Check out my podcast on A Doctor's Perspective hosted by Dr Justin Trosclair where we talk all things neuroscience including motivation, stress, performance, and eight subconscious habits of thought that may be impacting your thinking and behaviour. Click on your preferred listening platform.

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Simply knowing what you should do doesn't necessarily mean you will do it. On some level we all know what actions will make us successful. Yet when the rubber hits the road and we have to actually engage, we can resist, procrastinate or avoid. There are two forces at work in our brain that orchestrate the setting and pursuit of goals and they don't always play well together.

You need the guy behind the wheel and the back seat driver

Firstly you have the front part of the brain which is very logical and rational that comes up with the plan and plots out exactly what needs to be done. Then you have the back part of the brain aka "the back seat driver" that you also need to get on board to provide the motivation and persistence to stick to the plan. This part of the brain is highly emotional, easily distracted, easily discouraged, wants instant gratification and would rather be sitting on the lounge in tracky-dacks eating TimTams most of the time. It is this guy that will choose a more interesting, easy or fun activity rather than writing that blog, going to the gym or taking a risk. Cue procrastination. The thing is, in order to successfully set and pursue goals, be brave and try something new, or break through the invisible barrier that is holding you back, you need both the driver up the front with the plan and the guy in the back seat to get on board.

Sometimes "you got this" and sometimes you don't.

Sometimes we have a plan, sometimes we don't. Sometimes we can manage to engage our back seat driver on our own, sometimes we struggle. Goal pursuit requires not only a sound strategy, but also discipline, resilience and determination as well as a willingness to be uncomfortable and lean into resistance. Sometimes we need help with this. We need a partner to help us implement our intentions, to take the first step, to stay on track and be accountable to our goals. In short we need help to put the TimTams down. This is when a coach or mentor is incredibly valuable. One of the most annoying things about life is that it is very hard to mentor ourselves. Even mentors need mentors, myself included.

Clever people know when asking for help is the next best step

One of the most clever and courageous things we can do when we are stuck is to acknowledge that we need help and actively seek it out. When you make this decision, I encourage you to shop around. There are many people out there who can help but it is important to find a coach or mentor who "gets you", who understands your problem and is confident in being able to help. Make them prove it to you, ask lots of questions and don't make your decision based on a LinkedIn profile. When you find the right one, make the investment. Investing in your own personal and professional growth is never a waste of time or resource. You deserve to explore the length and breadth of your potential. A year from now you will wish you had started today.

When we first start out in business, particularly consultancy, there is a tendency to say yes to every request and to be everything to everyone. This is partially driven by a need for cash flow, partly by a need to develop a profile in the market and partly due to a desperation to be successful, and we think busy equals successful.

When you have lost your message, it’s time to do less.

As time progresses what inevitably happens is that we end up doing so many different things that our message and purpose become so diluted that we don’t know what we stand for, where our value sits or what differentiates us from the crowd. When you start feeling like that it is time to do less.

This can be a difficult decision to make, especially if you aren’t at the point where you are making snow angels in $100 notes. However, if you speak to any business strategy expert these days, especially in thought leadership, they will often say that niching is the way to go. I can say from personal experience that it works.

We get smarter doing less

It also makes sense from the perspective of neuroscience. Whenever we are learning or refining a skillset, it requires us to build strongly embedded neural networks in our brain. We know that in order to create these strong neural networks we need to put focussed effort to a task and have high levels of repetition. The only way we can achieve this is if we concentrate on doing that individual task.

For example, swimmers who want to get to the Olympics don’t train for all distances, they pick one that they love and are good at and they give it everything they have got.

If you niche and focus on your core business in a deliberate way, your delivery will improve exponentially and your message will be defined. Authentic expertise is priceless in today’s market. Be known for that. So put away the scattergun and get obsessed with your unique expertise. Do less, but better.

The first task that my clients complete when we start working together is my CleverInsights Diagnostic which I developed to understand the subconscious habits of thought that hold people back from goal pursuit and achievement. Over 140 clients have completed this assessment and what I see is that perfectionism is by far the most common barrier to making progress and achieving potential.

We think of perfectionism as being not such a bad quality to have, and we often wear it like a badge of honour, but perfectionism is an insidious character that chips away at our productivity and our self esteem. Perfectionism pretends to be our ally by telling us that if we spend more time, if we check and double check, if we painstakingly review every detail of a task, that we will get a good result and will be looked upon favourably by others. What perfectionism doesn’t reveal to you is that perfection is subjective, and completely unattainable.

Why do we feel the need to be perfect?

Perfectionism is all about fear of judgement and maintaining a positive self-concept. The desire to be accepted by our peers, our tribe, is ingrained into our DNA. The reason that human beings have been so successful as a species is because we realised the value of socialisation and being accepted as part of a group. This basic instinct is then reinforced throughout our life by our parents, teachers and coaches who innocently judge and evaluate us, encouraging us to do things a certain way in order to be rewarded. From a very young age this creates a core belief in many of us that we must do things accurately in order to please others. That reward can come in many different forms, but mostly it comes as a sense of acceptance and admiration. Who doesn’t want that right?

When does perfectionism become problematic?

The simple answer is that perfectionism is a problem when it stops you from progressing in the direction of your goals in a satisfactory time frame and causes anxiety in the process. The difficulty with perfectionism is that we often don’t recognise it because we have been doing it so long we have normalised the behaviour.

