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Does Your Need for Instant Gratification Kill Your Progress?

May 24, 2010 By

Speed Limit Sign

Photo by wetsun on Flickr

I hate to put things off.

Oh, not things that I’m scared to do or hate doing – those I can put off for weeks and weeks. But things that I really, really want are tough to put aside. I am the queen of instant gratification. This works to my advantage when I can reach the goal in the near term, or at least see how I can make progress on it in the near term.

But I’m not here to talk about the easy times. I’m here to talk about the times that the need for instant gratification threatens to kill my progress, because I believe you can relate. And because going through it together might help both of us out.

Making Progress

For the past four years I’ve been figuring out what I want to be when I grow up. I changed jobs to have more interaction with people because that’s what I love. I found myself more fulfilled. I joined Toastmasters because I’ve always enjoyed speaking in front of people and thought I’d build my skills, and for the past three years I’ve served as a club officer and have earned speaking and leadership credentials. I found myself happier. I changed my role at work to one that required facilitation, mediation, and coaching skills. I found myself joyful. Each step along the path has helped me grow, and now I want to become a certified coach. Suddenly, progress has stopped.

Today’s Block

I have a chance to apply for a coaching certification at a major university, and I’m stalling out. It’s not because I don’t want it. On the contrary, I long to learn more about coaching. Susan at The Hearts Voice wrote a post recently about longing and stated, “And in our instant gratification culture we often bury it [our longing], thinking that it’s too painful to want what we can’t just go out and get.” Light bulb. I think that’s my block, or at least part of it.

Building coaching into a strength demands more than raw talent. It requires experience. It requires skill. And, for me, that means credentials. It also requires time, which means I have to put other things on hold that I really want. And that is painful. Just like anyone else, I have a limited supply of energy (though I hate to admit it, even to myself).

The Lure of Spinning Plates

I also have an addiction to spinning plates. As in, if I’m not screamingly busy between 10 different objectives at the same time, I feel as if I’m not accomplishing enough. But running in between plates to keep them all spinning burns a lot of energy. I could better spend that energy keeping two or three plates spinning.

I want to build a business coaching people in finding meaningful work, using their strengths, and helping others (their employees, students, etc) develop their strengths as well. I’ve spent invested several months now in learning how to build that online business. It’s so close that I can taste it. But doors are opening at work also, giving me opportunity to use my coaching talent in the corporate world. I can’t start a business while investing my energy and time in certification, building experience, and changing my role at work. Something will have to give. Realizing that is the painful part, but even more difficult is choosing the plates to keep spinning.

Making a Commitment

This weekend I spent a lot of time figuring it out. I need one more year before I launch a true business in this. One year to:

  • Become a certified coach
  • Build experience in coaching
  • Continue to build my writing and speaking skills

Luckily, this blog is part of that. Hopefully, I can continue to provide value to those of you who read this as I continue to grow, learn and develop. I consider this a battle in mastering my craving for instant gratification. I hope to win the war.

Filed Under: Ideas

Give Yourself a Raise

May 18, 2010 By

Money

Photo by quazie on Flickr

An Adult Talk

My first-grade son and I had a discussion tonight that shifted his view of the world. We’ve been having more and more “grown up discussions” in the past year, and tonight we talked about how even his father and I have to make decisions sometimes about what we want to spend money on. I compared it to him wanting a toy that cost more than his allowance, and how he could either decide to save for it or ask us to do more chores around his house to increase his allowance.

His eyes got wide. “You mean if I decide to do more chores I can get a bigger allowance?”

“Yes,” I said, “as long as you figure out how you think you could help and we agree that it’s valuable.”

Big pause.

“Wow!”

I don’t think our lives will ever be the same.

And really, it’s the same for all of us who work in the corporate world. How many people do you know who complain about how their yearly raise doesn’t even keep up with the rising costs of health care? Who lament about how terrible it is that the economy has tanked and companies only give 2-3 percent raises these days (and that’s if you are lucky)? Who gripe about their salary yet do what’s asked of them day after day instead of offering more?

I don’t think it occurs to many of us cubicle dwellers that we are all entrepreneurs in today’s economy. That our employers are just our biggest clients at this time, but they might not always be. That if you find ways to contribute more than you are asked to deliver, you will become invaluable and they will have to pay you more.

Today’s Strength Training Challenge

Change your mindset: You now determine your own salary. Look up, away from your problems in the trenches and toward the problems that your bosses are trying to solve. How can you help? How can you get involved? How can you make a difference? Put some thought into it, and suggest ways that you can contribute to their success.

If you deliver on your ideas, do you think they will increase your allowance? Make your contribution so strong that the only logical answer is “Yes.”

