Getting Round to It

The song ‘Love Story’ starts with the words “Where do I begin …?” it goes downhill from there, but that’s a great opening question. Knowing the what, but not the when has most of us dithering over tasks both great and small.

Of course, we all know we should work on the task with the greatest long-term payoff, until the urgent intrudes, but we do the small stuff first; it makes us feel productive. However, this urge to hesitate is not true of everything we do. If it was we would be stuck at the traffic lights of life, unable to start the day or stop the car. So, why is procrastination only a sometime thing?

Conventionally, our roadblocks arise out of fear, feelings and beliefs. We fear the consequences, either of failure, or success. We worry about what others may think, or say. We doubt that we can do it, or that we really deserve it and we are just more comfortable with easy drifting than tough doing. And there’s always the lottery — that’ll solve everything.

Getting out of bed in the morning is expected. Similarly, having a job, looking after children, going to school and eating nicely are acceptable. In sum, if we conform and abide by the norms of our society, then there’s little pressure to do otherwise. It is in doing something more, or something different, that we encounter resistance, and much of this is programmed internally.

A more recent, twentieth century phenomenon, particularly for those with a little drive and ambition, is task overload. These days, most of us have more to-do list than today in which to do it, and tomorrow it will be even longer. Faced with such insuperable demands there is only one sane choice — conscious selection.

Our greatest gains come when we select our needs ahead of our wants. In our highly commercialised world we sometimes struggle to distinguish one from the other. Needs are what we require; wants are what we wish to do. When shopping, do we buy carrots or cakes? The secret is to place ourselves in the future and look back. From that distance perspective which choice would we rather have made?

Being aware of what is truly important provides clarity and does away with hesitancy. Those long-term, high return tasks are never going to be urgent. Need to be fitter? You can start tomorrow. Believe qualifications would help you? It can wait until next year. Starting your own business? When the kids are older — maybe.

Unless we sort out our priorities, make ourselves fully aware and select consciously we will, by default, select unconsciously. That way we can be sure of huge judgment errors, always preferring wants and urgency.

George Bernard Shaw observed that reasonable people accept the world, while unreasonable people demand that it change. Therefore, he concluded, all progress depends on unreasonable people. We can consciously choose to say “No!” to those things that cannot and will not deliver the life we desire.

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Many people set out to look for the forest and get lost in the trees. In your dreams coaching gives you the space, time and tools to break out of this self-perpetuating cycle, get a clear picture of what you want and helps you design a suitable route map to your chosen destination.

Your first success has been recognising the need for assistance.

Your second is having the good sense to call for it.

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"Do not wait; the time will never be 'just right'. Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along." ~ Napoleon Hill