This principle is a key resource in becoming exceptionally effective

On getting results

‘Getting results is matter of persistence’ is a phrase constantly repeated by people and literature. I’d have to say that I agree with that, although I would add something to this phrase.

It’s not only about trying and trying, hitting your head against the wall, and hoping for things to work out. I’m not saying stop trying; I’m just saying change your approach if you’re not getting the results you want.

You might be thinking, ‘Duh!’, that’s only common sense. Regardless of whatever ‘common sense’ might mean to you, you would be amazed by the number of people who do the same thing over and over again and wonder why they keep getting the same unwanted results over and over again.

Here is an example of this pattern in action.

Imagine that in order for you to get home every day, you had to walk down a dark alley late at night. Everyone knows this alley is quite dangerous, and in fact, every time you walk down that particular alley, you get mugged.

But you keep on doing it because it is the way you have taken your whole life and the only way you know so far. Furthermore, it is the only way that shows up in your GPS system when you are making your way home.

What else are you going to do if, either way, you have to get home, right?

Now, one day, you bump into your neighbour, and you tell him your story. You tell him you are tired of getting mugged every night on your way back home. To that, he responds, ‘There is another way,” and he describes it to you and shows it to you in his GPS system. You look at it and think, ‘Wow, that looks like something I could do’.

The next day comes, and you open your GPS looking for that same way, and you realise that it is not showing in your map. So you decide to stick to the one you know instead of trying out (if even just for the sake of experiment) to go a different way.

I mean, what would you do that for? You already know the one you’ve taken for years, and although you know it will mean you will be getting mugged, you think, ‘At least I already know what is going to happen’.

And so you keep behaving in the same manner, obtaining the same results over and over again. Regardless of all the other options that you could possibly try out there,

Which brings us to the main point of today’s article.

Flexibility is key

Although you certainly cannot know what results you may get from taking the other road on your way home, what’s wrong with experimenting?

In the fascinating field of NLP, there is a powerful principle that says the following:

“If what you are doing is not working do something (anything) else”.

Think about it: who knows what you can find? If you get more unwanted results, you simply go find another one again, and if they get better, you can also check out other ones, as things might just get better and better.

The most exceptionally effective people I know consistently work out different and more effective ways to do things by taking in feedback every time they try. As Thomas A. Edison once said, “I have not failed; I have found 10,000 ways that don’t work.”

What’s important is not that you try, but that you take in the feedback from your attempts and create new options based on that.

Remember, this is practical advice, not just another theory, so do go out and try it, and let me know how you went.

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