Filed Under: Ideas

Beware the Distraction of the Bright Shiny Penny

May 16, 2010 By

penny

Photo by skitzitilby on Flickr

Do you sometimes feel like you are running around like a crazy person trying to get everything done, only to accomplish nothing at the end of the day because of distractions? This morning I was cooking biscuits for breakfast. They were almost finished, but needed one more minute. I turned off the oven but left the biscuits in to finish browning and went to my computer to check one thing in my email box. Three minutes later I jerked my eyes off the blog post rant I was reading about Facebook and looked at the oven in horror. I have completely forgotten to take the biscuits out! And the scary thing was that I could have gone on reading for another 10-20 minutes.

Luckily, the biscuits weren’t burned since I had turned the oven off, but the episode reminded me that there are dangers in running from bright shiny penny to bright shiny penny down the path of life. If you are anything like me, you start off the day with great intentions, get distracted by events during your day as you run around to get things done, then end up feeling you’ve accomplished nothing. In the interest of sharing what I am in the process of learning, here are some questions to ask yourself when you are trying to accomplish a task and something threatens to change your trajectory:

Is this a bigger priority than what I was doing?

The distraction might be fun, urgent, or have an impatient person attached to it, but if it isn’t as important as the task at hand then you need to save it for later. Jot it down on a notepad, send yourself an email with the reminder, call your other phone and leave a voice mail. Somehow, find a way to add it to your collection of things to think about later.

If I allow myself to get distracted now, how do I make sure I come back to what I’m doing?

Your reminder might be setting a timer, putting a rubber band around your wrist (you’ll notice it later, I promise) or leaving a big yellow sticky note in a prominent place for when you return. The trick is to find something that will get you back on track when you can focus again on your task.

How much energy or time will reacting to this take?

In the process of chasing every new idea that comes along, you’ll burn off a lot of energy. Is that energy better spent heading toward a specific goal today? If not, enjoy running after your pennies and have a great time doing it. But if following it will take so much energy or time that you can’t accomplish your task today, you need to remind yourself to stay on target.

Today’s Strength Training Challenge

Identify one thing you will accomplish today. You can do more if you wish, but make sure to finish one small piece of meaningful work. If you finish one task that is important and will lead toward a larger priority or goal, you will end each day with a sense of purpose and accomplishment. And you won’t find yourself eating burned biscuits.

Filed Under: Action Steps, Ideas

What Problems Do You Solve?

May 13, 2010 By

Photo by martinofranchi on Flickr

It’s a tough question, but asking yourself what problems you are solving for your company, customers or team is at the root of doing meaningful work. If you can’t answer it, you are not alone. I’ve asked this when coaching people and some look at me with a “deer in the headlights” gaze for a full 30 seconds before stuttering out, “Uh … well … I’m not sure.” Others take a minute to think and then blurt, “Not the types of problems I want to be solving.” Worse, occasionally I get someone who responds, “I don’t think I do solve any problems.” Any of these responses are a problem, but one that can be resolved with a little introspection. Let’s take them one by one.

“I’m not sure what problem I’m solving.”

If this is your answer, you might not have thought of your work in these terms before. You might be of the “ours is not to question why” philosophy, which either means that you are simply doing what you are told or that you are concentrating on the tasks at hand but not the ultimate purpose of those tasks.

If you are doing what you are told, you might be new to your job or company. In that case, starting out without knowing the problems you are solving with your work can be okay for a little bit. As soon as you can, however, start to question your team lead or manager about the impacts of your work. Is developing that website helping the client start a business in a new area of expertise? Or is it replacing a process that used to be done some other way? Knowing the problems you are helping to solve allows you to engage more fully with your work and to come up with new ideas for achieving that purpose quicker, more completely, or at a lower cost. Additionally, you will feel as if you are part of a larger picture and your work will take on new meaning. You will also learn quite a bit more about your company, clients or team when you discover what they are trying to achieve.

If you aren’t new to your position or company and you don’t know the answer, your time to ask those questions is now. Why? Knowing the problems you are solving ensures that your solutions will help resolve the problem. If you don’t know the purpose behind the work you are being asked to do, you can’t apply your own initiative and creativity to resolving it. This means that you aren’t contributing all that you can. You need to shine, and to do that you need to understand the need so you can fulfill it.

“Not the types of problems I want to be solving.”

This answer points directly to a mismatch between you and your role or between you and the type of work you are doing. If you are in the wrong role (look into Belbin team roles for more info), you will feel as if you are not able to be authentic in your work. If you are expected to lead the team but you hate conflict and you just want everyone to get along, you might be better off using your natural skills of mediation and community-building to shape the team into a tighter working group. In an opposite situation, if you are constantly butting heads with others on the team (or even your team lead – yikes!) about how things “should be done” you might be cast in the role of follower when your natural strengths are leadership and your commanding presence. Recognizing that the role you’re being asked to fill goes against your authentic tendencies is the first step in changing your situation. The second is learning how to communicate your authentic style, and the third is figuring out how you can change your role to one that suits you better.

