Ordinary individuals follow the beaten path, but you were meant for something more. 

Audacity, redefine possibilities, and shatter limitations. That’s your job, if you wish to be extraordinary.

Unleash your extraordinary potential by taking bold steps towards your dreams. 

Leave behind the mediocre and step into greatness. 

Failure is a stepping stone to success and let resilience fuel your journey. 

Mediocrity will soon be a distant memory as you rise above the crowd, leaving an extraordinary legacy that inspires others to follow in your footsteps.

Read:  Reality, Expectation and Obsession

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Let’s take a look at why tough love is so important in the workplace and when and how to implement it effectively.

Understanding Tough Love in the Workplace

Tough love in the workplace refers to a candid and empathetic approach that challenges colleagues to improve their performance, address detrimental behaviours, and take responsibility for their actions. It requires setting aside comfort zones and personal concerns to help individuals and teams reach their full potential.

Recognising the Need for Tough Love

Recognising when to apply tough love to work colleagues can be challenging, as it requires a delicate balance between observation and empathy. Here are some indications that tough love may be necessary in the workplace:

• Consistent underperformance: When colleagues repeatedly fall short of expectations or fail to meet their professional responsibilities, tough love can serve as a catalyst for improvement. It helps them recognise the consequences of their actions and motivates them to make positive changes.
• Toxic dynamics or conflicts: If workplace relationships are strained, and negative behaviours or conflicts persist, tough love can help address the root causes. It encourages open communication, sets boundaries, and holds individuals accountable for their behaviour.
• Lack of personal and professional growth: When colleagues exhibit complacency, resist change, or fail to develop new skills, tough love can encourage them to embrace growth opportunities. It prompts them to step out of their comfort zones and pursue continuous improvement.

Applying Tough Love

Implementing tough love in the workplace requires tact and empathy to ensure the desired outcome. Here are some strategies for applying tough love effectively:

• Foster open and honest communication: Initiate conversations with colleagues by expressing genuine concern for their professional development. Use “I” statements to express observations and feelings without assigning blame or judgement.
• Set clear expectations and boundaries: Establish clear performance standards and communicate the consequences of failing to meet them. Setting boundaries helps colleagues understand the limits and promotes accountability.
• Provide constructive feedback: Offer feedback that is specific, actionable, and solution-oriented. Focus on highlighting areas for improvement while acknowledging their strengths. Encourage them to seek additional resources or training to enhance their skills.
• Lead by example: Demonstrate the behaviours and work ethic you expect from your colleagues. Model professionalism, integrity, and a growth mindset. By leading through action, you inspire others to follow suit.
• Offer support and resources: While tough love requires holding colleagues accountable, it is crucial to provide support along the way. Offer assistance, mentorship, or access to resources that can facilitate their growth and development.

Applying tough love in the workplace can be a powerful catalyst for personal and professional growth. By recognising the need for intervention and employing empathy alongside directness, you can help colleagues overcome challenges, improve performance, and foster a culture of accountability. Remember, tough love is an act of encouragement and support, aimed at helping colleagues reach their full potential and contribute to a thriving work environment.

Stepping into Your Own Confidence: Applying Tough Love in Personal Relationships

The concept of tough love extends beyond the workplace and can be a valuable skill in personal relationships. By learning to apply tough love to oneself, you can cultivate confidence, strength, and capability in all areas of life. Embrace the willingness to address your own shortcomings, set boundaries, and strive for personal growth. Just as tough love empowers colleagues to reach their full potential, it can also empower you to step into your own potential and create a more fulfilling and meaningful life.

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Being conscious means being present and attuned to the dynamics at play. It’s about understanding the motivations and perspectives of others, allowing influencers to navigate complex situations with finesse. So, how do you measure up in terms of consciousness?

Take a moment to rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 being exceptional. Are you fully aware of what’s happening around you? Do you possess the ability to make sense of others’ decisions and actions? Your score provides valuable insight into your current level of influence.

