, and how you interpret things is all the product of years of gradual accumulation, one piece building upon another.

Some years ago, I read a report by Spiro Zavos in the sports columns of my SMH newspaper, which described the behaviour of a football coach during a very tense finals game.  The antics of the losing coach gave a very good insight into why his team did not win and in fact loses many close games.  In part, Zavos’ report read “He was at his over-emotional worst at Lancaster Park on Sunday.  The eyes rolled more wildly than ever, he stalked the sideline.  Not even the television cameras were safe from his flaying arms.  His antics sent a damaging message to his team: that the fates are conspiring against them and they are, somehow, destined to lose.  And for the second week in a row they lost a critical game.”  The winning coach on the other hand “ … sat impassively in the stands.  The sign he gave to his players with this emotionless posture was that if the players wanted to win, they had to do it themselves.  And they did.  Just.”

Both these coaches were very experienced and knowledgeable about the game.  Both had got their teams to the finals.  But why did one coach’s team always lose the close games and the other always win?

It all has to do with the positive or negative outlook we take and which can dramatically impact those around us.  Often we are not aware of the messages we are sending through our actions.  Psychologists call this a Locus of Control (first developed by Julian Rotter, 1966).  Locus of Control refers to a person’s perception of the main causes of the events in their life.  For example, do you believe that your destiny is controlled by yourself (“I did it myself”) or by external forces such as fate or other people? (“It was their fault”)  Put simply, if you believe that your behaviour is guided by your personal decisions and efforts, then you are said to be more internally focused, i.e. you have an internal locus of control.  On the other hand, if you believe that your behaviour is guided by fate, luck, or other external circumstances, then you are said to have an external locus of control.

Is one better than the other?  That’s always the $64,000 question in psychology.  But generally, people with an internal locus of control tend to have greater influence on their motivation, expectations, self-esteem, risk-taking behaviour, and even on the actual outcome of their actions.  As you would expect, some studies also suggest that people with an internal locus of control tend to be more positive in their behaviour and outlook.

Can you tell what your locus of control is?  Perhaps the people who know you well can answer this best for you.  But there are also a number of short tests freely available on the web (for example; http://www.dushkin.com/connectext/psy/ch11/survey11.mhtml or http://www.queendom.com/tests/personality/lc_access.html) that you can take.  These only take a few minutes to complete and will also give you a good guide.

The second, and probably more important question is: That if you decide that you need to be more internally focussed, can you change your locus of control?

The answer is an unequivocal, “Yes”.  Many studies have shown that our locus of control is a learned behaviour and as such, can be changed.  My own experience in working as a coach to club, national and international rowing coaches, is that training coaches by getting them to change their behaviour with their athletes, can improve the positive outlook they display within 12 months!  This approach has also been successful in my role as a training consultant in the work environment with new and aspiring managers who were looking to improve the motivation of their team (first look at thyself!).

Finally, how does one change one’s locus of control and consequently one’s outlook?  There are a number of training programs available that use effective  behavioural change methods to help move people from a more external focus to a more internal focus.  But, if you want a very simple method that you can start applying straight away, then changing the words you use in every day conversations can have a major impact.

For instance, getting rid of the word “don’t” from your vocabulary and replacing it with the positive image of what you are suggesting, starts to make you far more positive in your outlook.  Take a look at the following short statements and see what images you get when you read each one …


• Don't walk on the grass.

• In case of fire do not use lifts.

In the first statement, the only image that comes to mind is the picture of “dropping something” (and quite often the negative consequences of what we have just done and our previous negative experiences of dropping something, particularly when we were children).

The image that the second statement  conjures up is of a person “walking on the grass”, not the footpath as the message intends (“footpath” is never mentioned!).

And in the third example, the only thing we can visualise is the “lift”.  In fact, studies have shown that when there is a fire emergency and the vestibule or foyer starts to fill with smoke, the only word that people recognise in these types of signs, is “lift” and they immediatley head straight for the lift and not the emergency exit as was intended.  As a result, some authorities have now changed their signage to read “In case of fire, use the emergency exit pictured in this diagram” (notice that in this new example the word “lift” is not used at all).

Start to get the picture?  Each of the original statements immediatley has both the speaker and the receiver visualising and thinking of exactly the opposite (and negative) action that should be taken.  However, by eliminating the word “don’t” and replacing it with the positive action you intend as outlined below, the speaker starts to think (and behave) more positively and impacts his or her audience more positively, and thus becomes more internally focused.  Look at the way a person with an internal locus of control, might express the three statements …

In these new statements, both the sender and the receiver get the positive message immediately.