Common signs that your perfectionism is causing you strife

1. You hold on to projects for too long. You check and triple check, you wait until the next day to read it over one more time, and often work right up until deadlines and may even ask for extensions.

2. Once you have submitted a project you immediately start thinking about all of the ways that you can have done it better or worry about how many mistakes you may have made.

3. When you do make a mistake or receive critical feedback, you experience intense anxiety and worry about what others will think.

3 ways that you can beat perfectionism and be kinder to yourself

1. Focus on the process instead of the outcome. Perfectionists set incredibly high expectations then punish themselves when they are not met. If you focus on the process of getting to the outcome rather than the outcome itself you will be less affected by it and what others think as a result. Sometimes it is about enjoying the race rather than being concerned about where you finished.

2. See mistakes as opportunities for growth. I am afraid that perfection doesn’t exist in the messy and unpredictable world we live in. If you make peace with the fact that you will make mistakes, but reframe those mistakes as opportunities to grow and learn and be better than you were yesterday you will start feeling differently when mistakes are made.

3. Take risks doing things imperfectly. The best way to be ok with imperfection is to be imperfect. Some things don’t need to be done perfectly. Start by experimenting with tasks that don’t matter so much. Vacuuming the kitchen, folding clothes, singing karaoke don’t require perfection. If you start to sit in that tension caused by imperfection it will become less intense and your anxiety will decrease over time.

There are many more strategies where these came from. If you would like to know more about the subconscious habits of thought that might be getting in your way, get in touch on diane@clevemindsconsulting.com.auto talk about my CleverInsights Diagnostic and Debrief.

Recently, I made a pretty big mistake. I had a speaking gig with an influential audience where the potential for future work was high. In short, I was poised for greatness! It was the first time that I had ever given a remote presentation where I wasn’t in the same room as my audience. I was being beamed into

a boardroom in another country. They couldn’t see me, I couldn’t see them, but how hard could it be, right?

I messed up

Wrong. I knew it was bad when the first interaction activity I tried didn’t work because I couldn’t see my audience and there was that uncomfortable silence that makes your stomach flip over. Things didn’t get much better from that point. I had grossly underestimated how many visual cues I take from the audience when I speak and how much importance I place on the “vibe” of the room. I didn’t adjust my style correctly and that was a huge mistake.

Anxiety ensued

Afterwards I felt terrible. You know that nagging anxiety when you have messed up and there is nothing you can do about it. I worried about what people would think and I was concerned for my reputation. After several days of replaying the experience in my mind over and over, I eventually talked myself around. Finally deciding that I just had to chalk this one up to experience and make sure I never made the same error again.

You are going to mess up too… sorry

The reason I share this story is two-fold. Firstly, I want you to remember that you are not going to hit it for six every single time, and that's OK. If you make it through this life without messing up every now again, you would be a dead set miracle.

Mistakes are our greatest teachers

Secondly, we are doing ourselves a disservice by trying to erase these incidents from our memory because we don’t want to feel the anxiety. Mistakes are our greatest teachers. We must take these times and wring every last drop of learning from them because that is how greatness is made. We learn more effectively from making mistakes than we ever do from doing things right. Don’t try and make these mistakes go away, turn them upside down, inside out and understand why things went awry and make your next attempt better.

Next time you totally mess up, welcome the anxiety like an old friend and ask it what it wants you to learn.

If you have a thought and a laptop you can become a content creator and send your ideas out to the world. When I first started my business, I was bewildered by the fact that I could pretty much say or do anything I wanted without question. After growing up in academia where every sentence was critically analysed by several peers before being “allowed” to be published, this was mystifying to me. Who was fact checking my content? Who was making sure that what I shared was actually correct? The answer was, and still is, no-one.

This is true for most of the content that we see online every day. This is not to say that the information being sent out is incorrect, but we must remember that the majority of content found online is often the sum of somebody’s experience, learning and curation and is not always evidence based. These days we can’t even be sure that the news is accurate as political and economic powers use the media to influence public opinion. e.g. The US Presidential Election. Recently a guy in the US launched a “fake news” website called theundergroundreport.com and it got 1.1 million views in less than 2 weeks based purely on "fake news". The content was shared all over social media platforms even though the website stated that all of the stories were fictitious.

So let’s be honest with each other. We have all done it. We have seen an article or a blog online and without reading it properly or pausing to check its validity or sources, we like it, share it, or retweet it. Why do we do this? Part of the reason is because we are social beings.

Self enhancement and social approval is what drives us to share

Social interaction is driven by sharing information with others. This is how we connect. Research by Emily Falk’s group at the University of Pennsylvania has shown that our decision whether to share a piece of content is based on whether it either enhances our self-concept or our social acceptance, or both. In other words, we share content to either feel better about ourselves, or to encourage others to like and respect us more. Think back to the last time you shared content, what was your driver?

The more we share it, the truer it gets

There is a psychological phenomenon behind why we tend to believe content that has been widely shared and why we then share it ourselves. It’s called the bandwagon effect and it is a cognitive bias, or shortcut that our brain takes, creating a tendency for us to do (or believe) things because many other people do (or believe) the same thing. You can see how this is a self-fulfilling bias because content becomes more and more potent as more people jump on the bandwagon. If so many other people believe it, it must be true! We are unwittingly validating content by endorsing it.

