I’m realizing more and more the importance of having a personal development coach to keep evolving. I just finished reading Who Are You Really and What Do You Want by Shad Helmstetter: a powerful book on self-talk and the importance of having a coach. Incidentally, I’m in the 5th week of my coaching program with Peak Potentials. I had life coaches in the past, I didn’t really see the need to have one now, but boy oh boy is it catapulting me at exponential speed!
It started by a resistance of having to report daily. I find that I already report to myself enough and I didn’t need someone else to keep me in check. I feared that this would add to the pressure I’m already putting on myself to perform. When I openly admitted to my coach that I didn’t want to report on my daily activities, I also opened up to understanding a deeper meaning to this repulsion.
Not reporting to someone else was in fact a way to keep lying to myself into the belief that I was making a lot of effort. When I got that out of my system, I realized that I could ask a lot more of myself… and it didn’t feel demanding at all! In fact, it’s even fun and exciting to exceed the daily and weekly objectives that I set for myself! I’ve also introduced the concept of weekly rewards (I treat myself to a nice restaurant) but I feel that I don’t even need external rewards that much. The simple feeling of pride in beating my weekly goals is enough satisfaction to keep me going and constantly aim higher.
I feel that I’m redoing part of my education. Something went wrong in my initial programming regarding effort and rewards and I have to set that straight. This comparison might sound weird but it feels like training a dog. The reward or the punishment need to come right after the good or bad behaviour. Your window of opportunity to show a dog he did something right or wrong is very narrow. Well I’m applying a similar concept for my efforts. If I do something positive, such as an effort in the right direction of my personal development, I treat myself to something good. If I don’t do what I should be doing, then I don’t allow myself the reward.
That’s how it started at least. Because very quickly, I didn’t need to grant myself physical rewards and the simple pride of knowing that I am on the right track is enough to keep me going. I feel like I’m the parent of my inner child and I’m re-educating and re-programming him so that he enjoys making efforts in order to grow.
This is crucial in setting up passive income streams because it’s a lot of upfront work before results show. I believe that being able to discipline ourselves is crucial in succeeding a passive income project. Bob Proctor says it time and again: “Discipline is the ability to give yourself a command and follow it.” And I can now grasp the full extent of this quote as I am now starting to get scared to see less and less limits to where I can go!
If you want to learn more on building passive income stream, read my article Getting Started With Passive Income.