Do You Have High Blood Pressure?

By Marcus M. Mottley, Ph.D.

There are times when we turn a blind eye to the realities of what’s happening in our lives. We consciously or unconsciously avoid asking the key questions that we should. We become comfortable with personal and professional conditions that are much less than optimal. As things decline, rather than make small adjustments, we accept the deteriorating situations and do nothing. We allow things to get worse and to move slowly towards disaster until it is almost too late to make a comeback.

This was the case with an executive who I was coaching. He had just turned 50 years old and ‘suddenly’ realized that his blood pressure was 140/90. Five years ago, his blood pressure was 125/83 and apparently had ‘quietly’ increased steadily. Over the years, he had resisted exercising and changing his diet. According to him he was ‘too busy’ and too focused on ‘living life’ and fulfilling his career dream. He had put on 29 pounds in five years… and those pounds were in the wrong places!

These were subtle, gradual, creeping changes which now, five years later, were still not enough to persuade him to be overly concerned. That is, until I got him to project and track these changes five years into the future. I got him to understand his life backwards and forwards so that he would have a life – today and tomorrow.

And so I asked him, “If you continued to do the things that you have done over the past five years, and based on the rate of progression over that time period, what might your weight and blood pressure (and health) be five years from now into the future?”

Though he was resistant and slow to respond, the answers to that question gradually shook him awake, and he began to look more closely at his past and current activities. Those answers jerked him (still somewhat reluctantly) into planning and implementing (minor) lifestyle changes which he could easily and painlessly integrate.

Once we recognize that negative shifts have taken place in our lives, it behooves us to decide how we will respond. Ask yourself: If I continue to do the things that I have been doing, what will life be like in one year? Two years? Five years?

Ask questions. Hear the answers. Take action! Those are the three keys of personal and professional transformation.