We believe people who we perceive as experts

Apart from endorsing content, we also follow people online because we want to hear their thoughts, we share what they say because we either want to be associated with their message or we think others can benefit from it. We usually choose to follow these people as we believe they have superior knowledge or experience that we don’t have. This is often true, however in this information age, what happens is that people can cleverly position themselves as experts without having to provide any evidence of their expertise or experience. A great example of this was when Belle Gibson convinced hundreds of thousands of people to follow her dietary advice after claiming she had cured herself of cancer, when she never had cancer in the first place.

Why is the opinion of experts so influential? It’s another one of our brain’s shortcuts, and it’s called the authority effect. It is our tendency to believe that the opinion of a perceived authority figure is more credible, so therefore we are more engaged by it. Advertising agencies use this effect frequently. Who wouldn’t buy the tennis racquet that Roger Federer said was great? So whether you are the expert yourself or a follower of experts, evidence of expertise is a minimum requirement.

What can we do to ensure that fact outweighs fiction?

Online content is going to keep coming at us, this is a certainty. Social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are under increasing pressure to improve the vetting of content that appears on their sites. Whilst in many way this is useful, it then triggers the freedom of information debate around why they should have the authority to filter what content we get to see. This leaves the responsibility with us as individuals to take control of the content that goes viral. Before you like or share or retweet, take a second to look at the source of the information, ensure its credibility, and ask yourself if this is really a message that you are aligned with.

Hannibal from the A Team always had a plan. It was, at times, unorthodox but he always had one. I always remember his smile at the end with the cigar hanging out of his mouth gaining an immense amount of joy when he and his team pulled off the seemingly impossible. Hannibal was forever going in to situations that were uncertain, under enormous amounts of pressure, taking on projects with big consequences. It is in these circumstances where a plan gives you direction and structure and keeps you moving forward.

But why does having a plan make such a difference to our success?

Our brain is a prediction machine

Embarking on any new endeavour is particularly triggering for our brain, especially if we have no previous experience and the future is uncertain. Our brain always likes to know what is coming next by trying to predict the future based on past events. The way in which our brain is able to make these predictions is because we are constantly creating and storing “mental models” for every situation or set of circumstances we encounter. We collect information about everything that we do, including the successful and non-successful strategies, and commit them to memory so when we encounter similar patterns in the future we know what to do and what outcome to expect.

The problem with doing things for the first time or putting ourselves in new and uncertain situations is that our brain doesn’t have any mental models to call upon to inform our strategy. Not being able to make a prediction about a situation is what causes the feelings of anxiety and hesitation as our brain freaks out because it can’t tell what is going to happen next. This is when we are “outside of our comfort zone”. It is this fear and anxiety, born out of uncertainty and inexperience, that is often what holds us back from achieving our potential.

Thinking about our future self helps us move forward

One of the most fascinating things about the brain is that it is not great at distinguishing between what is real and what is imagined. Consciously, we know the difference, but the pathways that our brain uses during these processes are similar. This concept has been leveraged particularly well in elite sport where athletes use the technique of “guided imagery” to imagine their future self performing at their best.

When we imagine our future self having all the skills and relationships we desire, our brain does a double take. A psychological tension is created as our brain grapples with the discrepancy between our current self and the aspired future self that we imagine. This psychological tension is a potent motivator, and our brain starts focussing on reducing this discrepancy by orchestrating the moves that takes us towards our future self, and our goals.

In the end, imagination isn’t enough, you still need a plan

The motivation that accompanies the vision of our future self can be short lived so in order to maximise its affect we need a set of productive tasks to make sure that this new-found energy is focused into action and does not dissipate. This is where goal setting and creating a plan becomes a critical component for achieving desired outcomes.

“Most of us have a pretty good concept of what is required to be successful, but only 10% of us are disciplined and focused enough to create specific goals and write them down. “

Be like Hannibal and make a 90 Day plan

Successful goal setting involves focusing not only on long term outcomes but also short term wins. It is important to have your overall vision and big picture goals over the next 12 months, however, to avoid the overwhelm that sometimes accompanies big goals, it helps to break down those big goals into smaller tasks that are achievable.

Having a 90 day plan consisting of these smaller achievable goals will provide the focus that you need to get some forward momentum. It is by celebrating the small successes on the way to our big goals that we stay engaged and motivated to keep going.

I remember asking myself this exact question when I started in my first leadership role. There I was going from being very good at my job, to being “rewarded” for my efforts by being promoted into a leadership role that I had no idea how to do? Exciting and terrifying at the same time. I had never managed people before, and had no idea how to go about it. Experts seem to write about how to be a good leader all the time, so that made me feel even more like there was a mountain of knowledge that I just didn’t have. Then the self-doubt kicked in. Are they sure they have made the right decision? It is just a matter of time before they realise that I am not the right person for this job. Good old Imposter syndrome.

I know that there are many of you reading this right now, saying, “Yes, exactly!”. I know because, you are not alone, I hear this same story all the time.

Competent, Trustworthy and Respected, is that too much to ask?