If the role you occupy on the team fits you but you still feel unfulfilled in your work, you are probably doing the wrong type of work. Do you love working with tangible problems and objects, but feel pressured to focus on concepts and ideas instead? Do you love initiating new projects and getting things started, but find yourself being asked to create repeatable processes that can be applied over and over again? Are you naturally drawn to people, but expected to work on systems or tools? These are the questions that will help you determine the work that will seem meaningful to you and will help you find the work you were meant to do.

“I don’t think I do solve any problems.”

If this is your response, you are likely developing a solution for a problem that either doesn’t exist or isn’t a high priority. This can easily happen when you have a new idea to do something and you get so wrapped up in it that you haven’t taken the time to think through who will use it or how. In the small Texas town where I grew up, they called this “fixing what ain’t broke.” You might want to change a process to be more efficient, but if your changes don’t save a lot of time or money they will not be adopted and you will be spinning your wheels on creating a solution without a problem.

Today’s Strength Building Challenge

Take a few minutes during work today to identify the problem you are solving with the work you do. If you can’t come up with one, keep asking questions until you get an answer. Yes, it takes time – but it’s time well spent.

Filed Under: Action Steps, Developing Strengths

Be a Good Mom … to Yourself

May 9, 2010 By

Mothers do so much for us. They give us life, nurture us through our baby stages, and model behavior so we learn to conduct ourselves and lead a successful life. Now that I am a mother, I know how it feels to make the rules that others live by – and it’s not as easy as it appeared to be when I was little. As adults we might know how to set rules for others, but we often don’t care for ourselves as well as we would care for our child. Do you ever feel as if you are in need of nurturing? Following Mom’s Rules might help:

Rule #1: Get Enough Rest

baby gorilla

Photo by Bart Dubelaar

Remember how Mom insisted on a bedtime far earlier than you felt was necessary? She had a point, and it wasn’t just the health benefits that a good night’s sleep grants you. The truth is, you turned cranky when you didn’t have enough sleep. And you still do.

A night without enough sleep sets you up to be more reactive, stressed, and temperamental than you would be otherwise. Someone cuts you off in traffic and you get all worked up. You arrive to work already frustrated, which isn’t the best frame of mind when your coworker in the cube next door starts bickering with her boyfriend on the phone for the fifth time this week. You have a headache by mid-morning from clenching your teeth and trying to complete the project due today, and you just aren’t making any progress. This sets you up to reject the next Mom’s Rule:

Rule #2: Eat Your Fruits and Veggies

healthy food

Photo by EraPhernalia Vintage

It’s finally lunchtime, and your stomach isn’t happy with it’s four cups of coffee for breakfast. Healthy food at this point? Come on, who has the time? Besides, on a day like this you need comfort food. You’ll get back on your eating plan tomorrow. You need to cut yourself a break. Today, no one else will. So you down that plate of nachos and a refreshing soda, and then go in search of that chocolate bar you saw in the break room earlier.

Without food in your system, your body will crash like last year’s housing market. That lunch wasn’t food. It was processed junk. If you haven’t read Michael Pollan’s recent book In Defense of Food (affiliate link), spend the $10 today. It’s worth every penny. It’s not your imagination that Mom’s food tasted better 20 years ago. It really did. The ingredients were fresher, chemicals weren’t added to every product you ate, and the bitter taste of artificial sweetener resigned foods that contained them to the adult’s world. These days it’s hard to find foods without sugar, corn syrup, or chemicals in them.

As Pollan says, “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” It’s that simple. Not easy, but simple. Mom knew that 20 years ago, and if we had continued with her advice we would all be a lot healthier.

Rule #3: Go Play Outside

cat playing

Photo by Kaibara 87

What a day! You get home and fling yourself on the sofa. You’re beat, and you deserve a beer while you watch some TV. Yep, time to veg. You’ve earned it. But what, exactly, did you earn? The chance to placidly re-live the experiences of others through your favorite reality show while you order takeout? Is this what you want in life? A few programs later, you suddenly realize that it’s 11:30pm. Whew! You made it to the end of the day, and you are exhausted. Definitely time for bed. You have another long day ahead of you tomorrow.

Wait a minute! What is this madness? Let’s rewind.

A Day Following Mom’s Rules

The alarm goes off at 6 and you’re able to get up without hitting the snooze button 5 times, which means you have time to grab a quick breakfast before heading off to work. Boy, are you glad you got to sleep by 10 last night! Traffic is heavy, but no worries. You listen to a book from Audible on the way, and your creative genius wakes up with some fun new ideas.

