Understanding the four ingredients of professional Mojo and how to avoid killing it
Marshall Goldsmith wrote Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It and in his book, he says that four ingredients need to be combined in order for you to have great Mojo:
The Four Essential Ingredients of Mojo
1. Identity: Who you think you are?
Our identity is created in a number of ways: remembered (life experience), reflected (what others think of us), programmed (what others think we should be), and created (what we consciously choose to be).
Key Insight: “To change your Mojo, you may need to either create a new identity for yourself or rediscover an identity that you have lost.”
2. Achievement: What have you done lately?
There is a difference between what we think we achieve and what others think we achieve. When these get out of sync we can have a Mojo crisis. Understand what “achievement” means to you.
Key Insight: “Try not to go through life deluding yourself by pretending that when the world cares, you do—or pretending that when the world does not care, you do not care.”
3. Reputation: What do other people think you are?
Your reputation is a scoreboard kept by others. You can’t control it, but if it’s killing your Mojo, there’s a lot you can do to improve it. You can choose the reputation you want if you are disciplined enough to live out your objectives in daily, consistent behaviors.
4. Acceptance: What can you change, and what is beyond your control?
Acceptance means you dispense with what Goldsmith calls the Great Western Disease—the “I’ll be happy when…” statement. You know how it goes: “I will be happy when I have a million dollars in the bank, when my house is bigger, or when I look the way I want.” There’s nothing wrong with wanting those things but we often fixate on the future at the expense of enjoying the life we’re living now.
Key Insight: “By carrying around anger and negative baggage, we weigh ourselves down. We limit our opportunities to find meaning and happiness. We kill our Mojo.”
Six Ways We Kill Our Own Mojo
We kill our Mojo by committing mistakes like these:
1. Over-committing
When you’re bursting with Mojo, everybody wants you to be a part of what you’re doing. This can lead to over-commitment. It is “one of the sweet but risky blowbacks from having Mojo.” Understandably we don’t want to look weak, naturally, we loved to be included, or perhaps we think we’re superhuman, but whatever the case it can kill our Mojo.
2. Waiting For the Facts to Change
This is wishful thinking. It is a common response to a setback. It’s the opposite of over-committing because while you’re waiting for a more comfortable set of facts to appear, you do nothing.
Goldsmith’s Advice: “When the facts are not to your liking, ask yourself, ‘What path would I take if I knew that the situation would not get better?’ Then get ready to do that.”
3. Looking For Logic in All the Wrong Places
Humans are not always logical, yet we persist in trying to find logic where no logic exists or try to prove others wrong with our superior logic.
Goldsmith’s Advice: “The next time you pride yourself on your superior ‘logic’ and damage relationships with people you need at work—or the people you love at home—ask yourself, ‘How logical was that?'”
4. Bashing the Boss
This should speak for itself. See acceptance.
5. Refusing to Change Because of “Sunk Costs”
“We persist in error,” says Goldsmith, “because we cannot admit error.” If your decisions are based on what you have to lose instead of what you have to gain, your “sunk costs” may be costing you more than you know.
6. Confusing the Mode You’re In
There is our professional mode and our relaxed mode. And we shift between the two without even thinking about it.
Professional Mode: “The executives you most admire tend to be those who, with constant discipline, never drift out of professional mode….They have chosen a role for themselves, and they rarely go off-script. They are professionals. That’s why they have Mojo.”
Applying Mojo Principles
Self-Assessment: Your Mojo Status
Which of the four ingredients of Mojo do you need to work on most? Are you committing any of the six Mojo-killing mistakes identified by Goldsmith? What one change could you make today to enhance your professional Mojo?
Source: LeadershipNow.com