I love it when I hear something that inspires me to write about it and share the idea. As a coach I have a coach, and on a recent call he brought up a concept that he said too many people deal with. Unfortunately, I figured out I was one of those people.

His question that got me thinking was this;

Am I busy moving forward toward my goals in life or am I spending a lot of time defending where I am currently?

To paraphrase, Am I playing Offense or Defense?

On offense the objective is to score, on defense the objective is to keep the offense from scoring. I realized that I was spending way too much time on the defense and the offense I was keeping from was not some opponent, but it was me. Instead of just doing what needed to be done I was thinking of, and perfecting excuses as to why I was not where I needed to be. Wow! What a realization.

As a business coach this is one of the easy things to see within a client, but when you look into the mirror it is difficult to see it in yourself. One of the reasons is that both teams on the field are wearing the same uniform.

There are so many things that we do to put ourselves on the defensive side of the ball. Doubt, negative self-talk, procrastination, etc….

My question to you is what do you to put yourself on Defense that keeps you from reaching your goals?

Once you are aware of it, you can make the mental note to switch back to offense and score.