Climbing your Mountains YOUR way

Success Strategies
Different Strokes for Different Folks

© Madelyn Griffith-Haynie, CTP, CMC, ACT, MCC, SCAC
from the Coaching Series

MY way is not the only highway

Hopping around the ‘net hoping to find the beginning markers of the yellow-brick-road to massive success, life-satisfaction and ultimate happiness?

How many of the gurus below have YOU tripped across?

If you are not meeting with much success by following any of them, maybe what I have to say in the second half of the article below might make some sense.

Found HERE

YouTube Gurus spill their guts

I’ve been arguing with YouTube again — this time with the so-called “Success” Gurus.

I’ve been listening to their lectures, TED talks, keynote speeches, and all kinds of interviews with an impressive line-up of fabulously successful guests — and it ALL sounded good at the time.

• Locate your motivation for massive action.
• Never give up — Do it NOW.
• A belief is a story you tell yourself repeatedly.
• Argue for your limitations and they’re yours.
• Focus on your goal and grind it out!
• Connect with your passion to move into JOY.

I listen to the stories of huge successes coming after repeated failures – the tales of leaders who now experience massive wealth and large communities of followers because they kept their eyes on what they wanted for many years and didn’t allow themselves to be stopped by mental or physical challenges.

Who wouldn’t want what they have?
They seem happy, they’re making a difference — and they’re RICH!
So what did they DO?

They refused to take no for an answer.  They uncovered the fundamental reasons underlying their goals – and motivated themselves by connecting to their dreams every day.  They doubled their efforts with practically single-minded focus.  They went more than the extra mile.

They set increasingly larger goals for themselves until the picture was large enough to pull them into taking the actions that ultimately led to their eventual success.

And it all sounds wonderful!

Found HERE

But then along comes . . . Harry ?

Moments later another video cycles through. Now I’m hearing something that sounds confusingly different, from a totally other paradigm.

• Stop tilting at windmills. Think it through first – you can’t reach your destination without your map.
• Stop pushing on locked doors – perhaps you’re being guided in another direction.
• Figure out what you are meant to do and do that.
• One baby step at a time – slow and steady wins the race.
• Money is an inadequate metric for success.
• The most satisfying life is a balanced life.
• Follow your bliss.

This time I’m watching shining faces as I listen to statements of gratitude like the following:

“Getting fired and having to live in my parent’s basement for two years, working nights at the local convenience store for minimum wage, was the best thing that ever happened to me!

“It was only after my spouse threatened to take the kids and leave me that I realized that my priorities were totally out of whack.”

“I would never have found my true calling – or the guts to do what I really wanted to do – if my older paths had not been blocked.”

Sure, that makes perfect sense –
as long as we keep taking action toward an eventual balanced outcome
we’ll eventually connect with our source of power.

Found HERE

 

Think again, Grasshopper

Watch for just a moment longer and you will run across still other videos with another point of view entirely — telling you that focusing on action is doing it the hard way.  It’s like pushing a rope – lots of side-to-side movement but no forward momentum – and certainly no successful results.

• You are a spiritual being having a physical experience.
• The universe knows what you want the moment you experience what you don’t want.
• You can’t attract what you desire unless you are in vibrational alignment.
• Affirmations don’t manifest – you can’t get to having from a vibration of have-not.
• Meditate every day so you can become congruent with your goals.

Again, I’m seeing a room full of exuberance, hearing tales of lives that are unfolding perfectly after years of pushing rocks up hills in vain.  BOY does that sound appealing!

I know how hard so many of us have worked for years as we wondered what we could possibly be doing wrong that we continued to struggle in some fundamental ways.  SURE!  We need to meditate our way into havingness. We can do that, right?

Trust the universe –
Let go and let God!

Found HERE

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Uh-oh, here come the body-hackers

Found HERE

They don’t seem to agree on the hacking method, but they each seem convinced that our success is likely to be limited unless we align our brain and body with optimum health as they define it.

They each cite scientific studies with the zeal of the converted.

• Nutraceuticals and Smart Drugs prime us for peak performance.
• Improving our memory by remembering the NAMES of everyone we meet can be done, successful people do it and here’s how!
• Go on water fasts every six months to keep your brain sharp — unless intermittent fasting every day is the best way to keep it young.
  (Do BOTH – do neither?)
• We can hack our brain with electrical stimulation, BUT we need to be aware of gene regulation through voltage-dependent calcium channels in the brain – and the dangers of free-range electricity that is rampant in our world today.

Think I’m kidding?  I listened to one respected guru explain how important it is that we make sure to turn off all electrical current at the circuit box and shut down our wifi every single night if we want to get enough of the deep sleep we need to do what we need to do.

• However, it’s MOST important to change our gut biome with a plant-based diet — as long as we avoid grains in favor of leaves and tubers. Don’t eat FAT!
• Wait! Peak performance only comes with eating protein like a carnivore — as long as it is free-range and grass fed. Eat MORE fat. 
• Supplements are essential — or maybe they do more harm than good. Or are they actually a waste of money – expensive urine?

Do THIS – never do that (or is it the other way around?)

HOLY MOLEY!

Do these guys agree on anything we can implement in our own lives?
(anything “actionable” as many are fond of saying)

I’m not so sure.

YET AGAIN, so much of their passionate advice was presented in an either/or, better/worse, seemingly black and white fashion — albeit in a fascinating, oddly motivating manner — that it left me with an uneasy feeling in my gut.

It wasn’t that they didn’t have a lot of principles that made a lot of sense to me.  I’ve worked with clients who used a great number of the strategies above, and most had experienced a modicum of success with the methods to which they were attracted. I’ve tried some of them successfully myself.  BUT. . .

