Achieve More By Sucking Less

You suck!

Don’t be offended, we all suck in some way, in some places, at some time. Rather than being offended, storming off in a huff, or sticking your head in the sand, try taking a deeper look at some of those weak areas in your life and figure out how you can improve them.

The operative word in self-improvement is self. You don’t need always need to read the next motivational best seller, attend a consciousness raising mini-camp, or walk across a mile of burning hot coals. Sometimes all you need is a little introspection.

Take a look at the areas in your life where things are not as good as you want them to (i.e. “what sucks?”) and ask yourself the following questions. The answers may be all you need to get moving…

(Note: these questions can be applied to your business or to your personal life. Try them with both.)

Why Do You Suck?

Don’t beat yourself up in the way you answer this question (“I suck because I am the world’s most awful person!”) Be realistic and honest. Do you suck because you are lazy? Because you are shy? Because there is some knowledge you are missing?

The nice thing about this question is that it forces you to look at yourself. You can’t say, “oh, I’m unsuccessful because the market crashed.” Nope, that’s not why you suck.

Interestingly, your knee jerk answer may be more important than the “truth.” If you do find yourself saying, “I suck because I am stupid,” and then later acknowledge that’s not true, your initial response is still indicative of some kind of an internal issue. going on. I’m not therapist (Smart Ass Psychiatry? I think not…) but I would say that you may want to get some help with that.

Take a look at your answer(s) to this question, and then create a plan to eliminate those limitations (take a class, change your routine, talk to someone, etc.)

Where Do You Suck?

No one sucks universally. We all have some environments where we do quite well in and some where we are just awful. Make a list of the places that you feel you do not do well in. Then do two things:

1. Try to figure out what it is about those places that brings out your suckitude. If you can figure that out, you can learn a lot about yourself. For example, I know someone who didn’t like to go to hoity-toity places. It turned out that was because he had low self-esteem and didn’t feel he belonged. Armed with that knowledge, he could address the underlying issue. You may not have that huge a revelation, but you might discover some interesting things about yourself.
2. As much as possible, avoid those places. Why would you want to go to a place where you suck?

With Whom Do You Suck?

Just like environments, we all have people in our lives who bring out the worst in us. For whatever reason, they just push out buttons, get our hackles up, and make us do things we later on regret. Who are those people in your life?

Once you know who they are, ask yourself, “what is it about these people that bring out the worst in me? Why do I respond to them the way I do?”

Sure, they may be awful human beings, but you are still the one sucking in your response to them. Maybe you get short tempered with them (work on letting go). Maybe they challenge you (get better at what you do or build your self esteem). Maybe they impose on you and make you feel guilty (get better at saying “no.”) And so on…

Of course, regardless of what you can learn from people who annoy you, you’ll still want to eliminate as many of them from your life. Stop spending time with them and start spending time with people who bring out the best, not the worst, in you.

When Do You Suck?

Are you a morning person or evening person? Do you suck in the middle of the day, right when you get home for work, or as soon as you wake up?

Sometimes out suckiness is triggered by an event. Figuring out when you suck can help you denitrify what that trigger is. For example, I used to suck the 30-60 minutes before I had to teach a kids martial arts class (I have written about my lack of joy in teaching the kids before). I would be negative, reclusive, and kind of pissy to the people around me. That connection was pretty obvious, but I missed it. In the same way, you might not realize what’s triggering your awfulness, even if though it may seem obvious in retrospect.

If there is a consistent time to your sucktacularness, see if you can identify the cause. The, either remove the cause (in my case: stop teaching a kids martial arts class), change the time (don’t schedule “quality time” or important meetings at times you are usually Mr. Crankypants), or change your approach (find a way of improving your situation).

Now for the “Motivational” Stuff

Now that you have gone through the “sucking self-analysis questions,” it is time for a love-fest. You don’t want to spend a bunch of time doing nothing but thinking about how bad you are. That could get down right depressing. So once you have finished analyzing your suckiosity, take a few minutes to write down your answers to the following:

• Why am I great?
• What am I awesome at?
• Who in my life brings out the best in me?
• Where do I love to go?
• When am I at my best?
• What am I grateful for?

Take some time to bask in your answers to those questions and feel good about yourself. Then go back and look at the previous questions and start unsuckifying yourself.

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