The 3rd of Our Four Habits of Mind.

Lately, I've been drawing from chapter six of my book, "The Insurance CSR Sales Master Class," as a source for this BLOG as well as fuel for some current life goals.

In two prior posts, I unpacked the first two habits of mind that always hamper goal pursuit: we're hardwired to resist change, and we all have an innate negativity bias. Here, I explore the third habit of mind: Our inner world experience shapes our outer world results.

What does that mean?

No, it's not a call to simply shift mindset. In today’s parlance, that is too easy to dismiss as feel-good thinking or worse still, something akin to a light-switch. “Yeah, I know you are feeling anxious from all this office pressure (sales, hard-market, staffing, you name it), just try to relax.”

Good luck with that...

What we experience in the world (our results) isn’t simply one step removed from our thinking, it’s the second of five steps, at least in my coaching approach.

Gandhi describes the sequence in seven steps, but he goes beyond mere results to land at destiny.

He wrote, “Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words. Your words become your actions. Your actions become your habits. Your habits become your values. Your values become your destiny.”

Wow! Not much rationale for social-media doom scrolling in that sequence. Nor is critical task avoidance, be it sales prospecting or exercise.

I prefer a simpler formula to capture the truth of what I call the second habit of mind: our inner world shapes our outer world. It is B-T-F-A-R.

Simply draw a vertical line between the B-T-F and the A-R and you’ll have clear proof that the path to all of your results in your life, desirable or undesirable, starts with an empathic look in the mirror. In other words, an examination of your inner world.

Your outer world, that of action and result, inevitably follows suit. Try this quick experiment when you’re not getting the results you want.

Think of this experiment as a daily inventory for your goal pursuit. Many people ignore these questions, or at least the answers, for their entire lives. Envision these four questions as a loop that circles back upon itself. Forever.

If your “outer world results” are what you desire (a.k.a.hitting goals), these questions won’t pack much punch. It’s when you’re struggling that they have the potential to provide some traction. But you have to sit with the answers and listen.

1. What am I feeling?

2. What am I doing?

3. Is this combination advancing my goals the way I desire?

4. What do I think about that?

Of course, each one of these questions is multifaceted and layers deep. But when we are dealing with complex systems, in this case our goal pursuit, it’s helpful to think in broad strokes, then dig down.

👉 It’s like a high-level assessment of critical systems. In this case, our system is B-T-F-A-R. If you want some help dialing it in, grab yourself a copy of The Anxious Salesman. It’s a field guide to help you turn your inner critic into a championship coach. I’m confident it will touch your heart.

And if you don’t want to buy the entire copy, you can download a substantial portion of it for free here.

To the Championship Coach inside all of us!

Sheldon