There are so many competing emotions when you start your first leadership role. They are a mix of wanting to appear competent, particularly if you have already established a reputation within an organisation, wanting your team to like, trust and respect you, and wanting to appear impressive and capable to your new boss. Adding to this, you have that soupy mix of conscious and unconscious incompetence. In other words, you not only know there are things that you don’t know, but you also don’t know what you don’t know. No wonder its tough!

Let me help you….

Well let me offer some words of advice from someone who has been there, done that and come out the other side having learnt a lot!

1. Make a 90 day plan.

The learning curve can be (and usually is) very steep. Add to this the responsibility of ensuring the productivity of others in addition to your own workload and everything can get pretty overwhelming. The danger of overwhelm is that it can be paralysing and stop you from moving forward with anything. The secret is to chunk it down into a 90 day plan, then chunk that down into monthly goals, then chunk that down into weekly milestones, then chunk that down into daily tasks. Having some clear goals simplified into achievable tasks helps you to get forward momentum and make a difference in the early days.

2. Take the time to really understand your team.

There is no substitute for this. If you were limited to doing just one thing as a new leader, this would be it. There is a major mindset shift that needs to take place when you transition from doing the work yourself, to getting work done through others. Your aim is to have a team of people who are swimming in the same direction as you and who want to follow you. This can only be achieved through creating respectful and trusting professional relationships and asking them how you can add value to their day. Understanding what motivates and engages every individual in your team is the secret to creating a cohesive and productive team. Remember that we are all individuals and what works for someone might not work for others.

3. Think like a leader by getting in your helicopter.

The fastest way to earn respect from the senior leaders is to show that you can step out of the day to day and look at the bigger picture. It is imperative that all leaders connect with the vision and purpose of the organisation. That means taking a helicopter view of the organisation and its position in the market from time to time. To look into the future and think strategically. Submitting just one bold suggestion about how the organisation can add value, improve its service delivery or increase the efficiency of its operations to show that you are taking initiative and thinking bigger will make you stand out. However, remember that you are not there to change the world in the first quarter, quality over quantity.

This should get you started. Good luck and if you need help, give me a call!

Today is the second day of the second year of running my own business. It has been an amazing year of discovery, success, and vulnerability. So I thought this an opportune time to share some of my own brain wrangling that I have done this year, to help those who might be on a similar journey. Something that I have really had to manage this year is a truckload of "Self doubt". Self doubt is all about fear. Fear of being judged, fear of failing, fear of the unknown, and the list goes on. It's that little voice inside our head that says "Are you sure you can do this?!". I am not embarrassed to admit that I have felt this way, nor do I want to cover it up. We need to stop pretending we are ten foot tall and bullet proof and talk about our vulnerability because it is ABSOLUTELY NORMAL. Whenever we challenge ourselves to do something which stretches us outside our comfort zone, our brain gets triggered and starts questioning us. This is because our brain is obsessed with keeping us safe from anything uncertain or scary. It doesn't consider whether the threat is real, it just wants to make sure we are comfortable and out of harms way. So our lovely brain tries to convince us to stick with what we are familiar with and what makes us feel comfortable. However, success and growth come with a side serve of discomfort and uncertainty and sometimes you just have to eat it. So for those of you out there who are trying something new, or challenging yourself in ways that you have never done before, here are my:3 Tips for How to Manage Self Doubt. 1. Welcome the discomfort. Discomfort is how you know that you are stretching yourself to be better than you were yesterday. Every time we stretch and do something for the first time, we lay down new pathways in our brain. This requires effort and this is part of the reason our brain puts in a protest. However, every time we use those new pathways, they will become more and more familiar, and that task will get easier. You have to move through the discomfort to grow and change and be better.

2. Educate yourself. Often one of the biggest fears that contributes to self doubt is that we feel like we don't have the skills or the knowledge required for the task. First of all, you need to figure out if that is actually true. Look back on your experiences and the work you have to done to date and be honest with yourself. If you do find out the answer is "no", then upskill. Read, take an online course, speak to others who have done what you want to do, and read some more. I have found that people are incredibly generous with their time and knowledge and want to see you succeed. Absorb every bit of it. However, there is a danger associated with this, and it is what I call "hiding in learning". It is when we rationalise out our delay to act because we are "learning", because learning is important right? So my advice is to deadline it. Give yourself a set period of time to upskill, then move forward with your goal.

3. It doesn't have to be perfect. Self doubt, perfectionism and procrastination make a lethal cocktail and they often travel in threes. We put an enormous amount of pressure on ourselves to ensure our first try at something is perfect. The problem is, perfection is undefinable and subjective and trying to achieve it is a wild goose chase. One of my favourite quotes comes from software development and it says "if you are not embarassed by your first release, you have held on to it for too long". Your expectations are likely to be way higher than the expectations of your market. My first branding, the first version of my website, my first presentation were all imperfect and it didn't matter. We learn, we improve and we keep moving forward. Striving for perfection is fine but when attaining it is a criteria for moving forward, that is when you get into trouble.

My family loves to watch “The Middle” on TV. Those of you who are familiar with the show will understand when I say that when it comes to reading, I channel my inner “Brick”. I find it difficult to stop reading. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, reading is great, right? However even a good habit, can become an obstacle when it gets in the way of achieving other priorities.

The good habits we often get stuck in are usually ones that we derive some kind of reward from. Alternatively, we can also use them to rationalise out why we are not doing other less rewarding tasks. If we take my reading habit, for example, I tell myself that reading is healthy and an important part of life and work, so it is not so bad that I haven’t done my accounts or written that proposal if I am reading.

