Challenging the Status Quo

We are all creatures of habit. By some estimates, as much as 90-95% of our daily routine is on autopilot.??Think about it. When is the last time you paused to consciously think about how to put on your socks,?tie your shoes, or button a shirt? You didn't really give a lot of conscious thought to that, you simply went through the motions of doing what you already knew how to do.

We don't spend a lot of time thinking about opening a door, driving a car, eating our food, are we taking a walk up a flight of stairs.?These are learned behaviors that had become so routine our body essentially engages in those activities without a lot of conscious thought.?

The problem with learned behaviors is the more that we repeat them the more deeply ingrained they become in our thinking process.?This makes it much more difficult for change to take place, even when that change could be beneficial to our welfare or well-being.?It's one of the reasons people say habits are so hard to break.?It requires that we reprogram our thinking.

Our incredible supercomputer, our brain, is amazing in its complexity.?It controls all of our autonomic functions (heart rate, breathing, digestion, etc.) as well as processing thousands of thoughts that come our way through various stimuli we experience throughout the day.??

Like our muscles, our brain can fatigue from overwork, so it has evolved to put many routines tasks on autopilot so it can give attention to the more important things that require massive computing power, such as complex problem-solving.??Our brain automates a significant number of our daily functions so computing power can be allocated when and where it is needed.

This is why the vast majority of businesses are underperforming.?On any given day, roughly 80% of all businesses are running at 30-40% efficiency.?About 15% are operating at 40-60% efficiency, and only 5% of all businesses are performing at greater than 60%.?

Habitual patterns of behavior (what I like to refer to as the “We’ve always done it this way and it works so why change” mentality) is robbing companies of productivity (and profit) and leaving employees feeling unchallenged and unfulfilled in their positions.?

The difficulty in changing habitual behavior played out in a sales boot camp I was leading recently in Chicago. A group of sales professionals had gathered for a two-day training on sales and Marketing and the first day was spent challenging the conventional way they were selling and the lackluster results those in the room were experiencing.?

Those who were relatively new to selling found it much easier to adapt to what was being taught than the seasoned sales professionals who had been engaged in this industry for two or more decades.?Old habits die hard but by the end of the first day, they were beginning to see how their old way of selling was limiting their opportunity.?They were forced to come face to face with themselves.

So it is with all of us.?As we start down the personal growth journey, we will at some point be forced to come face to face with ourselves and our habitual ways of thinking and acting.?It’s at that moment we have to make a choice whether or not the status quo will keep us where we are, or we will challenge the status quo to change things for the better.?

So how do we change for the better??

The good news is that change is possible.?We have the ability to reprogram our thinking, forming new habitual patterns of behavior to replace those that aren’t serving us well.?

First, we have to become aware of the habitual pattern of behavior we want to change.?For these sales professionals, they had to see themselves as being in the people (relationship) business and not in the sales business.?They had to learn to change their presentation style from selling a product or a service to identifying and solving the problem the customer wants them to solve. ??

Remember, habits are behaviors on autopilot.?We don’t give them a lot of conscious thought.?During day one of our training, we shined a spotlight on their habitual ways of selling so they could give conscious thought to how this behavior was not serving them or their clients well.

Secondly, we had to paint a picture of what a change in behavior would do for themselves and the customers they serve.?How their old way of selling often lent itself to a bias toward one particular product or service they offered, often blinding them to other ways to serve the customer and meet his or her needs.?They had to see how a newly learned behavior would change things for the better, leading to a desired outcome for all concerned.

Lastly, we had to give them a track to run on until this new behavior became habitual.?We know from studies in neuroscience it takes around 63 days (21 days of unlearning, 21 days or relearning, and 21 days of internalizing) for a new habit to replace an old one.?There has to be an intentional process to unlearn, relearn, and internalize a new thought process so that it becomes ingrained in our thinking.

Remember, if you always do what you’ve always done,?you’ll experience the same results you’ve always experienced.?This is how 80% of all businesses operate, to the detriment of the customers they serve.

Real change is intentional.?Changing habitual patterns of behavior is a process that doesn’t happen overnight.?It requires a new way of thinking, with corresponding actions, to bring about a new and desired outcome – and continually repeating this process until the brain habitualizes it.?

Habitual patterns of behavior left unchanged, mindlessly keep people content with the status quo.?

Are there things you are doing simply because that is the way they have always been done?

Are there elements of your daily routine that could be improved upon, modified, or re-assessed in some way to bring about a better outcome?

Albert Einstein once said that the very definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.?Mindlessly going through habitual patterns of behavior takes us beyond Einstein’s definition of insanity to the pit of despair that you keep doing the same things but no longer expect a different outcome.

I leave you with the powerful words of Carly Fiorini, former CEO of Hewitt-Packard, “The status quo has great power.?But leaders challenge the status quo to change things for the better.”

Be a Black Belt Leader.?Challenge the Status Quo.?

You CAN change things for the better.

2X martial arts Hall of Fame inductee, John Terry (The Black Belt Leader) is passionate about helping others become Black Belt Leaders in Life. He is a motivational speaker, leadership, sales & communication coach, and trainer.???

Jessie Terry, John's daughter, is a Certified Speaker, Coach, and Trainer with the?John Maxwell Team?and is actively involved in the JMT Global Youth Initiative. She is also a Real-Life Management trained coach and a certified Women-Safe Self-Defense Instructor and the author of several children's books.

For more information, schedule John (or Jessie) to speak to your organization or to book a personal, group, or corporate coaching session, visit our website at?www.beablackbeltleader.com.??

If you are a faith-based organization, learn more about John and Jessie's outreach to churches, para-church organizations, or faith-based volunteer groups by visiting?www.DunamisFactor.com.

Why just be a leader, when you can be a Black Belt Leader?