NYC Elevate is a networking community organized to help our members make more money through structured collaboration and referrals.
Last week we discussed setting goals for our gold mine, but we also discussed that we can’t set a goal for $1,000,000, we can only set goals for the things we can control.
In this case, we can only make the goal to mine 1,000,00 pounds of dirt.
But there is another thing in play here: our psychology and how it potentially blocks us from being more successful.
In a breakout room last week, a fellow member told me that they accomplished a lot last year, but still felt guilty that they didn’t achieve every goal they set in the beginning of the year.
And that negative feeling probably prevented them from doing even more with wasted time ruminating about doing the work instead of just doing the work.
And this reminded me of how I am on the tennis court.
I could be dominating my opponent, but miss a shot and invariably the dialog with myself is totally negative:
“You’re stupid.”
“That was such a horrible shot.”
“What were you thinking?”
And remember, in this story I’m dominating my opponent, but I’m not giving myself any love for the thousands of hours of practice and one million balls that I’ve hit that put me in the position to be winning on this given day.
The net result, pun intended, is that what should be a totally positive experience, isn’t so much.
Could you imagine what a monster I’d be on the court if I limited the dialog to only loving myself and giving myself positive reinforcement?
..OK, don’t imagine that…
So remember, it’s good to be aggressive with your goals and it’s good to be conscientious about achieving them, but instead of beating yourself up for coming up a little short, how about patting yourself on the back for all the great things you are doing and achieving.
If you do that, I guarantee that you’ll not only be happier with your networking and achievements, I guarantee that you’ll make more money.