Skip to main content

Do goal Breakers come from a “Push” strategy?

Goal Breakers can occur when we are excited about achieving and setting a Big goal or resolution for ourselves and our team. The risk is that the momentum to the goal is broken, at best, temporarily and perhaps for good.

 

The goal breakers are “PUSH” strategies created when our thoughts about the challenges or obstacles are enacted. Setting big goals can surface all our negative thoughts and hence emotions, such as:

 

  • Fear
  • Apathy
  • Resistance
  • Overwhelm

 

It’s not unusual to doubt our ability to cope and attain the goal. We perhaps relive or imagine previous failures, the pressure on us to achieve the plan or fear that our team will fail and the resulting consequences.

 

It can spiral into an emotional spiral as we doubt ourselves and our team, and the support around us. But we can start pushing as hard as we can to get there. That pushing can lose our team and our faith in ourselves to hit our goal.

 

Leaders feel compelled to PUSH* hard and ask themselves and their teams to operate at high speed. Frustration may occur when we think the progress is not optimal. Perhaps we think we need to push harder; we don’t have the right team; we aren’t good enough to get the results.  Then the push becomes a goal breaker.

Those thoughts which create the “need to push” are often just micro-stories we tell ourselves, tiny sentences in our brain which feel like the truth but are often just optional thoughts.

 

The PUSH strategy is the goal breaker.

 

We identified Four Goal Breakers which can cause a lot of wreckage and stop us from executing our goal successfully:

 

  1. *Pressure – Jumping in and surging ahead to make “shit happen” right from day one. This need to “PUSH” reduces the leader’s and the team’s ability to:
    1. Calmly assess the challenge.
    2. Prepare a plan and clarify the process for changes.
    3. Identify the risk factors for success.
    4. Mitigate the risks
    5. Create resources of all kinds to support the success
    6. Hold each other up on the journey.
    7. Set the foundation for the team for the year
  2. Urgency – Creating a precarious activity speed for the team pushes the team away from high-quality decisions and outcomes. As a result, the organisation doesn’t reap an optimal result from the team’s action.
  3. Sacrifice – Take care of yourself and your team to prevent continuously putting too much time and energy into the goal and sacrifice yourself. Overworking grows the seeds of resentment and frustration in your environment and long-term impacts people’s vitality. Even if they succeed this time, next time, they may not be with you for the next opportunity.
  4. HUMP – Hitting a hump on the road to success can sometimes throw individuals and the team into panic or frustration and waste time and energy. The hump may halt progress while the related drama ensures.  Calm minds create better solutions, and we know that practices for teams to reset help create new solutions.

 

Can we stop the Goal Breakers?

 

The good news is you can set your PACE as a leader to determine the next steps to reduce the goal breakers.  You can step back and reset to create an approach which will work for you and your team to stop the goal breakers.

Goal breakers are often caused because of the doubts of the leader.  Awareness of their mindset and behaviours enables them to move into self-leading in any situation.  As they become experienced in identifying their thoughts, feelings and actions, their presence is enhanced to move into self-mastery.

The resetting of  the PACE includes the following elements:

 

  1. Patience — developing the ability to slow down and reduce frustration by planning well and preparing to call time out to think through the following steps. Stepping back and getting perspective to ensure you are feeling neutral on the situation and are focusing on the facts (context)
  2. Action — a commitment to taking action and willingness to experience the difficult conversations to keep the right action happening everyday
  3. Creativity — find the space and ways to create new options and collaborate to bring the right solutions to fruition. It may be possible to mindfully create opportunities as part of the team’s rhythm and learning environment.
  4. Energy — manage your daily energy, watch vitality and have time to check on team strength and anything holding them back. Take care that your energy is focused on your peer network and get the team the right resources and support. The individuals are responsible for solving their issues within the team, not you.

 

Suppose a challenging goal or opportunity for you is not moving at the PACE you want.  You have many thoughts about the goal breakers, what should happen in the team, the results and yourself.

Changing the cycle for goal breakers

The micro-story (thoughts) about your obstacles in a goal feels like the truth – some of them might be truths we have always said to ourselves, e.g. “life is hard”, “I deserve better”, “It’s too hard”, “They don’t want to work with me”, “this is unfair”

We need NEW thinking (micro-story), feelings, and actions to obtain a a NEW Impact. We want to create an impact NOW for ourselves at work, home, and play.

That’s the cycle of getting results using our inner Wisdom. We don’t need to change other people or our current situation to feel great. Instead, we learn who we want to be and keep course correcting to be that person in any situation.  Being clear about what we want and giving ourselves power in any context allows us to create a greater connection with others.

 

Goal Breaking emotions

Feelings are critical, and we can use the complete Wisdom of our bodies, not just our thinking to optimise our impact with intention.

Ask yourself how you would like to feel about that relationship.

What would your micro-story be if you felt trust and compassion for yourself and the team  … if that were true, what else would you do for yourself (this step is in your power alone, so refrain from looking at changing anyone else)

Help with Goal Breakers

 

Please book with either Sarah or Christine if you want to have a personalised consult to help you take a step back and reach your goal and sidestep the goal breakers.

They will help you assess the micro-stories influencing your current feelings and actions.  Then you can reset those stories within the context of your situation and regain power over your impact in less time.  You can stop the goal-breaker context using a new approach which enables you and your team time to get more impact.

 

You might like this article too when considering the future.

How Vital Leaders create clear horizons

 

Christine Jull

Leave a Reply