As a coach, I talk about change all the time with my clients, here in my blogs, and from the stage. Although change is a widely researched process with many case studies available, there is a lesser-known addiction that gets in the way of creating change.
You know what you want on the other side of change, or maybe what you don’t want where you are now. Either way, change is that slippery, hard to climb and often-unknown obstacle between those two places. You’ve tried to come at it every which way and sometimes with multiple tries, but still haven’t gotten what you are looking for, leaving you frustrated and with a lower self-confidence that you realize.
I believe what is in your way is hopium. That’s right, a drug called hopium that some people have addictions to ranging from mild and purely social to severe and debilitating. You may be consuming your own product or a dealer for someone else, and it can be very seductive.
Are you a Hopium Addict?
Here are ten signs to help you identify if you are addicted to hopium in some way and it’s affecting your results around change.
- You know what you don’t want and have hired some experts to help you assess the situation and clarify the areas to press first. Then you constantly complain that change is hard, using your best, most irritating, whiney voice while doing nothing differently, because something always comes up that makes change inconvenient.
- You jump around to every brand or system available to create the change you want and have found every reason that each of them fall short of your expectations while not creating the results they promised.
- You brought in a hired gun who will do the shooting for you and leave you with a sought after, renowned culture that churns huge profits at the same time.
- You’ve done the work in your team be ‘good enough’, leaving the most toxic people alone so as not to stir the pot or make a bad thing worse. A few skeletons in the closet won’t hurt anyone.
- Your leadership learning curve has been a steep one and you have faced yourself numerous times along the way. No one knows you like you do so including team or colleague feedback isn’t necessary to reach the top of your game.
- Although your strategic initiatives have not come to fruition in the past and your profits are lagging, you have a good group of people that understand your frustrations and the issues at hand. They’ve all agreed to dig in and work harder so it will be different soon.
- You have repeatedly expressed your frustrations to key people around you about how the results and experience are not what you want. In spite of nodding heads and apparent understanding, they aren’t changing or taking responsibility for the results you want.
- You are facing some tough times and the pressure is on from all angles to turn this company around. No need to get lost in the numbers, piles of reports or strategic planning when it’s all about the people, and you are determined to put your time and energy there (or visa versa).
- Change is a complex thing so you are taking in all the information you can, knowing that when you have sufficient data, the change will be much easier.
- The results/changes listed on the label of whatever you are taking aren’t happening so you are returning the product for a refund. If this pill can’t fix your problems, there must be another one out there that can.
If any of the above resonates with you, you have a ‘hopium addiction’, and you are not alone.
Our world deals in hopium with a barrage of marketing messages about buying particular products or services that make us feel better, look better and of course, become increasingly smarter with little to no other effort on our parts. Just eat, wear, buy, drive, be seen with, use or drink X, and you will instantly become a better version of yourself. That is the sales pitch of ‘hopium’ – promising greatness while breeding mediocrity with no accountability.
**The number one side affect is it’s ability to cloud over accountability, where all roads lead back to you with zero escape routes or excuses.**
Even relationships use hopium as ways to avoid disagreements, passionate debates, being authentic and holding each other to higher standards. We would rather be nice and likable than call forth greatness that scares the pants off us.
“No one cares about your best excuse”
Unfortunately, I’m not interested in just talking about the change you want and I don’t deal in hopium of any kind. I’m far more interested in supporting you to do what it takes to create change that betters you, your leadership, your company, the people involved in your company and the bottom line.
That’s right. You do the work, and I’ll be with you through it to the other side; no matter how good of bad you think it is now, no matter how many times you’ve tried before and whether or not you have any idea how to get there.
And if that scares you, you’re ready to let go of hopium and step into a reality of something much greater. Contact me now to kick your hopium addiction with the support to make the changes worthwhile, and lasting.
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Need a little extra support, call me to get started. Here’s to you finding your awesome!