Consciousness is the driving force behind successful influencers. It enables them to:

1. Gain Clarity: By being conscious of the agendas at play, professional influencers swiftly cut through the noise and see the bigger picture. They understand the interconnections and the impact of their actions on others. This clarity empowers them to make informed decisions.
2. Build Rapport: Consciousness allows influencers to connect deeply with others. By listening attentively, observing non-verbal cues, and understanding different perspectives, they forge genuine connections. This rapport establishes trust and lays the foundation for influencing others effectively.
3. Anticipate and Adapt: Professional influencers possess a heightened sense of anticipation. They proactively identify potential challenges, risks, and opportunities, adapting their strategies accordingly. Their consciousness ensures they stay one step ahead, ready to navigate any curveballs that come their way.
4. Inspire Action: With their acute awareness, influencers can inspire others to take action. They align their messages and actions with the values and aspirations of their audience, creating a compelling vision that motivates others to join their cause.

Now that you understand the power of consciousness, imagine what could be achieved by mastering the remaining traits of professional influencers. Each trait complements consciousness and amplifies your influence, taking your abilities to new heights.

Discover the full range of influential traits that can transform your professional journey. Dive deeper into the traits of considered planning, challenging ambition, compassionate understanding, and more. Learn how these traits intertwine and create a dynamic tapestry of influence.

Don’t limit your potential. Embrace the path of continuous growth and become a true master of influence. Read the full article to unravel the secrets of professional influencers and unlock your full potential. The journey starts with consciousness, but it doesn’t end there.

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To become emotionally independent, it is important to develop a strong sense of self-awareness and self-acceptance. This means identifying and addressing negative beliefs and patterns of behaviour that may be holding you back from emotional independence. It also means being comfortable with being alone and learning to self-soothe during times of distress.

In addition, building a strong support system of trusted friends, family, and professionals can be beneficial for emotional well-being. However, it’s important to maintain boundaries and not rely solely on others for emotional support.

By developing emotional independence, you can make confident decisions, handle stress, and build healthy relationships. It takes time and effort, but the rewards are worth it in the long run.

Here are three actions you can take to develop more emotional independence:-

1. Practice self-reflection: Take time to reflect on your emotions and thought patterns. Identify any negative beliefs or behaviors that may be holding you back from emotional independence. Journaling or talking to a therapist can be helpful in this process.
2. Engage in self-soothing activities: Instead of relying on others to soothe your emotions, find healthy ways to calm yourself down during times of distress. This can include deep breathing, meditation, exercise, or engaging in a hobby you enjoy.
3. Set healthy boundaries: While having a support system is important, it’s crucial to set boundaries and not rely solely on others for emotional support. Practice saying “no” when you need to and focus on building a sense of self-reliance.

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It’s worth pausing a few moments and thinking about a few people you respect in your life. Why do you respect them?

The way you award respect can make a massive difference to the quality of your relationships.

Most people tend to answer that they respect the other person’s knowledge, expertise, skill or whatever. They may even respect them because of the way they treat others, or their direct and honest way of communicating.

That is all well and good, except, there is a problem.

The problem is that these are all judgments and usually these are conveyed to the other person, even if carefully hidden.

What’s wrong with that you may ask?

It is an attempt, which is usually successful, to establish what we call in Adlerian psychology a vertical relationship. “I am better than you because I can decide if you are good or not.” “Oh, thank you gov’ner, thank you very much, now I feel much better.” 

You may not intend to do that, but that is what is likely to happen – unless they reject the attempt with a muffled “Patronising git.”

The healthy way to respect others is first and foremost to respect them as people, just as they are. Plain and simple. 

They are a human being just as you are. What ever they are doing, saying or thinking is up to them, their choice, just as what you do is your choice.

Instead of respecting their expertise, respect them as an individual human being first. Then quietly, or not so quietly, appreciate them for what they bring to the party, or engage in constructive dialogue and negotiation to narrow the gap between you.

That means saying “thank you”, rather than “aren’t you good”.

In this manner, there will be a strong and healthy undertone to your relationships that will invite reciprocity, goodwill, and the desire to help and support you and your endeavours.

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Indecision

Getting stuck wondering which course of action is the best one to take. The more options you have, the more difficult this becomes.

