Retire the Roadblocks of Your Past

SUMMARY

Do you have a clear path between where you are now and where you want to be by the end of the year? Or is the road ahead of you littered with roadblocks (those things that you've been holding on to from your past that continually get in your way) that are going to stop you from getting there?

In this week's episode, I'm going to help you to retire the roadblocks of your past.

Let me unpack for you six key elements that you need to consider and employ so that you can get those roadblocks out of the way, retire them, and put them in the past where they belong. You've held onto them long enough, and you can have a clear path ahead of you to get the results that you want in 2022 and beyond.

Number one is to Count the Cost.

Number two is to Make a Commitment.

Number three is to Identify the Cause.

Number four is to Change the Dialogue.

Number five is to Change the Behaviour.

Number six is to Celebrate Consistency.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week, as we prime ourselves ready to go into a new month by having an understanding of why relationships are key in everything we want to do in our life.

I'll see you then.

TRANSCRIPT

Do you have a clear path between where you are now and where you want to be by the end of the year? Or is the road ahead of you littered with roadblocks (those things that you've been holding on to from your past that continually get in your way) that are going to stop you from getting there?

Stick with me, because in this week's episode, I'm going to help you to retire the roadblocks of your past.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year, and Master Coach Trainer, and today I want to continue our conversation around setting ourselves up to win in 2022, by helping you to clear the things that are stopping you from getting to where you want to go.

I have talked to you many times about the journey, and I like to simplify and put things into a process so that I can remember them. I have talked to you before about that R4 journey of going from where you are now to where you want to go.

The first thing you do is look at the results that you want. So, I talked to you about what it looks like when you arrive at the end of the year. You speak about things as if you’ve already achieved them and put them in the present tense.

But then, you come back and you look at the reality of where you are right now. By understanding the true reality of where you are right now, and knowing where it is that you want to go, you’ve now got a gap, which is what you need to fill so that you can get the results that you want.

We've also talked about the fact that it's not what you want to get out of 2022, it’s who do you want to become. Because to get the results that you want, it is, “who do I need to be, so that I will do the things that I need to do to get the results that I want?”

Many times you focus just on the result itself. Therefore, when you get there, it's deflating. So, it was not as exciting as you thought it was going to be. However, if you use the process of getting to the end of the year with the results that you want to develop your whole self as a person, then you get to take those results into the next year and beyond. Unfortunately, there are mindsets and behaviours that you and I continually use as strategies that are going to stop you from going from where you are now, to where you want to be.

I call them “roadblocks”.

Imagine you're driving down the road and you've got a highway in front of you. Then, all of a sudden there are barriers across the road, and there's no way around them. What do you do? You either stop and work out what's going on, or you go, “Hmm, I better turn around and go back to where I belong.”

Unfortunately, that's what a lot of people do every single year: they start the year with great intention, they move forward until they hit the first roadblock. Then, depending on what they make that roadblock mean about themselves, and about their ability to move forward and get the results that they want, they have an internal dialogue that directs them to turn the vehicle around, and stay back where they belong.

That in itself is a major roadblock.

Having a belief that you are not worthy of getting the results could be one of the key challenges that are holding you back right now.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

You can take some key strategies that I'm going to teach you today. You can shift some mindsets and behaviours and employ this strategy so that you can work on who you need to become, and therefore have a greater chance of getting those results that you want by the end of the year.

So, let me unpack for you six key elements that you need to consider and employ so that you can get those roadblocks out of the way, retire them, and put them in the past where they belong. You've held onto them long enough, and you can have a clear path ahead of you to get the results that you want in 2022 and beyond.

Number one is to Count the Cost.

What is it costing you to hold on to those roadblocks? What is it holding you back from achieving? How long are you going to keep holding on to them?

Unless you’ve got some pain that you want to move away from, you’re not going to do anything. You’re going to allow that inner dialogue (that mini-me) to keep you safe and pull you back to where they want you to stay. You’re going to remain in that comfort zone and you’re going to continue the same behaviour over and over and over again because that will get you exactly where it is that you want yourself to go, and that’s nowhere.

I've told this story before of a young man walking along the beach. As he was walking, he comes across an older gentleman and his dog, and this dog is howling its head off. It’s making a terrible noise.

The young man looks at the old gentleman and says, “excuse me, sir, what's wrong with your dog.” The old gentleman replied, “he's sitting on a nail.” And the young man, using logic says, well, “why doesn't he just get off the nail?” And the older gentleman, in his wisdom says, “well, obviously young man, it's only hurting him enough to make a noise about it. It's not hurting him enough to get off the nail and move forward.”

So what pain are you going through right now?

What are you missing out on?

What is your nail in terms of what we're talking about today?

Is it time for you to work out what it is holding you back from, and ask yourself, “you know what? It’s not worth it. I thought it was actually giving me what I wanted, but it's costing me so many opportunities It's costing me. The results that I want.”?

Number two is to Make a Commitment.

You see, you're just one decision away from removing those roadblocks that are in your past, and moving forward to where it is that you want to be at the end of 2022.

To make a decision means to cut it off and get rid of it altogether, leave it where it belongs, and commit to who you're going to be at the end of the year. Commit to going, “you know what, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm committed to me. I'm worthy of this. I'm going to do what it takes to remove those roadblocks and to move forward to the results that I want.”

So, is it time for you to commit?

