June 22nd, 2011 by Norm Trainor, The Covenant Group

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By Norm Trainor

Many finan­cial advi­sors tell me that they suf­fer from sleep dis­or­ders. I have expe­ri­enced dis­rup­tive sleep pat­terns since my child­hood. Often, I will wake up at 3 or 4 AM and have dif­fi­culty get­ting back to sleep. My mind kicks in and will not rest. I think about my busi­ness and the chal­lenges we face. Like many high achiev­ers, I am dri­ven to achieve busi­ness goals and my focus is on what we need to do to accom­plish our objec­tives. At times, my desire to achieve those goals gets in the way of my performance.

My wife, Wendy, is a Mar­i­tal and Sex Ther­a­pist. One of the things she has taught me is that anx­i­ety is blocked excite­ment. When­ever we expe­ri­ence anx­i­ety, it is a result of los­ing touch with our excite­ment. Many suc­cess­ful finan­cial advi­sors have dif­fi­culty in dif­fer­en­ti­at­ing between goals and work­ing to the best of their abil­i­ties. They don’t wake up in the morn­ing and say “I’m going to work to the high­est level of my capa­bil­ity today.” They start out with a goal. It is the goal that moti­vates them. The pro­found point of dif­fer­ence is in the pur­suit of doing your best ver­sus need­ing to achieve an out­come. You learn to give up your attach­ments to results. If you are true to your pur­pose, what will hap­pen is meant to be. If you do your best and do not achieve your goal, it is the right out­come. This is a pow­er­ful insight and, yet, we are often left with the ques­tion, what do we do about it?

For many finan­cial advi­sors, the drive is to reach a desired rev­enue goal e.g. $150,000, $500,000, $1,000,000, etc., not to be the best they can be. You change the inner game when you pur­sue your goals as a means of ful­fill­ing your capa­bil­ity. The para­dox is that pur­su­ing a goal often gets in the way of peak per­for­mance, espe­cially when anx­i­ety comes into play. We begin to obsess and worry about the achieve­ment of the goal. As a result, we lose touch with our excite­ment about what we are doing and why we are doing it.

One of the best ways to achieve bet­ter out­put is to let go of your attach­ment to results. If you are doing your best, then being attached to out­comes can only reduce your out­put, let alone qual­ity of life. Goals are use­ful in that they give us a tar­get to pur­sue. When we con­vert those goals into objec­tives i.e. spe­cific mea­sur­able results within a stated time­frame, we can track our progress.

What is impor­tant is to keep the end game in per­spec­tive. Our work is not about reach­ing a goal. At its best, work makes us whole. It is a means of express­ing what is impor­tant to us and gives us mean­ing. We spend more time at work than in any other area of our lives. If we are not enjoy­ing our work, it takes a toll on the rest of our lives. So, next time you wake up at 4 AM and find your­self obsess­ing about work, take a minute to re-connect with your excite­ment about what you are doing and why you are doing it. This will allow you to fall back into a pleas­ant and rest­ful sleep.

Norm Trainor is the founder of The Covenant Group, a com­pany spe­cial­iz­ing in prac­tice devel­op­ment for advi­sors. For fur­ther infor­ma­tion, visit his Web site at www​.covenant​group​.com.

Fol­low The Covenant Group at:

Norm Trainor is the Founder and CEO of The Covenant Group, a company that specializes in educating and coaching financial advisors and entrepreneurs and providing them with business tools to enhance their performance. He can be reached at norm@covenantgroup.com or 1-877-903-3878 X333. Read more from the author/contributor here.

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Tags: Anxiety, Attachments, Back To Sleep, Business Goals, Capability, Desire, Excitement, Financial Advisors, High Achievers, Inner Game, Insight, Losing Touch, Norm Trainor, Paradox, Peak Performance, Performance Anxiety, Sex Therapist, Sleep, Sleep Disorders, Sleep Patterns, Wife Wendy
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