It's Frustrating ... But It Happens To Everyone

Have you ever been doing something that’s working and then you stop doing it? ?

You probably don’t even know why you stopped doing it and maybe didn’t even recognize you stopped until you started to notice things didn’t feel as good.?

Your progress stalled otherwise you would've missed the change all together.

That, my friend is called a “drift” … essentially you are off course drifting into an abyss of possible results that may not be anywhere close to the ones you wanted.?

You are not alone in this. The best among us drift … like when The Rock decided to take a break from action movies so he could work on The Tooth Fairy.

Then there was that weird thing with Tom Cruise jumping on Oprah's couch ...?

There are experiments … and then there are drifts.?

And it’s not just individual people who drift … entire organizations can do it too.?

You saw this when Starbucks was trying to promote evening hangouts by offering wine and appetizers. Didn’t last very long … they noticed they were in a drift.?

Getting the results you really want demands you stay on course as much as possible for as long as possible.?

But before you get all macho about how much 'discipline' you have a la Jocko Wilink ...

Remove the thought that you won’t ever drift … remember that it happens to everyone.?

The key is recognizing it and then getting back on course.?

Of course, one of the prerequisites to even experiencing this problem is having a clearly defined goal

If you don't have one of those, stop reading this right now and get to work on figuring out what you want to accomplish ... then come back when you're ready.

Assuming you already have a clearly defined goal, the first thing to figure out is if you are in a drift ... which is easy as looking at the behaviors you committed to in hopes they would produce that clearly defined goal of yours

If your goal is to generate $250,000 in new sales this quarter and you originally committed to making at least four outbound sales calls per day ... then you'll know you're drifting when you start to only make three sales calls per day

When you are in The Drift, you default to your lowest level of commitment ... just so you can keep telling yourself progress is being made even though you secretly know you've lost steam ...

To fix this and get back on course, the first place to look is in your patterns and behaviors

For example, what did you start doing or stop doing recently that caused your progress to slow down?

When I looked at that for myself, I realized I stopped outbound prospecting for new clients ...

Next, it helps to identify your deepest desire that's driving the behavioral change.

Taking a look in the mirror again ... My deep desire was to protect my positive mindset. If I didn't prospect, it was impossible for anyone to tell me 'no' which meant I got to keep living in positivity fantasyland.

It will help if I pause here for a moment to let you know it's not like you're doing nothing when you are in The Drift ... you're just doing things that cause you to go off course

For me, the desire to protect my positive mindset and disengage from activities that could result in someone telling me know led me to do a bunch of 'safe' work like recording podcasts, creating videos, posting on social media, writing books and of course ... writing blogs

(In case you're wonder, I have already connected with three prospects today ... so I'm not avoiding that work by writing this blog)

Whatever it is you find yourself doing, let's call it 'sedating' because you don't want to feel the pain of whatever you were doing that actually helped.

If I were trying to lose weight and started making progress, sedating might look like eating three scoops of ice cream while wearing workout shorts.

I've already shared that everyone Drifts ... if that's a new revelation for you, consider this one too: most people hide when they are in The Drift

They don't talk to anyone about it because they don't even want to acknowledge it themselves. You know, kinda like closet drug addicts.

If that reference hurts, good. You're biologically move away from pain with an intensity normally reserved for mothers trying to pull their children from under a burning car.

When you're in The Drift ... hiding just makes it worse.

Look for it.

Face it.

Tell people about it.

Then shift out of it by realigning with what you wanted so bad in the first place.

Revisit your goal, but this time make sure you have a rock solid why ... and you'll have to go through the surface level to hit bedrock ...

To do that, you have to figure out your core 'why' ... this is the one that is at the root of your actions to go through discomfort on your way to whatever goal you're trying to achieve.

The first time you ask yourself 'why' you want what you want, you'll get an answer. Whatever it is, ask yourself 'why' you want whatever your answer was. Keep going until you hit something to do with love and you've hit bedrock.

Understanding your bedrock 'why' is enough to refocus, reenergize and get you back on course.