What are reference points?

Are they impacting your behaviours?

Reference points determine your underlying behaviour which in turn determines your actions.

When you think about starting your own business. Where does your mind go? Does it go to your parents who may believe “this is unsafe and not worth the risk”? Or does your mind go to those entrepreneurs you idolise who have been become successful after years of hard work.

These reference points will impact on your behaviours. Often without you even realising it. You can’t really remove these reference points, they will always exist in some capacity, but what you can do is create new ones that come to the forefront when you are looking to change behaviour.

Some tips…

1. Read – Autobiographies are great, they bring you into the world of people who see things a bit differently to you and have had experiences that will be both similar and unique to what you have experienced.

2. Change who you spend the most time with? – Do you hang out with people going nowhere, are the people in your office negative and always putting you down? Try and spend as little time with them as possible.

3. Podcasts – Plenty of inspiring people on podcasts that can be used as very effective reference points. Just like autobiographies, you can get a glimpse into a world not directly available to you in your geographical area.

4. Be wary – if you’re not doing something you feel is important, double check and see if that is because you really don’t want to do it? Or is it a result of a certain reference point that has moulded itself into a behaviour you don’t like.

The Point:

Here is a simple breakdown of how you can change reference points.