Getting going again – Wants vs Needs

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

Relaxation - woman in hammock on beachI have just noticed that it is several days since I made entry to this blog. This, despite the fact that I have loads of material in my head to share with you. It set me wondering, what has got in the way to prevent me making my daily entry? After all, it is a matter of minutes to dictate my thoughts, transcribe and upload them.

Then I got round to thinking how often this happens in other areas of my life, and perhaps yours too – I have something that I want or need to do yet somehow or other I find other things more important. I could rationalise that I have spent the last few days fairly intensively coaching some clients and needed downtime to relax and prepare; indeed I can find all sorts of rationalisations about why I did not do this for the last few days. All of those would be making excuses to myself, the jargon is post-hoc rationalisation – when we look back we can always find reasons for things being done or not being done.

So, what is the diagnosis? I suggest that this is an area where we start to explore what I wanted to do, as compared to what perhaps I think I might need to do. As a matter of personal definitions, my wants are driven by internal values – what is important to me – whereas my needs tend to be driven by what I think other people want me to do. I find this a very important distinction, not least because when stick comes to lift my internal drivers will always win over some externally imposed demand.

Think of the various jobs you have to do, whether they are at home or at work, in this context. Are doing that job, is it on your list, because you really really want to do it, or are you doing it because someone else has suggested or told you to do it? Because the former ones will win out when pressure comes on and you can only deliver so much. The latter ones are likely to be candidates for delegation, to somebody who does want to do that piece of work. Remember that we all have different motivations and values and something that I think is a waste of time you might think is the best thing since sliced bread.

So, go through that Incompletes list, that list of yet to be completed tasks, and decide for every one of them “Is this something I personally want to do, that really really interests me, or is it something that I can delegate to someone else who would find it much more interesting because it meets their wants?”

Stretch your brain

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

Energised brainIf you are anything like me your brain will have been on ‘idle’ for the last week or so – occupied with eating, drinking, socialising…and if you are anything like me, it now needs waking up – the metaphorical stretches that we do before exercise to make sure our muscles are warmed up properly. Anyone who has ever done yoga or other forms of exercise knows that unless we use and stretch our muscles regularly they tighten and weaken. Well, the same applies to our brain. Just imagine what your brain might be like if it was NEVER challenged and stretched from childhood – it’s the challenge and stretch that helps us learn and keeps our thinking gear fit and able.

One of the exercises we often challenge our coaching clients to complete is to do something different(ly) every day. It might simply be to read a different newspaper, or travel to work via a different route or mode of tansport, it might be to brush your teeth with the ‘wrong’ hand or to spend 10 minutes just watching the birds instead of the television…there are thousands of ‘differents’ that you could think of and do and any one of them offers the prospect of some learning and certainly keeps the brain agile.
So our Level 1 exercise is simply to do something different every day.
Level 2 is to record it and consoider what you learned about yourself or the world as a consequence of the action – and there is always some learning.

Go on, have a go – do something different every day for a week and record your feedback as comments on this article.

When you are stuck

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

I’ve been racking my brains about what earth shattering revelations to include in today’s blog; not exactly writer’s block, more a question of what to choose from the wealth of ‘stuff’ (technical term there!) in my head. Then I remembered a piece of advice we often give our coachees, especially when they are stuck or stalled at a task.

Do you sometimes find yourself in that state – not being sure what to do (next), perhaps having so many options that it is difficult to choose which one to take? For some people, this is a recipe for doing nothing on the basis that there may be a better choice, or whatever I do may be inappropriate. Of course, doing nothing achieves nothing – and I am not talking here about a deliberate decision to defer action, but about ‘stuckness’ when inaction becomes the default.

So, what’s the simple piece of advice?

When you are stuck do something, do anything.

If you continue stuck, then you cannot get whirling around Kolb’s learning cycle – an essential part of his four stage learning cycle is action, followed by consideration of the effects of the action (feedback), figuring out what’s going on and finally devising and trying new approaches. In a nutshell, this is the source of the learning mantra “There is no failure, only feedback”. Taking action, any action generates feedback and so gets the learning cycle spinning.

So, the next time you find yourself stuck, just remember that any action is better than no action – and learn from the feedback.

When to take a rest.

Geoff Roberts Uncategorized

Car stuck on icy roadWell, I have just spent 30 minutes in an unsuccessful attempt to get our car up the icy slope that trapped us in yesterday. We managed to recover the car from its overnight resting place half way up/down ‘our’ lane, but despite our best efforts could not get it far enough up the hill to actually escape and enter the world. For the time being, we had failed.

Now, I know that the car will get out today, and equally I knew that the time had come to take a rest. Bodies were becoming exhausted, as were those inner resources upon which we draw under challenge.My guess was that one extra person pushing would have made the difference, but that one extra person did not appear when we needed them.

Does this sound familiar? Working away at a task that really needs doing and exhausting yourself in the process? Well, unless you are trying to defuse a nuclear bomb, the world is unlikely to end when you delay a little. Continuing to struggle away when circumstances are clearly against you and help is not at hand seems foolish and runs the risk of over-stressing not just you but those around you. Sometimes, what is needed is to take a rest and come back to the task a bit later.

We will be out of our lane by lunchtime…