The reasons for the indecision can include fear, lack of confidence, incompetence, emotions, ignorance, family – to name but a few.

Often, this indecisiveness can be prolonged, habitual and, a mighty convenient excuse!

Is it not beholden to us all to make maximum use of our talents and capabilities, with whatever time we have? Indecisiveness is wasteful, self-indulgent and a scandalous loss to the world.

Quite simply, you have no time to lose.

Follow-Through

Ah ha, so you’ve made the decision, but somehow, inexplicably, the action doesn’t follow. Thus, the decision weakens and eventually disappears.

Naturally, this could be due to lack of confidence in the decision in the first place. But, it could also be down to lack of time, imposter syndrome, opposition, lack of confidence, ignorance, overwhelm, incompetence, emotions, lack of motivation – to name but a few.

Thing is, what’s the bally point in making a decision if you’re not going to act on it? And again, lack of follow-through is a travesty – for you and quite likely, for us too!

Why? Because you have no time to lose.

In my coaching practice I’ve been through both of these with hundreds of talented people.

Mostly, the problems lie hidden in their decision-making processes – or rather, lack of them. Occasionally, the decision will be sound but the action doesn’t quite follow, or a good decision soon waivers. Very occasionally, people suffer with both – taking ages to make a decision, and then when they do, something goes wrong in the execution.

Improving Decision-Making

It is imperative that all of us continually work on improving our personal decision-making, and then make sure we back up our decisions with solid action to see things through. That’s the way to pick up speed, increase the scope and scale of our results, and frankly, to live and work better than ever.

1. Recognise early when the lack of a decision is holding you back. Get into the habit of asking yourself review questions like, “What decision needs to be made to move forward faster?” Get it popping up on your reminders. Check in with yourself on a regular basis. 
2. Map out a robust process to guide you through to a clear decision. Template process abound on the internet. Go grab a handful to inspire your personal process, or one suitable to the decision at hand. These don’t need to be complicated, just a simple process that gathers the information, analyses pros/cons, consults others and considers the risks and mitigating/contingent actions.
3. Ensure you seek the right counsel. Friends and family will be well-meaning, but often unreliable contributors. Listen to people who don’t agree with you, but you nevertheless trust. Take each input not as advice, but as a contribution to your thinking. 
4. Fill the gaps in your knowledge. Perfect information is never possible, especially when it comes to politics and career decisions – but gaping great holes in your awareness can render any decision useless.
5. Avoid perfectionism. Most times, an imperfect decision will out-perform a perfect one because of the action that follows. Perfect decisions don’t get made because you never have perfect information.
6. Get buy-in from those closest to you. The best decision may be only right for you. If your nearest and dearest doesn’t agree with your decision, opportunities to undermine it will abound. Sure, they will be doing it out of care for you, worried you might be overstepping yourself – yet that constant voice of disagreement will chip away at your motivation so best to tackle that one right up front. The more people you can have backing your decision the better.
7. Recognise the role of commitment, which is far more important than the path. When you make a decision is it very difficult to be precise about the path that you will take in the achievement of said goal. Focus on making a clear (and detailed enough) decision – and then commit to it wholeheartedly – “come what may, this decision is going to be realised, I’m going to hit that goal!”

Easier said than done for sure, but once you get the decision, the follow-through become a matter of discipline and prioritisation – which are much easier to do once you have a good decision.

Improving Follow-Through

Since we’re here, follow-through can be improved by:

1. Getting well organised so that you are always presented with the next task. This needs to be appropriate to your work style. Some love more spontaneity, others detailed lists. Whatever you do, make sure to keen the goal remains present to guide your thought and action.
2. Setting up reminders of your goal, vision or decision, to reaffirm your motivation. Follow-through doesn’t fail due to lack of time, it fails due to lack of attention. If the decision is important to you, act as if it is.
3. Get busy with small tasks that will quickly accumulate into big steps forward. Oft times things can feel too big to start. So break things down to a level that gets you moving. Then keep moving – momentum is important.
4. Stop thinking about the decision – it’s been made. Now, get on with it!
5. Gather support around you, either in terms of active contributors to the action, or those who will believe in you and encourage you to go that extra mile.
6. Take care with the naysayers. You need to hear what they have to say but react with your logical mind AND remember it is only their perspective, with their experience – never take their advice as fact until you have analysed it.
7. Make follow-through your  top priority every day. The action needs to be appropriate, and you certainly don’t want to drop everything else. However, your first thought when planning your day needs to be, “How can I move forward on this decision/goal today?”

