What is REALLY holding you back?

What is REALLY holding you back?

If you keep saying that you want to change something, but you have not yet made it happen the something is clearly getting in your way.

This could be internal facts like your beliefs, values or even your confidence.?Equally, they could be external factors such as time, money, or other people.

One of the coaching tools that I really like is the Obstacle Analysis Grid (Neill 2006).?As you will see from this picture it identifies 9 key areas that might stop you from making the changes you want to see.?For each box you need to score where you are at on a scale from 1 to 10 (10 being an area of strength).?

Let’s work through it together so you can see how it could be applied.

I want to you to imagine you have a colleague called Molly.?Molly says she wants to progress in her career and from what you have observed her manager is supportive.?In fact, they have been encouraging her for a while, but she has been making excuses about moving forward.?Molly has a coach and they have asked her to fill in the Obstacle Analysis Grid to get to the bottom of the situation.

This is how she filled it in:

?? Information – 9

I know what the job is that I want to go for.?I have seen the JD and I have seen the Team Leader in action and have spoken in more detail with the Team Manager.

??Skill – 9

I know I have most of the skills and I have stepped up to cover the Team Leader when they have been on annual leave

?? Belief – 5

I am not sure I have the right stuff to be a leader, when I think about actually doing the job I get a kind of anxious feeling as I have never been in charge of other people

?? Well-being – 4

I am worried about the anxiety I am feeling already and think I might not be able to cope with the stress that the new role might bring

?? Other people – 3

I have a couple of people in my team who have really challenging personalities, if I get promoted I really don’t know how I would manage them, also I know one of them would also like the position so they might react badly if I got it

?? Motivation – 9

I really do want to progress

?? Time – 9

I do have the time to dedicate to this

?? Money – 9

To have some more money coming in would really help me out

?? Fear – 5

I am concerned that I won’t be very popular with my team members if I get promoted and they will treat me differently

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When you take a look at this – what do you notice?

Well, Molly noticed that she had areas where doubt arose around her leadership ability and whether her team might be difficult or challenging and they may not like her anymore.?All this fed into her concerns about increased stress levels which would then affect her well-being.

All very common and all very real.

Now that Molly knows all of this she can start to address the obstacles that are holding her back.

Through coaching sessions she can explore where some of these assumptions and beliefs originate from.?Why do these things influence her actions as much as they do and how she can get past them.

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I challenge you today to think about something in your life that you really want to do but have been making excuses.

Look at the grid and jot down how you feel about each of the potential obstacles.

?? What is this telling you?

If you want to have a quick chat about how we might work together to overcome what is holding back then just drop me an email daniellewood.coach@gmail.