You settle into your cube and start on the project that’s due today. An hour into it, you hear your coworker in the next cube yammering on the phone as usual. Should you confront her? Nah, it will only distract you. You put your headphones on so you can focus on the work at hand.

happy flower

Photo by Robert Snache

Around 10 your stomach starts growling, so you munch on an apple while you outline the three points you need to make during your next presentation. The next two hours fly by since you are so absorbed in your work.

Suddenly you realize it’s lunchtime and you need a break. You think of some food choices based on what will actually fuel your body, and with some choices in mind you head down to the cafeteria. You spot a friend in line, and invite her to catch up during lunch since you have a few minutes. You enjoy your chicken breast, green beans and fruit while hearing about your friend’s latest escapades. Refreshed and somewhat full, you head back upstairs to get to that 1pm meeting. You only have a couple of hours to finish that project, but you refuel with some carrots and hummus and email the final draft to your boss before leaving the office.

What a day! You get home, change clothes, and grab a handful of nuts as a quick snack before heading out the door. You need to get outside, if only for a few minutes, to clear your head and separate work from relaxation. You grab Bowser’s leash and chat with a couple of neighbors during your walk around the block.

Relaxed and back home, you make dinner and enjoy your evening while you visit with friends or family. You watch your favorite program, then turn off the TV so you can write a blog post or Tweet with your friends before it gets too late. You’ve had a full day, and you want to be rested for tomorrow.

Do your Mom’s Rules help you live a stronger life?

Forget living a whole life following Mom’s Rules. Striving for daily perfection can cause stress of it’s own. But how about for one day? One week? Do you notice your outlook changing?

What were your Mom’s rules when you were growing up? Which ones could help you in your life now?

Filed Under: Energy, Finding Passion, Ideas

Dealing with Energy Drains

May 4, 2010 By

Jingles

Jingles

Do you have a relationship or situation that causes you stress and anxiety, but that you cling to anyway – trying everything you can think of just to hold on to it? Recognizing and dealing with an energy drain is tough. Perseverance is a respectable quality, but holding on to something that brings turmoil and chaos into your life won’t do anyone any good. Least of all you.

This week I had to give up a pet. It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.

We found a stray dog on vacation in 2008 and brought her home. We named her Jingles because we found her on Christmas day. She was pitifully thin, sweet as could be, nervous as heck and we opened our hearts and home to her. We had a dog already, but decided that we could make room for one more. We nourished her and nurtured her, got her spayed and housebroken (eventually), and built up her confidence over time. She had issues with other dogs, so we invested in training classes and dog behaviorists to help her. Six months into it we knew we were over our heads, but it took us another year to finally decide to find her a new home.

The struggle was enormous, but in the end it came down to this: the stress was poisoning our family. Sweet as she was, adding a second dog was draining us of energy. She would get jealous of attention paid to our other dog, compete with him for food, and always seemed in a frenzy to claim more of us. She needed a family who could spend more time with her during the day, not one where both spouses work. She needed more exercise, though I did try to conquer my phobia of bicycles in an effort to fulfill her needs. She needed more kids to rub her tummy. She needed a household where she could be the only pet. And I believe that we have found her one.

What does this have to do with engaging your strengths?

Perhaps nothing on the surface, but I believe the reason we are given challenges in life is to struggle through them, learn lessons and share the stories with others in the hope that it can help someone else. Besides, you might have wondered where I’ve been this past week.

There is something entirely relevant about this story. Identifying, developing and communicating your strengths takes energy. You can’t do any of these things if that energy is being constantly drained by a stressful situation or relationship.

Are you trying to make a tough decision about giving something up?

I wanted to make a three point process out of this, but it really comes down to 5 questions that only you can answer:

  • Have you tried several different solutions to resolve the problem?
  • If you found something that helps, can you sustain the changes needed to make things better?
  • Can you actually solve the problem instead of just reducing the symptoms?
  • Will putting up with the problem now help you create a better life for yourself in the end?
  • Is the problem likely to change with the passage of time?

In our case, the answers were: yes, no, no, no, and no. At that point our decision was clear. We did find some things that helped, but nothing would actually solve this. It was a misfit of needs, of energy levels, and of personalities. I will never know why she came into our lives if it wasn’t so we could keep her in our family. A wise friend of mine suggested that the reason might have been to help her become adoptable by a new family. That thought provides me some comfort.

Jingles seems happy in her new home with her new family, though she will always hold a place in our hearts. We have more time for each other and our other dog. We can come home and relax. We can all breathe. And I’ve learned a powerful lesson.

Your energy provides you the strength to lead a powerful life. Make sure you are spending that energy on things that are important to you. And be willing to acknowledge it when something is draining more energy than you can replenish.

Filed Under: Energy, Finding Passion, Ideas