Personal decision-making and follow-through are extremely important if you want to get somewhere. Talent is useless unless it can’t be deployed, and these are deployment capabilities we are talking about here.

Getting Moving

Because you really do not have any time to lose – here’s a few entertaining (or worrying) questions to close with:

• How many years, and how many months, before you want to retire?
• How many months have you been indecisive?
• Therefore, what percentage of your career have you waiting?
• How long can you tolerate more delay?
• What do you need to do right now to start moving this forward?

Okay, i’m out of here – because like you, I have no time to lose.

Just do me a favour – talk to someone about this if you are needing support in your decisions or follow-through. And if you don’t have anyone else to talk to, talk to me.

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Children are reliant on others. Very young children, heavily dependent. Older children, much less so. Yet, even as we mature and drive forward in the grown-up world, the habits of dependence linger. To a large extent, because it is convenient to the powers that be, who have constructed a society of dependency.

Dependency is a balance of power, with one party under the control of the other, to a certain degree.

If someone is dependent on another for financial support, the other person can determine the terms and conditions. What choice does that dependent child have?

With independent means, at least economically, you do not have to accept the terms, and can walk away from the deal.

Thus, a key part of the journey to self-reliance, adulthood, is the pursuit of financial independence.

There are many other aspects of self-reliance that need to be considered in this journey too. For instance, to what extent are you:

• An independent thinker? Being able to think critically about issues of importance to you, without being unduly influenced by others, including news outlets and partners.
• Self-reliant for your own emotional and mental wellbeing? Do you determine what emotions you feel at any point, or are you triggered by others?
• Physically self-reliant? There are limits here, but being as healthy as you possibly can be, able to manage your diet, health and fitness, without the need for medication, will put you in a good place.
• Choosing your own values and beliefs? The odds are stacked against you on this one, but you can (judiciously) step out of your culture, and choose what to believe in rather than accepting the values and beliefs of those around you.

These, and many other aspects need serious consideration on the road to self-reliance, and the further you travel along it, the more content and in control of your life you will be.

Don’t run away with the idea that I am advocating disconnection with those around you. Quite the opposite in fact.

Because, the more self-reliant you become, the more able you will be to engage with others in a fair and equitable way. From a position of strength you will then be able to decide how to support others in their journey. And, how to have fun together with unbreakable relationships – collaborating for mutual benefit.

Articles Related to Self-Reliance

• Desperate Need for Independence
• Standing Your Ground
• STOP Getting Hijacked by Your Emotions

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If you want examples, take a look at the first article linked at the foot of this article.

Which is a bit of a problem, because if this is true for you, you will shy away from this essential phenomena in organisational cultures.

Ringing any bells with you? Read on.

With my Private Clients, I like help them to cultivate curiosity around the politics. Curiosity is a positive mindset. We are curious about strange things, intriguing mysteries and such like, and have an interest in getting to the bottom of it.

This raises motivation and hence activity. And will (positive) activity will come insight and learning.

The problem most people have in doing this is settling down the negative emotions long enough to allow curiosity to bubble up. How you do this will vary, but resetting your notion of what politics is will help enormously. 

Many consider it to be the duplicitous actions of the self-serving characters that warp the way things happen, or block what should be happening. I get that.

Private clients learn to see it as a necessary dynamic of decisions, at individual and group levels, that facilitate how things get done. Yes, some are more driven by their own personal agendas, but it is still behaviour that moves towards decisions.

From that perspective, your job is to puzzle it out, get fascinated by how they are making decisions and how this interplays with others. Can you find the answer? It’s there, perhaps right under your nose. Perhaps this needs to expand into a team game?!