The Habit Loop

This is the Habit Loop. It is a neurological loop that your brain uses to manage your habits.

When we engage in a habit it is usually triggered by some sort of cue. For me, my cue to read is sitting down in front of my laptop with a cup of coffee in the morning. The routine is the behaviour that follows, ie opening up my LinkedIn and perusing through my feed to uncover all of the wonderful content that has been uploaded in the last 24hours. The reward that I get is that I am learning, I feel enriched and I am also doing an activity that I can successfully rationalise out as “working” to avoid other less pleasant tasks.

Habits are automatic behaviours that we do without really consciously thinking about it. However, in the infancy of every habit was a decision point, when we started to do a routine or behaviour following a certain cue, in order to receive a reward that we craved. If we want to change our habits we need to again make that decision to start a new routine in response to a cue. To do this we need to stop and take a look at our own habit loops.

Identify the parts of your habit loop?

The first step in changing any habit is to identify the individual parts of the habit loop. The easiest way to do this is to start with the behaviour that you want to change or replace, ie the routine. Changing the routine is the key to changing habits.

Figure out your trigger

The next step is to work backwards from the routine to what happened just before you started the routine. This is your trigger or cue. The trigger can be sometimes harder to figure because it can be subconscious. Maybe you are simply bored, maybe you are finding a task difficult, or perhaps you are feeling anxious because of an upcoming deadline. Other times it can be more tangible like putting the kettle on, or finishing a meal, or it could simply be a time of day. Identifying your trigger is a crucial step in interrupting your habit loop.

What do you crave?

The last step is to understand the reward that you are getting from completing the routine or behaviour. In his book “The Power of Habit”, Charles Duhigg talks about rewards in terms of cravings. Figuring out what it is that you are craving is key to understanding how you can effectively reward yourself, ensuring the reward is a healthy one. Sometimes we find we can keep the same reward in a habit loop but sometimes we need to change it if it is not ultimately serving us.

Change is hard, and you will feel like giving up

Making any behavioural change in our life is hard. Our brain purposely automates behaviours ie creates habits, in order to reserve our resources. It likes to strongly embed the pathways in our brain that are responsible for our habits so it doesn’t have to think about them. Whenever we ty to change these automatic behaviours our brain gets shirty and tries to talk us out of it. This is what the feeling of “wanting to give up” is. We feel like this because to create a new behaviour and a new pathway in our brain requires extra resources which our brain is trying to squirrel away for survival in tough times. When we feel like giving in to an old habit, this is our brain objecting to expending extra resource.

The secret is repetition and determination

Understanding your habit loop is a great start, then it takes focus and persistence in order to change habits. To learn anything new, the brain requires repetition until the new pathways become embedded and behaviour becomes automatic. When a new behaviour becomes automatic, it requires less resource and the brain calms down and stops putting up a fight. This is why it is important when you are trying to change a habit that you stick with it, even when it’s tough.

“Bad habits are easier to abandon today, than tomorrow” Proverb

If you are like most business people these days, you are a consumer of information. You read everything: books, blogs, cheat sheets, “how to” guides and webinars. Often we go on this search for information because we are trying to get unstuck. We feel like we just can’t seem to move forward fast enough, like we are making too many sideways movements and not enough forward ones. In short, we feel like the path we are travelling is full of chicanes, and all we want is to make progress.

If this all sounds too familiar and you want to know how to get things done easier, read on, as I have one piece of advice that will put everything into perspective.

We want answers that are easy for us to accept

We want the answers to our challenges to be simple to understand and easy to implement. You will also notice that the strategies that are most engaging to you are aligned with habits and behaviours that are already in place. It is easier for us to stay motivated and committed to a path that doesn’t deviate too far from our familiar routines and makes us feel comfortable, as opposed to one that is completely different and doesn’t “feel right”. This triggers fear and uncertainty and causes us to start making sideways movements rather than forward ones, or in worst case, no movement at all. I am not suggesting that every task that we do has to feel amazing, but knowing what is coming up for you when things don’t “feel right” and you are not making progress, is priceless.

We only need accountability for the tasks we don’t want to do

We naturally prefer to do tasks that hold some kind of reward for us at the end, or that we derive some kind of enjoyment from (eg. checking our email). Conversely, we consciously, or subconsciously avoid the ones that are in some way challenging, boring or scary (this is procrastination). To give you an example, I will share one of my brain chicanes, that had me moving sideways instead of forwards.

Writing is easy, publishing is hard: a personal story

I love to write and find it incredibly rewarding. I enjoy the research before the writing and the process of putting thoughts on paper. What I procrastinated on was the publishing. Like most people, I worry about how my writing will be received, whether people will like it or not, and the opinions they will form as a result of reading it. (I imagine some of you can empathise with me right now). As a result, I over-researched and over-edited my writing. I spent way too much time on gathering data and perfecting my message. This slowed down my progress, delayed publishing and wasted time. This fear of being judged was the brain chicane that I had to overcome. To do this, I had to identify the behaviour, then put in accountability strategies to navigate it so I could move forward. My strategy was two-fold. Firstly, I wrote “DETACH” on a post-it note and stuck it to my monitor, to remind me to detach from the outcome of a piece of writing. The truth is that some people will like it, some may not and there is nothing I can do about it, but create something I am proud of. The second thing I did was to set myself a time limit to create and edit my writing, and hit send. The I gave myself a treat (usually coffee)! The reward at the end is crucial.

