Habits, routines, structure, preconceived ideas, mental blocks! We load ourselves up with barriers that can often prevent us from moving forward, and often, will drag us back. They become the very things that deter us from progress, challenge us into complacency, and numb us into inaction.
You should take an inventory and identify them for what they are! From a corporate perspective, a good place to start is my list of the "innovation killers" - the phrases and attitudes that destroy our ability to innovate, change and adapt.
- “We’ve always done it this way”
- “It won’t work”
- “That’s the dumbest thing I ever heard”
- “That’s not my problem”
- “You can’t do that”
- “It’s against tradition”
- ...and so many more excuses
Go through the list and find out what's holding you back - work to kill the killers!
At a personal level, it's always worthwhile to examine the barriers that surround you and the weights that drag you down. It might be your mindset, your actions, your routines, or in many cases, your destructive habits. Inventory them in order to begin to take action - from a personal perspective, what change barriers do you encounter that are self-imposed, and within your control? Which are due to circumstances beyond your control? Which ones are minor and easily managed, and which are probably too big and significant to make any progress for now?
Parse them down into those that are actionable, and those that are not. Control what you can control, and put the others on the back burner as long as you can while you figure out what to do with them. And as you start to think through solutions, keep this path in mind – what can you do about them if you think creatively, as opposed to trying to barge your way through?
The things that hold you back are the things you need to confront - without that, progress is sparse!