There is a frustrating experience that all coaches, consultants, infoproduct sellers, personal trainers, yoga instructors, and anyone involved in trying to change someone’s life goes through.
I call it “The Enemy Of Self Justification”.
If you know a personal trainer or someone else in one of the fields above ask em’ if this is true.
They will, regularly, have to face this phenomenon and if they don’t learn to accept it it will stress them out and eat them alive.
Here’s how it goes…
Person see’s advertisement, hears through word of mouth, finds their business on Google or whatever – they hear about the business.
They then, very excitedly, sign up to said business. They picture a new them with the transformation they want.
At first they take action and are excited as hell about the future.
But then, eventually, and EVERYONE hits it…
…they come to what I call a ‘Self-Justification-Point’. Or SJP for short.
As someone who wants to help people, the SJP is a nemesis. An enemy. A point in time you know will either make or break the person who wanted to change their lives in some way.
When the person who signed up for your product, service, class or whatever hits the Self Justification Point (SJP) their enthusiasm starts to wane.
They start thinking about alternatives.
They start to wonder if this is right for them.
And then, and here’s the killer part, they start to look for reasons WHY it’s not right for them.
Let me give you an example from my own life recently…
I told you my knees and back were bad and I went to my chiropractor. I excitedly envisioned
myself being much more fit and healthy and able to play football again.
First week I was doing the exercises and really feeling positive.
Last week – I hit a SJP.
“Maybe a yoga class would be better to sort my issues?”
“Maybe I’ll always have bad knees and a crappy back and this is a waste of time”
“Maybe there’s a more exciting way to sort this than these boring exercises?”
Now, the good news is, I know the SJP well enough to recognise it and it made me ANGRY.
You see, I’ve experienced the SJP in so, so many customers and clients over the years that this point is my enemy in others. And when I saw it in myself, because we all have it, I got downright angry.
And I ignored the thoughts, focused on my goal and I’m still going strong with my chiro work and will do, no matter what, till I get to my goal.
Here’s an example in the business space…
Person decides they want to start a business.
Person finds program, class, mentor or whatever that can help them do that.
Person excitedly pictures a life of freedom, adventure, impact, security…
Person takes action at first…
…then hits an SJP.
“Maybe there is a better option?”
“Maybe there is an easier option?”
“I could never do this”
“This isn’t getting me quick enough results”
Etc etc.
And so they start looking for alternatives.
Now, there’s a big, big problem with the Self Justification Point.
It’s pretty much always built on Cognitive Biases.
A cognitive bias is when you distort reality based off of weird deviations and judgements.
In the case of the SJP – it’s nearly always based on fear.
And here’s the KILLER…
The SJP is based off of thinking patterns that got people there in the first place.
For example, if someone is trying to shed the belly…their SJP’s will be based off the thought
patterns that got them the belly in the first place.
If someone is looking to start a business, their SJP’s will be based off why they are at that level of income in life, or why they’ve failed at business attempts before.
If someone is looking to learn how to approach the opposite sex in a bar, their SJP’s will be based off the beliefs that led them to NOT approach people in a bar in the first place.
See the problem? The Self Justification Point is what’s REALLY in the way of people getting results.
So you have to become aware of it…and take action in spite of it.
Without knowing that it is just a faulty way of thinking you might believe it, buy into the story of it and then give up or look for alternatives and repeat the cycle.
But now you know about it, recognise when you start to question things on your journey, which, inevitably, you will at some point. Might be in the first week, first month, first year…but any time you do something out of your comfort zone the SJP will rear it’s ugly head.
See it, get angry at it and move on anyway. It’s just a story, an echo from the past that will keep you trapped if you let it.