Are you your own worst enemy?
7 mental roadblocks that undermine your success
You know the guy. He could be right down the hall. Or looking back at YOU in the mirror. He's got the talent, the looks, the hair — but he's not going anywhere. He seems to streak past others and then, wham! Suddenly he's flat on his back watching all the tortoises cross the finish line ahead of him.
No, he's not stupid. Nor is he incompetent, foolish, weak on strategy, or lamer than your average dude. He's suffering from a malady that afflicts just about all of us at one point or another: He's tripping over himself. He's throwing up obstacles where none previously existed. He is, in short, his own worst enemy.
I'm going to tell you about seven bombs you can blow yourself up with. There are more. But I like lucky seven, because if you pay attention, you may be fortunate enough not to stab yourself in the eyes. So pay attention!
Procrastination
Don't get me wrong: I'm a master procrastinator myself. But you need to be smart and tightly wrapped to make it a way of life.
Begin by ascertaining exactly what "the last minute" is for a given project. The night before it's due is not the last minute for a 40-page speech to investors, or a strategic-planning document that's going to be presented to the board of directors. The last minute, in those cases, is a month prior to the night before. A big project will generate many tasks that can, of course, be done the night before, but there are even more that can't. Learn to identify each type.
They treat themselves, after the successful event, to a period of post-crastination, in which they ponder how to put off things more effectively in the future.
But for most employees, procrastination is dynamite. Don't fool around with it until you've attained a certain level of proficiency.
Loose fact-itis
This syndrome involves cooking up a "fact" to bolster one's position during an important meeting — a "fact" that can easily be disproved by saner and more mature minds, leaving the individual who generated it up the creek without a BlackBerry.
Once, I was sitting in a meeting with about 10 other guys, and the boss asks, "What are we going to say to security analysts about our plange rate?" I'm making up the issue here, since there is no such thing as a plange rate, but you get the idea.
So anyhow, Leonard, who is in charge of planges for our company, says something like, "We have the biggest plange rate in the world!" And the chairman says, "Can I use that stat?" and Leonard says, "Yes, well ..." and begins poring over a spreadsheet — after which he admits that we had the biggest plange rate in the world for about 5 minutes last February. A bad moment for Leonard. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about.
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Hardness of listening
You have to be a really big wheel to enjoy a total lack of obligation to pay attention to other people. Many work decades to earn that right.
I knew this guy in strategic planning, Huff. He had just come from another company. About a week after he arrived, he was included in a meeting about where the corporation was headed. When it was his turn, he spoke for 20 minutes. "Blah blah blah," he said, as the chairman grew visibly restive. Finally, he was done. Then he lolled in his chair, thumbed his BlackBerry, pondered the view out the window, poured coffee from the sideboard, and gave other signs of terminal not-listening.
Everybody hated him so much afterward that he was never invited to a meaningless meeting again. A lot of planes have gone down because the pilot was hewing precisely to the wrong flight plan. Listen. Take it in. There's actually information out there that you're going to need.
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