Is it time for you to be sick and tired of being sick and tired of getting to the same place every year and doubting yourself even more? And taking into the new year even more “failures,” that is going to stop you from getting what you want?

Make a commitment; not to the goal, but to yourself. Make a decision today.

Number three is to Identify the Cause.

Roadblocks are things that are placed on a road - they don't just appear. Now, what I am talking about to you here is internal roadblocks. I’m not talking about external things that are happening along the way - that happens to all of us, and we can develop strategies to move past those. What I am talking to you about here are the internal beliefs and the system that you’re operating in, that you’re placing these roadblocks in your way.

As a coach, we call that self-sabotage because we want to make sure that we don't get to the other end. It sounds counterintuitive but this all goes on internally in our subconscious and most of the time, we don't make a conscious decision to place the roadblocks there. We just do.

So, before you can move past a roadblock and eliminate it, what you need to do is identify the cause of that roadblock.

Why did you put it up there in the first place?

What happened?

What was the experience that you made meaning from that allowed you to see that roadblock as something that was going to be helpful- something that you could put in the way to stop you from moving out of your safe zone?

So, for every roadblock, you need to identify its cause. It's not about removing the roadblock, it's about working on the cause and shifting the meaning that you made from those events, and shifting what it is that you believe. Doing so, allows you to have a clean slate, to put a frame of reference around that particular situation, and remove the roadblock.

Number four is to Change the Dialogue.

Self-talk; that inner dialogue- is the key thing that holds you back from moving forward. It's the stories that you tell yourself- that conversation between your mini-me and your confident self. Every time you step forward, they remind you “why it was that we don’t do things like that.”

Even right now, as you are listening to me, your inner dialogue is in operation. Mini-me is trying to get your attention right now, and letting you know that if you’re listening to me, you’re going to be uncomfortable. You’re going to change. You’re going to need to move forward from the things that you and I have decided are going to keep us safe.

So, before you can move forward on the journey past a roadblock, you need to shift the self-talk. You need to change that inner dialogue. To do that, you work on your Personal Power.

I've talked about that many times before. If you haven't had the opportunity to go through some of that stuff, it's in the Emotional Intelligence work that I do in that first quadrant of Self-Awareness. Being able to recognize what it is that you believe about yourself that is holding you back, those limiting and false beliefs, and being able to shift that dialogue and change the meanings that you put on things.

Number five is to Change the Behaviour.

Now that you have made a commitment - you’ve identified why those roadblocks are there, you’ve started on shifting that inner dialogue and changing the conversation that you’re having with yourself- it’s now time to build some new strategies and behaviours that are going to move you forward to get those results that you want.

In that inner dialogue, you shifted your beliefs, and therefore, out of those beliefs can come a different behaviour. What you used to do when you fought this or came across this, we can now do something else.

It's in the repetition of these new strategies and behaviours that you rewire your brain and the conditioning of the past is overcome with new thoughts, behaviours, and strategies - things that you do that enable you to move forward and get the results.

Remember, it's who do you need to become so that you can have what you want to have this year.

So, changing the behaviour will change the results.

And number six is to Celebrate Consistency.

If there's anything that you want to change in life, it takes a consistent effort. You know some say it takes 21 days to form a habit. Some say 30, while others say, 67.

I don't know how many days it is.

But what I do know is it's all about consistency.

If you want to change a behaviour and you’ve changed the belief, you need to continually do that new behaviour with repetition so that it overcomes and it's more empowering than the neural pathway that you had built with the old one. If you’re inconsistent, you’ll keep slipping back to the old behaviour.

So, what you want to do is you want to be consistent. You want to recognise what's holding you back. You want to reject it, replace it with new behaviour, and then repeat it over and over again until it becomes the new go-to behaviour.

To make sure that you want to continue to do that, you need to celebrate. We're very good at being able to pull ourselves down when we get things wrong. And what you want to do is you want to celebrate progress. You want to celebrate consistency when you’re doing the new behaviours that are bringing the results.

This works the pleasure circuits in the brain, and the brain says, “that's great, let’s keep doing that.”

So, make sure that you continually build yourself up when you're doing the things that are going to get you the results. When you have stuck to your commitment, your commitment to “you”, and you're doing things differently because you're thinking differently, and you’ve changed the meaning around things. That's worth celebrating.

Well, there you have it, six things that you can do to retire those old roadblocks. Your old roadblocks may have been useful in your growth journey, but it's time to get them out of the way. It's time to make sure that they no longer stop you from going from where you are now to where you want to be at the end of the year. Whether you call it a new year's resolution, whether you've come with me on this revolution, or whether you call it goals, it doesn't matter. It's all about working on you, the person who is going to do what needs to be done, to get the results. To remove these roadblocks - these limiting false beliefs, these things that you have thought have helped you along the way, but you finally realized they're actually doing you a disservice. By getting them out of the way, you’re going to have a clear path to where you want to be.

I look forward to celebrating with you your journey along the way. Make sure that wherever you're listening to me, you take the opportunity to leave a comment, to keep me up to date with your journey, and to ask questions, because I love to see people grow.

Why do I talk about these things?

Because this is what I've done over the years.

This is the journey that I've been on.

I came from someone with very low self-worth to someone who is now confident with humility.

How did I do that?

I did that by employing the principles that I teach when I speak to you, by getting with my coach and having that support and accountability, and you can do it too.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week, as we prime ourselves ready to go into a new month by having an understanding of why relationships are key in everything we want to do in our life.

I'll see you then.