1. In too many cases I was left with an impression that these Success Gurus believed that their way of working was the best way for ALL individuals to proceed — and that we would be somehow foolish to approach finding a solution that didn’t incorporate their wisdom.
2. They seemed oblivious to the reality that, for a great many of us, some of their solutions are – currently, at least – absolutely out of reach financially.
3. They left out the TIME factor altogether – and didn’t quite explain who was going to keep a roof over our heads while we set about taking their advice:
   * changing our brains by getting more sleep,
   * learning to eat for optimal brain health and healing
   (and setting up our kitchens and pantries to accommodate it),
   * growing our social media platforms and acquiring new technology, and
   * meditating along with working through daily exercises that would improve short term memory and recall.

And a great many of them seemed quite positive that whatever issues we had with their advice could most certainly be resolved by signing up for their latest internet offering.**

What I Learned — and how I coach

webweaver

I began by looking at an area where “winning” was more than a concept: sports. Whatever the sport – football, baseball, tennis to golf – winners didn’t win simply because they wanted to win or decided to win, or even because they expected to win!

Preparation, effort and motivation were vital, of course – but even that didn’t seem to me to be enough to turn the average Joe into a peak-performance player.

No matter what sport they played, professional athletes
trained differently to play the same sport.

Individual athletes had to start from where they were: to train with the bodies they were born with until they acquired the strength, stamina and skills to do more.

Professional sports coaches had to understand the strengths and limitations of each athlete’s body to be able to turn them into winners. Individual differences mandated different approaches. They needed to build on strengths, overcome bad habits, and focus on strengthening only those areas that were holding them back.

Yet, just as wanting to do so wouldn’t necessarily make it so . . .

• Effort and action did not guarantee success.
• Effort and action only contributed to success if they were designed specifically for the task at hand.
• And it goes without saying that “the task at hand” had to be identified specifically – not only by sport but by position. “My goal is to become a professional sports star” simply wasn’t going to cut it. Football or baseball?  Pitcher or catcher?

Not by Accident

Sandlot players never became successful peak-performance athletes by chance.

• They needed to know what they needed to do to build on strengths,
  overcome bad habits, and strengthen task-appropriate weaknesses.
• They needed to understand what they were doing well already, where they were missing the mark, and where they were wasting their efforts.
• They needed repetition and practice to replace old habits with new ones.
• They needed feedback to keep them on track just as surely as dancers needed mirrors when they began to work on placement.

Playing to WIN after practicing failure?

It seemed to me that if their coaches failed to consider each athlete’s current level of performance, they would design drills that took more than their players had to give.

The result? More evidence of failure;
more movement in the WRONG direction.

When athletes leave practice feeling like failures, that is exactly what they will demonstrate on the field. Each workout needs to push the limits, but each needs to have within it the possibility of success – to challenge each athlete without breaking him or her.

BUT, there is more to it than practice alone.

Many objectives can be obtained through strengthening performance in areas that CAN be improved with practice.

Some things, however, must be accepted, worked with, and worked around.

• Strategy wins as many games as player talent.
• Effective strategy always takes the players into account – as they ARE — not as they would be if everybody believed hard enough.

FROM: Sherlocking ADD Challenges: Investigating Winners

BOTTOM LINE:

Athletic success is more like a recipe for a fancy cake than a list of ingredients kept on a pantry shelf to be combined for any and all meals for any and all diners.

That recipe must be tailored to the metaphorical taste-buds and health challenges of each individual diner, the ingredients available at the time, the altitude of kitchen and functionality of the stove — even the type of pan into which the batter will be poured.

Why wouldn’t that be just as valid for success in any endeavor?

And why wouldn’t differences in the brain be as important as any other physical difference?

I would like to make a strong case for the fact that it WOULD — and that whether you attempt to do it alone, work with a buddy, in a group, or hire a professional brain-based coach like me, climbing your mountain YOUR way is the absolute best way to go about it.

Source: ClipartPanda

Along with understanding that you can’t review the opera
’til the fat lady sings!

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**Keep an eye out for my OWN amazing internet offering – designed for the rest of us.  Really – we CAN change our lives by understanding “how to drive the very brains we were born with – even if they’ve taken a few hits in meantime.”™

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Get it here while it’s still free for the taking.

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You might also be interested in some of the following articles
available right now – on this site and elsewhere.

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COACHING LINKS at end of all posts

• Brain-based Coaching with Madelyn Griffith-Haynie
• Brain-based Coaching Fees & Formats
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Related articles on ADDandSoMuchMore.com

• A Tale of Two Clients – Part I
• NINE Challenges to Effective Functioning
• Avoiding the Holes in the Road
• Productivity, Focus & Follow-through
• Expectations Mismatches & Moon Men
• Until they Believe they CAN, they Can’t

Other supports for this article

A Few LinkLists by Category
(to articles by topic on ADDandSoMuchMore.com)

• The Optimal Functioning (Challenges) Series of articles
  (about the Inventory & articles from each category)
• The TaskMaster™ Series
• Time & Time Management articles

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• How to Set Yourself up for Entrepreneurial Success
• 3 Alternatives to the 12-Step Program
• Success is no Accident
• Success (Mitch Teemley)
• Performance Enhancing Drugs in Everyday Life
• 15 Habits That Will Totally Transform Your Productivity – Fast Company
• 3 Daily Habits Of Peak Performers, According To Michael Phelps’ Coach
• Three Leadership Tips for Millennials and Boomers
• Daily Dose – Visualization and Affirmations for Peak Performance

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