Conditioning for Success by Dave Crenshaw

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One comment I hear from people occasionally is, “Dave, you must just have an incredible amount of discipline to be able to follow through with all this stuff.” My response I think surprises them a lot of times.  I tell them that the reason why I stick to this program and the reason why the clients that I work with are still living it two to three years down the road isn’t because of discipline. It is because of conditioning.

Conditioning means that we give a consistent response in certain situations.  For instance, when an e-mail comes in, do you have a consistent response to it?  When someone hands you a business card, what is your set of responses that you have developed over time?

To praise someone for having discipline with time management is a bit like praising a basketball player who makes a free throw and saying he has really good discipline.

Discipline has nothing to do with it.  He had to have discipline to practice, but the reason why he makes the free throw in the game situation is because he is conditioned to behave in a certain way the moment he steps to that free throw line.  Now that doesn’t mean that he has turned into a robot by doing that.  It means that he doesn’t have to worry about the things that he shouldn’t have to worry about.

You shouldn’t have to reinvent the wheel every time an e-mail comes in.  You shouldn’t have to come up with a new system or strategy every time a phone call comes in.  It should be consistent and automatic so that you can focus 100% on the person that’s talking to you.

The strategy that I use in working with my clients has three main points: systems, accountability, and motivation.

Systems are processes and procedures that are documented and every business needs to have systems in order for them to give a consistent experience for the customers, but each employee and each of us individually need to have personal systems, the way in which we handle all of the flows of information into our life.

Second, accountability. Accountability is someone outside of you.  It has to be someone who is focused on your success in that thing.  I have taken golf lessons before and there was so much power in having someone outside of you who is a trained professional who can see what you do.  I provide that accountability for my clients, but I have even hired my coach to make me accountable for my own system because no one is immune to accountability

Number three, motivation.  Motivation is not Chris Farley saying, “I am a motivational speaker and I lived in a van down by the river,” at least it isn’t to me. I believe motivation is what drives you and the reason you have to be more successful.  In the context of time management, what reasons do you have to be able to have extra time every day and be more productive?  Most of the people that I work with want to spend more time on the things that matter most to them, such as spending time with family or loved ones.

When you can tie systems and accountability and motivation together, then you create an atmosphere where you become conditioned to be successful.

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