We already have the answers, we just need to ask the right questions.

We are all individuals with our own definition of what is rewarding, or challenging or scary, and the reality is that you need to find specific strategies that are personalised to you. Over the course of your life you have developed habits of thought, behavioural scripts and frames of reference for everything in your life that are unique to you. These play out automatically in response to different situations and contribute to our level of motivation and commitment to goals. Our brains have stored away all of this information and this is the content that we all need to curate.

Finally, the advice

Rather than fighting your automatic behaviours, habits, and preferences on the path to achieving your goals, aim to understand what they are. Learn what motivates you to action and what gets in your way. Answer these questions and things will get a whole heap easier.

It is hard to do this self-discovery on your own. I did not do this alone, I had the help of a wonderful mentor who kept me accountable.

If you would like to learn more about going on this journey through mentoring with Diane, clickhere

Let’s face it, you need to make a change (not your organisation – you)

So, you know you need to change your job or maybe quit smoking, perhaps drop a few extra kilos or you want to learn a new skill. But, how do you get your head around making the change when you feel as though you can’t even get started. Understanding change is about the individual. Going through change is a process, not an event, and at times, is a challenging one. Let’s not forget a very important factor – change is about people. It’s an incredibly personal process impacted by so many variables:

your values, principles, and beliefsemotional well-beingthe environment you’re in and what’s influencing you at the timehow you’ve experienced change in the pastif you have adequate informationif you have the skills and ability to undertake the change.

Everyone changes at a different pace.

Whether it is you going through the change or someone you know, being able to understand change from an individual’s perspective is a valuable skill. Prosci® is a change management methodology that is recognised for its pragmatic approach to managing change. A key differentiator of Prosci’s® methodology is its recognition that people are individuals and will therefore experience change at their own pace. After all, have you ever seen an organisation successfully implement sustainable change by using a standard, one-size fits all approach? It just doesn’t work because we are dealing with humans – individuals.

A practical tool to work through the change

Prosci’s ADKAR® model is a practical goal-orientated diagnostic tool designed to help understand the process individuals go through to change. Let’s see how it works.

As an example we will use losing weight. ADKAR® has five elements as follows:

Have a go!

Consider a change you might be close to, one you are experiencing personally or a change you are having difficulty facilitating in another person. When testing this tool, be sure you select a change you have been trying to make happen that is not working, regardless of your continued efforts. To measure where you’re up to, and key areas you need to focus on, create an ADKAR® profile for the change. On a scale of one (eg. no engagement) to five (eg. complete engagement), rate yourself for each of the five elements. Remember, these ratings are subjective. The first element where you receive a three or less is the point where you should start your focus. This is called the ‘barrier’ point.

Here is an example of an ADKAR® profile :

You have to be all in!

Remember, each element is important and will contribute to how successful you are (or are not) in changing. Miss an element and you risk failing or only attaining a suboptimal result. Not addressing each one of these elements is also why change usually doesn’t stick. For example, if you focus only on Awareness, you will know why you need to change, but will be unlikely to do anything about it. Alternatively, if you focus only on Awareness and Knowledge (this is what many organisations tend to do), you risk creating “knowledgeable resistors” who are aware of the change requirement and the skills needed, but actively resist it in preference for the status quo.…not the most effective approach for change to happen.

Desire is the hardest element to influence as it’s so personal. Everyone’s level of desire is going to be different and relative to what’s going on for them at the time. This is where understanding individual preferences and emotional intelligence are invaluable skills for people leading change.

Remember, change is a process, not an event. Part of that process must be to reinforce and frequently engage with the change. The question is, if you’ve done the change once, but there’s no reinforcement to sustain the change, have you really made the change at all?

About the author: Carly Nikolic

Carly is an experienced leader with a track record in driving change and delivering corporate and strategic communications that are designed to unlock business benefits and performance outcomes. She is an accredited Prosci facilitator and trainer. Her experience includes working within large, multi-faceted organisations across public and private enterprise in a variety of sectors, including resources/mining, health, construction, technology, environment, not-for-profit, and media.

People engage Carly because she is a facilitator of change and makes the complex uncomplex. She inquisitively seeks the truth while taking the necessary actions to make a valuable contribution to organisations, supporting them to achieve their goals and strategy while maximising resource effectiveness and efficiency.

A passionate and creative professional possessing a collaborative, consultative style of management, Carly is skilled at developing and implementing fit-for-purpose solutions that stick – from the boardroom to frontline.

LinkedIn : https://au.linkedin.com/in/carlynikolic

For further information on Prosci Change Management: https://www.prosci.com/

For further information on the ADKAR model: https://www.prosci.com/adkar/adkar-model

I love Sherlock Holmes. My favourite scenes are when Sherlock meets a suspect for the first time and everything slows down as he takes in all of the tiny details that will eventually be crucial in the solving the case. Sherlock has highly developed powers of observation and sees things that others miss. Unlike his loyal partner, Watson, Sherlock’s first impressions are not affected by emotion or bias and he doesn’t jump to conclusions. His attention is focussed only on the tiny details and the non-verbal clues that help him build a complete profile of the person in front of him.

