Some businesses churn more than they grow. This is very frustrating to owners, managers, and employees and often results in the blame game: “If ‘they’d’ do this, then we’d be fine.” This creates internal competitions and interferes with teamwork. People may be fired, demoted and promoted with little change to the company’s results! The longer things churn, the more frustrations develop and the more anger and fear mount inside your organization.

Customers are rarely oblivious to their providers’ internal struggles; although we might like to believe they are. But frustration oozes out, chaos is palpable; customers get conflicting messages as services are delivered inconsistently.

We all have limitations as perfection is impossible. The question is whether we’re willing to accept our limitations or whether we cope by ignoring them or trying to hide them? This is a very complicated subject but highly relevant to everyone’s success.

Our perception of ourselves is what drives and limits us. We all run our businesses or work inside of our businesses based on our egos! Wikipedia explains ego as “I”, “self” or “identity.” Our identity is a value we place on ourselves which is subjective. Are we worthy or not, competent or not, intelligent or not and so on?

Most all of us are trying to make ourselves feel good through what we’re doing. But we may be truly annoying the people we work with! The more we can embrace who we really are, accepting our strengths and weaknesses, the healthier we are and thus the better balanced we are in our businesses. This simply improves us and our businesses.

If you want to improve your business results, you may need to look at your actions, reactions, and think about why you do what you do. Pay attention to how you act and react. Try to objectively analyze your behavior. This is not easy to do and lots of folks need help with this. But our actions and reactions speak volumes about the way we think and what we believe. Are your responses valid to the situation? Is the way you react useful and productive or destructive?

We’ve all been judged by family, friends, teachers, and we have accepted or rejected these judgments as valid or invalid. Think about the messages you received as you grew up. Were they positive or negative? Did you ingrain them or fight them? Are these messages affecting you today? Do you spend your energy trying to hide a weakness you perceive? Do you look for partners that add value to your businesses or ones that don’t threaten you? Is everything someone else’s fault? We paint our destinies, successes, failures, and thus our end results with the thoughts we have. We can even create our greatest fears by reacting to our fears! We can also create our successes.

Our thinking comes from generations of accumulated experiences passed down family lines, as well as the defining experiences they and we have had. If your thoughts, fears or reactions have no legitimate foundation, then they need to be edited.

Most of us are generally good people, no matter how we might react to our environment. Ask yourself honestly, are you a good person? Good people may say: I yell too much, I’m impatient, and go on listing weaknesses they perceive. Great, you’re recognizing where you can improve! So just do it. If you can answer yes to this fundamental question, then your imperfections become less threatening, easier to accept and change and your results will improve! Perhaps not instantly but honestly you’ll see it.

 If you act differently, the people around you will begin to act differently too! If they can’t get a rise like they did before, or you praise instead of bark, or start asking for their ideas and help, the world changes. This makes it easier to understand people around you, break through barriers and ultimately change your business results. If you need help looking at yourself more objectively — and I’m not talking psychotherapy, I’m just talking about looking at your behavior objectively — then reach out and get some. You can keep this private. The real question is how much do you want to change your world or your business results?