Plateau Breaking 101: Develop New Relationships, Structures and Habits

Do you ever feel stuck, like you’ve hit a plateau on your path to success? Do you want to take your business or personal life to the next level?

If so, then guess what? You ain’t gonna get there doing the same things that got you to where you are now.

If you feel you’ve reached a plateau, the solution may seem to be to work longer and harder, but that rarely works as a long term strategy because there is only so hard and so many hours you can work.

However, even if you have heard it before, have you really thought about what it means? What exactly do you need to do differently?

I was recently going through Dan Sullivan’s excellent How the Best Get Better program which I have written about before (point #5 in this article).

He mentioned this same idea, but rather than leaving it as a generic bit of advice, he lists three specific areas you need to change to push past your current plateau and move to the next level:

• Relationships
• Support structures
• Habits

Even though I had heard about idea of “doing something different to get different results,” I hadn’t really rocked it out until I heard Sullivan’s program. I implemented his ideas, and immediately started seeing a difference.

Take a look at the three areas below and see what you can start doing differently now to get different results for yourself.

Relationships

This is where it all starts. If you want to do better work for more money, you need new relationships. Your current relationships have given you your current level of success.

Similarly, if you are unhappy or unfulfilled in your personal life, then you may need to seek out and build relationships that will let you rejuvenate and grow.

I am not saying you need to run out and start kicking people out of your life who you like and who have supported you. Keep those relationships (as long as they are two-directional, mutually beneficial relationships), just open your mind to the possibility of building new ones.

Ask yourself two things:

1. Who specifically do I need to build a new or better relationship with? Maybe there is a key player in your industry that you need to get to know, or a high level executive in your target market, or a well-networked “connector” who can introduce you to lots of people.
2. What types do I need to build relationships with? Chances are that you have a comfort zone when it comes to relationships. You like to connect with people of a similar position, financial level, age, etc. While they might be wonderful people, they may not be the ones who can help you push yourself to your next level of success. 

I don’t want this to some across as manipulative, like I’m saying you target key people who you will use to get what you want. I still believe networking is about finding and connecting with people whom you genuinely like and enjoy spending time with.

However, as you think about your future, consider building relationships with people who you not only enjoy spending time with, but who might be in a position to help you, your business, and your career grow.

Question: What new relationships do you need to form to take your business, career, or life to the next level? What can you do to start forming those relationships now?

Support Structures

“Support Structures” are those things in your life that help you do what you do. They can encompass your staff, skill-set, environment, technology, etc. Put simply, “support structures” encompass how you set up your business and life.

For example, I am a one man show; I have 0 employees. That’s one structure in my business. I am now getting to a point where I realize that if I want to take my business to the next level, I need a new structure. It was a big change for me, but I hired my first Virtual Assistant, and it has been great. She’s doing a lot of the detail work that I am not good at and don’t enjoy doing so I can focus on what I love and am awesome at.

Another structure from my own life is how I work. I now spend at least one day a week focusing only on my two highest value activities (creating content and connecting with people). That may not sound like much, but it’s so easy to get caught up in all the other “stuff” that weeks go by without me writing anything new or with connecting with business contacts. Those are the two things that are going to take my business to the next level, so I need to structure my life to focus on them, even if that means that some of the other more urgent stuff gets put off.

In your personal life, you have support structures in many areas. If you want to have more free time, maybe you need a new structure for your household chores. If you want to be healthier, you may need a new structure around how and where you work out.

Support Structures may be the hardest to grasp of these three items, but once you start digging around you will find things that you can and must change to take you life and business to the next level.

Question: What new support structures do you need to break through your plateau? What are you limited by, right now?

Habits

Finally, in order to take your business and life to the next level, you will need some new habits.

To get to where you are now, you have probably adopted a series of habits. You get up at a certain time, have a routine you go through each day and week, you have a specific way and style of working.

These habits have worked for you, in that they got you to where you are. At the same time, they are holding you back. That’s the one thing about routines – by doing the same thing over and over, you tend to get the same results over and over again. To grow, you need to break some of those old habits and adopt some new ones.

There are no set habits you must adopt. For me, I have adopted the relatively new habits of waking up earlier, closing my browser while writing (what a difference!), and working in 90 minute uninterrupted blocks. Nothing earth-shattering there, but different enough to increase my productivity and get more important things done.

Question: What new habits do you need? What old ones do you need to break?

I encourage you to take a look at where you are and where you want to be. If those two places are different, and if you feel stuck, then take a look at your relationships, support structures, and habits. Figure out what you need to change, and start changing it.

For more info on Dan Sullivan’s program, check out the How the Best Get Better offering on Amazon.

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Learn the 16 simple but powerful principles that will lead to personal and professional success! In this 200 page book, Avish explains how the ideas from improv comedy can make your life easier and more successful. Check it out Improvise to Success! now!
 

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By Avish Parashar. As the world's only Motivational Improviser, Avish uses techniques from the world of improv comedy to engage, entertain, and educate audiences on ideas around change, creativity, and motivation. Connect with Avish on Google+

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