Getting More Curious About the Politics

• Corporate Politics: Necessary Evil or Waste of Time
• Making Sense of Political Upheaval
• Developing Political Curiosity
• Puzzling Out Organisational Politics
• Mastering the Politics: Course Outline

Ref: BIL8

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A subtle aspect of this is missed by many, especially those who are more experienced.

The problem comes from the skill of judgement. As the years roll by, the experience stacks up, we all get better at this fine art. Unfortunately, this opens us up to three major risks.

Firstly, when you judge, you can will most likely do so from your perspective, based on your knowledge, experience and wisdom. Which may, or may not, be right for them. That is would be right if you were in their place is true, but they are not you. So you risk arriving at the wrong judgement.

Secondly, when you are good at making judgements about people, you’ll have all your beliefs at work filtering the information coming in. Without noticing it, your values and biases will warp what you see. Another reason why your judgement may be wide of the mark.

Finally, you’ll likely damage the relationship. We all like and need feedback, but deep down we don’t like being judged. Indeed, you don’t even need to voice your judgement for others to start picking up that you are judging them. They will notice that quizzical look, or the raised eyebrow.

Naturally, we all have to make judgements all of the time. At the advanced level though, suspending judgement long enough to get sufficient accurate information enables us to manage down these risks. 

Additionally, it helps you to build enough empathy and understanding that will give you clues about how best to convey your views without damaging the relationship. Along with the inbuilt aversion to being judged, we all share a deep desire to be understood.

Related to Judgement

• Suspending Judgement
• How to be Understood
• What’s Missing from Your Relationships at Work?

Ref: BIL12

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Comments about how impossible it is to develop these, and in one case, “I’m just not like that.”

Nonsense.

These things are easy, when you know how.

How do I know that? 

Because I’ve done it, and I’ve helped many people in my Private Client Practice to do the same. Naturally, there are some challenges along the way, but it can be done if you put your mind to it, have the right support and, if you believe it can be done.

If you’re willing to give it a try, here’s one template approach I use to support clients to accelerate their personal develop.

1. Develop your vision. Who do you want to be? What do you want to be capable of? To stimulate your thinking, return to the top-talent article, pick up on the nine executive capabilities, or maybe, consider the Influence to Thrive model. All of these inform my work with private clients so use these to develop your own ideas on how you’d like to change.
2. Identify role-models for each characteristic or capability you wish to develop. Don’t look for someone who displays all of them, they’re likely to be hard to find! So break it down and find someone who you think displays just one of your chosen characteristics, for example Decision Agility or Building Political Theories.
3. Dip into the literature. For each characteristic, hunt down the books, articles and videos that talk to that quality. See what the “experts” have to say on the matter. Become familiar with what it means in practice – exactly what you will need to be doing, thinking, being.
4. Take a hard look at yourself, against each of the capabilities you wish to develop. Don’t beat yourself up, but look rationally at what you’re good at, not so good at, and try to establish your starting point. Give yourself a score out of 100 for each capability.
5. Set some goals, then make a plan. How would you like to score in 3 month’s time? What action are you going to take? This is where it can get a little tricky, so make use of a good coach/mentor to help you think it through.
6. Monitor weekly. How are you getting along with your action, and what results are you getting? It’s fine to stumble at the start. A few wrong turns here and then is fine. The important thing is to keep thinking of making more progress towards your vision.
7. Formally review at the end of three months by returning to your scoring. How would you grade each characteristic now, out of 100? If you’ve taken this seriously and have been reflecting on progress regularly, you’ll likely have changed quite a bit (at least on those you have been focusing on). Finally, knowing what you know now, what was the real score back when you started? This is quite a great way to recognise how far you have travelled in your development journey.

Now, plan again. What about the next 3 months, what are you going to do, and what scores would you like to be achieving at the end of the next phase? 

If you’d like the opportunity to work with me as a Private Client, all you need to do is schedule a call so we can review your situation and give me the chance to check if you’re the sort of person I’d love to work with. Hint, this is not so much about your currently level of achievement, but rather, what’s going on inside your head and your heart.

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