Reading the clues

When we meet a client for the first time, we have the same opportunities as the Baker Street sleuth. We too can gather an enormous amount of information about our client that can help us to connect with them. 70% of communication is non-verbal. Our body posture, facial expressions, choice of clothing and tone of voice all reflect who we are and how we’re feeling at any given moment. Having the emotional intelligence to read our clients accurately can take the relationship to a new level. But how much of this information are we actually taking in?

“Tell me to what you pay attention and I will tell you who you are”. Jose Ortega y Gasset

Why our brain takes shortcuts

The answer is not as much as we could be. Our brain is obsessed with preserving its resources and loves to take shortcuts whenever it can. One of the ways it does this is by making snap decisions about people in the first few seconds of meeting them based on very little information. Hundreds of thousands of years ago when our brains were evolving, it was essential that we quickly decided whether someone was friend or foe. Our life depended on it. Although we now live in a (slightly!) more civilised society, this evolutionary survival mechanism still exists today. The process of making snap judgments about people is called “Thin Slicing”. Author, Malcolm Gladwell explains this concept brilliantly in his book “Blink: The power of thinking without thinking”

Perception shapes behaviour

In that first few seconds of meeting someone, we subconsciously collect information, based primarily on non-verbal cues, that drives our decision about who they are and how we should behave around them. In just a few seconds, our brain cross-references this information with our past experiences and memories to form an opinion. This snap judgment, or gut feeling, is often reliable, but at other times can be completely wrong, as we neglect to take in all of the relevant details in preference for speed. This is a significant risk when interacting with a new client. If we make an inaccurate judgment about who they are, it can negatively affect the way that we work with that person. The well-known social experiment where a man asks for money dressed first as a homeless man and then as a businessman illustrates this. As a businessman, he receives $9.50. As a homeless person, it’s $0. Our perception shapes our behaviour. You can watch the video of the experiment at https://youtu.be/w1rwRT229Uo

It goes both ways

First impressions count. And whilst you are making them about your client, they are also making them about you. Additionally, first impressions are hard to shake. If you make either a good or bad initial impression, you will have to work very hard to shake someone from that belief. Our brain doesn’t like to hold opposing beliefs.. This is called cognitive dissonance. It’s what drives us to stand up for our beliefs, to defend our position, and is also why we sometimes find it difficult to change our minds. Make sure you are giving yourself every chance to make an excellent first impression by being mindful about how you “show up” to your first meeting with your client.

Finding our inner Sherlock?

Putting this all together, how can we improve our interactions with our clients in order to create an accurate profile which can form the basis of a productive relationship?

can be the difference between a successful interaction and meeting an objection.

2.

3. Be aware that your perception affects your behaviour. Once you have initially profiled your client, it is important to be open to new information that might impact on the relationship. Be prepared to build on your previous perceptions to form a more comprehensive view of your client, as the way that you interact with them will be influenced by this.

Incorporating this level of thinking and observation into your prospecting can really pay dividends. At the end of the day, people just want to be understood. In a world full of Watson’s, be Sherlock!

I recently spoke at a summit for sales professionals and in preparing for the presentation, I gathered some interesting facts about what customers value most in salespeople, and its not what you might think. Customers are no longer focussed on the salesperson being the expert. Empathy, emotional support and thoughtful touches are the qualities that are now highly valued. When salespeople achieve a personal connection, they are more likely to be described as excellent or exceeding expectations, and are more likely to receive referrals. So lets look at connection and how we can get good at it.

Human beings are wired for connection.

From the very moment we are born we search for connection. As newborns, we look to the faces of our parents to pick up on non-verbal cues and learn our first skills in communication. In the virtual world, we see it in our obsession with social media, where each minute:

Facebook users like 4,166,667 postsTinder users swipe 590,278 timesInstagram users like 1,736,111 photos

From an evolutionary perspective our brain knows that our survival is more likely if we create social connections. This means sharing resources, learning from each other and uniting against a mutual threat. This is why we formed tribes in primitive times. Socialisation is also thought to be why the human brain has evolved to be more sophisticated than any other animal on the planet.

Humans beings want connection but what exactly is it?

Brene Brown describes “Connection” eloquently as:

“the energy that is created between people when they feel seen, heard and valued”

I love that she describes it as "energy". We’ve all had that feeling when we meet someone for the first time and just “click”. We feel excited and joyful. We wonder where this excellent person has been all our lives. That is the feeling of connection in its greatest form. Not every connection will hit these highs of course. It can also be just a general sense of wellbeing, comfort and safety. This is more what we are aiming for in a sales setting. We want to establish trust, which is born through connection.

We can all be good at connection

The potential to connect is present in all of us. That said, some adults are natural connectors and others find it more challenging. Natural connectors may have this skill because they had great role models as they were growing up, or have experienced greater benefits from connecting with others. I remember as a very young child when I first started responding with “I’m fine, how are you?” when an adult asked me how I was. Those funny adults thought it was dreadfully cute, and told me I was gorgeous and so I kept doing it. This is how behaviours get reinforced and embedded as habits.

For those who find connecting more challenging, there is hope. Our brains are very plastic. We can create new pathways and learn new skills and behaviours by giving them focus. It is a question of mindset. First you must believe that you have the ability to create great connections (which we already know you do), next, you need to practice.