Can this technique work for you?  I did some follow up interviews with the athletes of the rowing coaches I had been training 12 months after the start of their training.  Without exception, the athletes all expressed the theme that “She has really changed over the last 12 months.  We are not sure what you included in your training with our coach, but she is so much more positive these days.  We really enjoy being coached by her”.

Is it easy to replace “don’t” with a positive image?  In theory, yes.  But in my own case, it took me about 12 months.  Occasionally, I still find myself using a “don’t”, but when I do, an “alarm bell” goes off in my brain and I immediately rephrase my statement to the positive image I want to get across.  As a result, over the last few years, people have commented to me “Bob, you seem to be such a positive person.  Even when you are faced with adversity or a real problem , you always seem to take a positive approach.  I really enjoy working with you”.

If you would like to discuss your locus of control with me, I’d be happy to share some experiences.  In particular, I’m always looking for examples of behaviour change that I can use in my consulting and coaching.  Please drop me a line via www.nationallearninginsitute.com




All that you have accumulated in your mind from your experiences is what you know, and it's the basis of all your thought and action.

So it's easy to see how you will likely keep operating from the same basis as you always have, because that's what you know and what you are mentally and emotionally comfortable with.

And yes, even if you really want some things to be different, your mind will automatically keep using your history to shape your future.

It's a lot like a mile long train barreling down the tracks at 60 miles an hour.  Once it's moving it's hard to stop and it's staying on the track that's already been laid!

You will need to discover and implement new habits that better serve your desired outcomes.  The tough part of this is that you will tend to keep filtering everything through your existing perceptions. This makes it tough to figure out exactly what to do when it includes things you are not familiar and experienced with.

A powerful method for determining exactly what to do is to copy people who are already successful.  This way you are not stuck trying to figure it all out on your own, using only the experience and 'tools' you have accumulated.

4. Repeating Habits

Everything you think and do is based on habit, you can label it good or bad, but it is habitual.

If you do nothing to these self-perpetuating habits that you have accumulated, they will just keep on going and get stronger and stronger.

Habits are just a series of thoughts and actions that are tied together and automatically played like a computer program triggered by specific related circumstance.

It is normal for most people to allow them to run automatically, life would be far more complex if we always made new decisions each time something came up.

However, we usually have allowed many things to habitually occur that we are not even aware of, or think we can change.

Here the big question becomes what should you change to, when you want something different than what you now experience?

Further, you may question the validity of what you think up for new habits, as to whether they are worth your efforts and will reveal the results you want.

The example of others is the most straightforward way to find actions that have desirable results. This is how you learned most of your current thinking and behavior as you have developed up to this point. You just haven't consciously chosen much of it.

You can determine what to actually do by looking at the desirable evidence in the life of someone successful. And now make the conscious choice about what you want in your life.

OK, so you have some ideas about the life you want to live, that's usually the easy part.

It's coming up with the new effective thinking and behavior that leads to the results you want that can be tricky.  Particularly when all your current habits with your collected body of knowledge and experience supports what you now have, not what you want.

It will take some determination at first to take command of your thinking from your ego as it wants to keep the status quo and is protective of your comfort.

Soften your doubts and fears about change by finding proven thinking, habits and success traits.

Learning from the study of successful people supports your change efforts in a few ways:

· You will have more confidence and determination in pursuing something that you've seen work.

· You are not relying only on your existing body of knowledge and experience to create something new.

· Modeling others is the most natural learning method your brain already possesses.

· You now can choose what to model based on specific outcomes.

· Discover things you may not have even thought of yet.

· Fast track your growth progresses.

· Less fear knowing others can and have already done it.

· Quicker to decide and take action on something with proven results.

· Less time wasted on indecisiveness and confusion.

· What to visualize for yourself.

· Increase your self-awareness and motivation.

· Improve your positive attitude and self-confidence.

Think, what if the auto manufacturers had to re-invent the wheel with each year's new cars?

Why do this with your life, when you can use what others have already discovered and proven!

Existing successful people are your greatest resource for what you can and should be doing on order to live the success you desire.

Successful,happiness,anxiety,stress,depression,low self esteem,success,positive attitude,emotional,determination,habit,conscious,confidence,visualize,ego,self confidence,self awareness,doubts,fears,satisfaction,behavior,model,changeEver wondred why some people seem to be so much more positive than others? Or perhaps, why when you are trying to get someone to do something for you, it has the opposite effect?