Over the years I have discovered 5 key barriers that keep us from making the progress we want to make. 

1.   Fear of the unknown and general uncertainty:

At times we allow ourselves to lock-up with fear and become paralyzed with uncertainty. Because change is happening so rapidly we fear the potential negative effects of what is going on around us. 

Fear and worrying about things we cannot control, will waste much of our energy.  We will never regret putting our energy where our biggest leverage points are in our life, and focusing on the things that we can control instead of those we cannot.

2.   No compelling reason to change:

Simply put without a clear compelling reason to change, improve, and grow most people will not change.  We tend to live within our comfort zones.  In an ever-changing world, living in the comfort zone can be a very dangerous place.

Creatively thinking or actively approaching new situations with fresh ideas and behaviors can help us build a core around learning, growing and changing.  Creating a clear inspiring reason to change makes all the difference.

3.   Lack of vision for  a better future:

Without vision we fail.  Clear, long-term goals can make a huge difference in our lives.  Over our lives we will create what we believe, and believe what we achieve, first in our minds then in our actions.  You have been given unique talents and abilities that will allow you to contribute to the world in a marvelous manner and leave a great legacy, regardless of your color, culture, and economic status in life.

Your vision or long-term goals should inspire you to do things differently every day, every week, every month and every year.

 4 .   We don’t know how to change:

The concept of making needed changes in our lives can be overwhelming.  Change is not easy.  It requires effort and focus.  Having a proven process can really help move things along.  Weight Watchers has a great process to help people lose weight and improve their health.  It is built around counting calories through a points system, making choices, and changing your thinking and behavior about food.   It breaks everything down for you and has proven to work for millions.

Friends, mentors, coaches and teachers are great sources of information to help you pick a clear process to change, no matter what change you want to make…their successful personal experiences, how they changed,  can help you change and in turn when you change, you can help others change. 

5.   No accountability to change:

With out someone you love and trust to hold you accountable to a new and better future, the likelihood of change springing up all on its own is low.  Once we have laid bad habit tracks they are so easy to return to, unless we have some sort of intervention. 

The key here is that “its all about the love”.  The accountability that is needed is one of encouragement and support. Connect with people in your life that lift you and love you.  We all need more friends that believe in us.

Never underestimate the power we have to change ourselves as we get rid of fear, create meaning, establish a clear vision, work with a proven process, and surround ourselves with people who love us and support our desire to learn, grow and change for the good.

How have you enabled change in your life? How did you remove the mental roadblocks that stood in the way of change? What has helped you?

I would love to hear from you.

Author: Sam Bracken, Global Director of Product Management Marketing, FranklinCovey

 A very wise and wonderful woman once told me that we become a reflection of our life experience. There are about 6.8 billion people in this world and they all have very different experiences. They all think though things differently, do things differently, and get the results that their behavior produces. Today more than ever we live in a very complex environment, technology breakthroughs, massive noise, complexities with factors and forces that interact, it’s chaos out there, the speed of information is overwhelming. The pressure to perform at work is harder today more than ever. What worked in the past may not work in the future because of the changing climate that we have.

 The one thing we know at FranklinCovey that remains constant is that change will happen and continue to happen. So the need to learn, adapt and grow is more important today then ever before. So how do you approach this?  How do you even start to make sense of this concept? We know the way you think dramatically impacts what you do  and your behavior. And your behavior typically produces the results in your life, right? The way you feel influences your thinking, which impacts what you do and, what you do gives you your results. If you feel positive or negative, based on your feelings, it can really impact things. A lot of people think they can’t necessarily change the way they think or what they do to get the results that they want. But we are here to tell you that you can be the author of your own future. If you want small incremental change, focus on your behavior. But if you want big change, focus on your thinking. The purpose of this blog is to help you make lasting transformational change and unlock the passion in yourself to reach all your goals and dreams.

 Please feel share with me you thoughts, insights and experiences on change.

 Check out this post as a video blog post:

 Author: Sam Bracken, Global Director of Product Management Marketing, FranklinCovey