So how do we master connection to make more sales?

Listen and watch : Our words account for 30% of our communication. Yes, we must be listening to those words, but just as important, (and often overlooked), is our non-verbal communication. Our tone of voice, body language, facial expressions, and our posture represent 70% of our message. We must develop “Sherlock-like” powers of observation to uncover the full story.

Practice perspective taking: It is natural for us to process information through our own frame of reference or through the lens of our own experience. In doing so, we apply our own biases and opinions. However, in order to truly understand your customer, we need to walk in their shoes. So look at the situation from their perspective. Don't assume knowledge. The solution that seems obvious to you, might have not even occurred to them.

Understand individual preferences : People are triggered into positive and negative states by different things, based on their own personal experience. These sensitivities will have an impact on how comfortable they feel, and whether they want to do business with you. Uncovering what these triggers are for your client is critical to establishing effective communication and keeping your customer on side.

Be vulnerable : When my dog wants to show another dog that he is friendly, he rolls over and shows his belly. Whilst taking this advice literally is probably not the way to go in a professional setting, showing that you are a friend by sharing your own experiences, and showing alignment with your client’s emotions is a powerful tool to develop trust.

Tell stories : People love stories. Storytelling has been the vehicle of connection for millions of years. If you want to engage your client and have them really understand what you are communicating to them, storytelling is the key. Sharing stories of your own past success is also a great way to develop credibility and prove expertise.

If you want to learn more about developing the skills of connection to enhance your client engagement and drive your sales success, Diane delivers workshops and has a personal mentoring program on “Connection Selling.” For more information visit www.clevermindsconsulting.com.au or email diane@clevermindsconsulting.com.au

Salespeople often get a bad wrap

There is perception in the community that salespeople are a bit slippery and only interested in parting us from our cash. As a salesperson myself, I take umbridge to that. And of course, I am not alone. But like it or not, regardless of your occupation, most of us are involved in selling in one form or another, whether it be a product, an idea or ourselves. Dan Pink explores this in his excellent book To Sell is Human. He describes the balance of power that exists between the customer and the salesperson, and how this affects the value that a salesperson brings to a sale. There has been a big shift.

Back in the day…..

30 years ago there was a huge difference between the product knowledge of the salesperson and the customer. Salespeople knew more and therefore held more of the power in the relationship. It is this uneven balance of power that created this negative perception around salespeople (which still persists). Due to this imbalance in knowledge and, therefore, power, it was much easier for a salesperson to take advantage of a customer, and unfortunately many did. On the positive side, this imbalance made the salesperson more relevant to the customer. Customers needed the salesperson to get the information about the product they were interested in. Fast forward to 2016 and everything has changed. We now live in a world of information where customers can find out more than they ever needed to know about anything they want before they even speak to a salesperson. The balance of power between seller and buyer has shifted. So how do we sell, when knowledge isn’t enough?

The Epiphany

Part of the answer lies in my own experience. I am an academic and scientist, so when I first started in sales, I had very little product knowledge, no formal selling skills and no training. Unsurprisingly, I felt I added little value, and that it would be a miracle if I was to ever sell anything. But something funny happened. I was successful straight away. How could this be? How could a non-salesperson, be selling successfully? The answer was because I connected with my customers! Elegantly simple. The only skills I had in my toolkit were the ability to listen, to understand the customer’s feelings , to empathise with their struggle and assure them that I would help them to solve their problem. It turns out, that these skills are the secret sauce to successful selling.

We’re cheesed off!

Customers are over the cheesy salesperson. We don’t need their expert knowledge and we resent their intrusion into our busy life. Customers don't want to be sold to anymore, they want to be heard and understood. They want to know that someone is on their side who can help. Multiple studies show that customers want salespeople who are honest, empathetic and trustworthy, and they want to have a relationship with you. Think about the last time you made a significant purchase. You probably researched to find out about your options, read the forums, asked friends what their experience was and by the time you got to the salesperson, all you probably needed from them was:

a) to give you the confidence that you were making the right decision

b) the feeling like you were getting value for money

c) to have an enjoyable experience with a person who made you feel comfortable.

Every decision has an emotion attached

To be able to deliver this experience, salespeople need to go beyond talking about the features and benefits of a product. They need to tap in to the emotions that the customer is feeling and focus on how they want the customer to feel as a result of the interaction. Every single decision we make has an emotion attached to it. A few years ago, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio made a groundbreaking discovery. He found that if people have damage in the part of the brain where emotions are generated, it leaves them not only unable to feel emotions, but also unable to make decisions. Even if all of the logic and relevant data were laid out before them, they couldn't make a decision, and it was because they simply didn't know how they felt about it. Understanding emotions is key in helping your customer make a decision.

Connection is the key

Classical sales training typically focusses on shortening the sales cycle asking the right questions and creating sales proposals that demonstrate a comprehensive understanding of the customer’s situation. Those skillsets are still necessary, but they are only the start. Successful salespeople must master emotional intelligence, social perception and the ability to interpret human behaviour to create relationships. Having the ability to empathise, take perspective, understand stresses and challenges, solve problems and pick up on the subtle indicators that give you insight into how your customer is feeling, are the superpowers of the future. People by from people they like and trust. In short we, as salespeople, need to learn how to connect.