The Hidden Reason You’re Not as Successful as You Could Be (And How to Fix It Now)

If you’re not where you want to be, there are 3 simple things you can do to fundamentally change your path for the better. 

You’re smart and skilled. You’re motivated and willing to do what it takes. You’ve done everything you’ve been told would lead to success. 

And it hasn’t worked.

Why hasn’t it worked? 

Because you’re only getting part of the story! There’s 3 parts of the mind, and you’re only catering to 2 of them.  

If you’re not familiar, the 3 facets of the mind that drive performance are formally called the cognitive, affective, and conative. At Kolbe, we refer to them as the thinking, feeling, and doing parts of the mind. 

1. Clarity – You don’t understand your own strengths. 

Chances are, you’re pretty familiar with your strengths regarding intelligence and personality, but chances are also pretty good you’re not as familiar with your strengths in that third part of the mind. That’s all about your instincts and natural way of solving problems. 

If you don’t have clarity on your strengths in all 3 parts, you’re inevitably going to struggle. When you work against your grain too often, it inevitably leads to burnout and stress.    

When you’re clear on your strengths, decisions become easier, and you can quickly spot where you should be spending your energy.

2. Commitment – You’re managing your time instead of your energy. 

Everyone is worried about having enough time to do things. But truly successful people aren’t worried about time; they’re worried about another finite resource: energy! 

Once you have clarity about your strengths, focus on making wise choices each day about how to commit those strengths to the best and highest use of that energy. It’s important to know when to say “no” to new commitments.  

If you’re leaning into your natural way of doing things and focusing on taking action the way you do best, you’ll get so much more done, more naturally that time will not be an issue anyway. And when you’re done working at the end of the day, your leisure time and time with family will be so much more valuable, because you’ll still have energy left to devote to it.

3. Collaboration – You’re working with the wrong people, or all too often nobody at all. 

Nothing truly great is accomplished alone.  

Everyone has equal conative strengths. But your strengths are different than the strengths of others. So, while you’re focused on using your strengths and committed to saying no to things that don’t use those strengths, you’ll find that often that stuff still needs to get done. 

That means you need to be strategic about who you collaborate with and when! After all, when you’re knowledgeable and intentional, you can combine strengths with others to maximize energy and output.  

Sometimes, the answer is to work alone. Sometimes, you need others with similar strengths to help carry the load seamlessly together and push you to greatness. Often, you’ll encounter projects that require the help of those with strengths much different than yours. Knowing how to maximize your strengths and the strengths of others is an absolute cheat code for communication and for productivity. 

So, you’re not where you want to be. No problem! Once you’re in the zone in all 3 parts of the mind, you’ll find a level of productivity you previously could only imagine!

So, what’s the first step? Take the Kolbe A™ Index and discover what your instinctive strengths are! Get that clarity and build from there.