A Plan to Fail

In his book, The Power of Other, Dr. Henry Cloud reports that in a recent anonymous survey, 80% of leaders polled admitted that in the last year, they have struggled with depression, clinical level anxiety, addictions, suicidal thoughts, serious concentration and motivation problems, and sleeplessness/insomnia.

I think a large majority of these people are not only afraid to be honest and openly share their struggles with someone they trust, but they are also trying to “will” themselves to stop their destructive behaviors.

Many motivated and well-intended people will attempt to stop bad habits and destructive behavior by coming up with checklists and itemized to-do lists of what they plan on “doing” to stop them.

This plan might work temporarily, however, it is not sustainable because they will only further wear themselves out by increasing their output.

They hope to “do” a bunch of things in order to stop a certain behavior, but in the end, it will leave them frustrated and discouraged.

Why?

Their entire plan is built on them expressing strength rather than building strength. And this strategy has nothing to do with bringing fulfillment to their needs or strength to their weaknesses.

Next week, we will look at how we can practically build strength while trying to establish lasting change.