How many times have you made a decision that things were going to change, that you have a goal and you are finally going after it, only to find yourself three months later doing the same things that you were doing before? The goal is yet again, lost in the shuffle of life.
We all do this. We decide that this is the time, we know where we want to be, we even know how to get there but then we simply don’t do it. And we have a million reasons why…we got too busy, priorities changed or we simply couldn’t get out from underwater for long enough to even start on it.
But what really happened? Let’s say your goal is revenue based. You want the entire team focused on achieving $100 million for the year. As the leader, you know that in order to achieve this, you need to create a shared vision of what success looks like, for the team, so everyone is marching in the same direction. You also need to look at the talent you have and make decisions about whether you have the right skills on the team. You want to set expectations, set up a regular communication cadence, manage the time you spend so it’s focused on what is most important, revamp the broken processes and restructure your sales organization.
But when it comes to putting that all on paper, scheduling out the tasks and actually doing the work, you physically get sick. You feel overwhelmed about all the work that needs to be done, confused about where to start and you find yourself 2 months in, fighting fires all day and not feeling like you’ve made a dent.
That’s the art of your primitive brain at work. Our primitive brain hates change. It’s main objectives are to seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy. Anything that disrupts this motivational triad is no different than your life being in serious danger. So putting plans on paper and deadlines on your calendar is as serious as your life being at risk, and as long as the primitive brain is driving, all your best plans will not happen. Oh and it’s a slippery one too! It may even lead you to believe you are “trying” by living in a state of busyness. It will find all kinds of “comfortable” things to keep you busy. Things that look really important like email, meetings, reports, low hanging fruit projects and everyday problem resolution, none of which conflicts with the equilibrium it feels by staying the same. Even if the current situation isn’t desirable, our primitive brain loves the same old thing, and it will keep you there as long as it can.
This will continue until you make a conscious decision to engage your intelligent brain or prefrontal cortex. By making decisions with your intelligent brain, you can challenge the thinking of the primitive brain. What is real here? You have a job as a leader to meet a certain goal. You’ve already determined what needs to be done in order to achieve that goal. Anything standing in the way of that is going to be excuses and noise. It might mean you have to cancel meetings, even when your own primitive brain says “you can’t do that!”. It might mean you have to organize your calendar and schedule tasks, even when your primitive brain says “that sounds like torture!”. And it might even mean that you have to complete the employment relationship with someone while you welcome others onboard, all while your primitive brain is literally screaming “I did not sign up for this!”. It doesn’t like change. But change is required if you have big goals.
So kick your primitive brain out of the driver’s seat. It can still sit beside you, kicking and screaming like a toddler, but don’t let it decide where you go and what you do or don’t accomplish. Make the decision to put your intelligent brain in the driver’s seat and take the actions you know are necessary, no matter what drama or complications your primitive brain tries to stir up.
If you’re having difficulty achieving your goals and taming your overactive primitive brain, I can help. Schedule your free consultation here.