At Life Insurance Academy, our mission is to meet you where you are and to help you get where you want to go.
We want you to learn things, apply them, and get better as a result.
We know that you are working hard to take action and implement what you have learned but you could still be inadvertently sabotaging your progress.
Here are three common things that you need to immediately stop doing in order to be successful…
Trying to please everyone
People who seem to be afflicted with people-pleasing are known to do everything they can to make others happy.
People pleasing is associated with a personality trait known as “social tropism,” or excessive interest in delighting and obtaining approval for others to maintain relationships.
Being kind is good, but if you go too far to please others, you can be emotionally exhausted, stressed, and anxious.
There are a number of characteristics that people-pleasers tend to share. Here are some signs that you might be a people-pleaser:
- You have a difficult time saying “no.”
- You are preoccupied with what other people might think.
- You feel guilty when you do tell people “no.”
- You fear that turning people down will make them think you are mean or selfish.
One way to stop people-pleasing is to know your limits, establish clear boundaries, and then communicate those limits.
Be clear and specific about what you’re willing to take on. If it seems like someone is asking for too much, or if you find yourself overextending yourself, let the people in your circle know that it’s over the bounds of what you are willing to do, and that you won’t be able to help.
You cannot please everyone, and if you try, you will only burn yourself out.
Avoiding change
Change is never easy, especially big change that can impact your life. Most people are more than happy to stay in what is comfortable, even when being comfortable is causing them to be miserable.
Think about how many people stay in a toxic relationship, or a job that they hate.
It is easier to stay in the funk than it is to make the necessary changes to improve our lives.
The good news is that change doesn’t have to be difficult, and big changes do not have to start big. The best way to embrace change is to break big changes into small steps.
If you are entering into insurance sales, then the first step is to get licensed. Don’t worry about getting into a house or how to sell. Those moments will come in time.
If you spend your energy worrying about step 5 and 6, you will never get through step 1. Take what you are trying to accomplish and break it down into the first and simplest step, and begin the process of change. When that step is complete, go to the next step.
Change is nothing more than a series of simple steps.
Overthinking
If you’re an overthinker, you know exactly how it goes. An issue keeps on jumping up in your mind. For instance, a stressful conversation or trouble at work.
As an overthinker, you can’t seem to stop overanalyzing it. You roll it over again and again in your mind trying to find some solution, or worse, you find a solution but do not take action because you have not analyzed every possible scenario. Sound familiar?
One way to stop overthinking and take back control of your life is to simply recognize what you can and cannot control.
Do you have goals? Do you have a plan of action? What is it that you can control? You can control what you think and the actions that you take.
It is easy to believe that we are held captive to our streams of consciousness but this is not true. Think of a time that you were in the zone doing something that you love. Did you notice how time seemed to disappear? It is because you were controlling your thoughts and actions. In that moment you were not overthinking.
Here is a simple formula to remember to help you out…
Thoughts become beliefs.
Beliefs become attitudes.
Attitudes become actions.
Actions become habits.
Habits become your life.
To stop overthinking, you must focus on what you can control.
Success not only requires action in the right direction, it also requires that we grow.
The Bible talks about the type of growth that requires letting go of certain choices that we are accustomed to making.
It reminds us, ”When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, and I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Now people-pleasing, avoiding change, and overthinking, may not seem like childish things but what else would you call something that stunts or prevents growth?
If you are going to be successful, it will happen because you put your old thinking away and embraced a new mindset.
