Words that Work

Posts Tagged ‘getting things done’

Do you use hope as a strategy to get the results you want? Think about how much of your work life you spend hoping the prospective client will sign up to work with you. The position for which you are being considered will be offered? That things will work out? Is hope a word that works in business?

“I hope things work out,” is a sentence I hear frequently from coaching clients, who early on in our coaching relationship relied on hope as a business strategy.

Professional in Career Transition—Some of the coaching was around interviews in a job search. My client had been searching for many months without success and beginning to feel desperate. During one coaching conversation about an upcoming interview, the client offered, “I hope things will turn out OK.” I asked her to explore how she experienced herself saying hope, and she responded, “Weak.” By describing how she was sitting with her shoulders bent forward and her eyes looking slightly down she was able to get a deeper sense of how hope was not a word that worked. Through reframing talking about interviews to, “I trust things will turn out OK,” the client experienced herself more positively and within three months had two job offers.

Small Business Owner—Some of the coaching was about severing a business relationship with her most demanding client that she continued to hope would work out. My client did not get paid on time and when she was paid, she received only partial payment. She was doubtful about ever getting paid in full. Yet, she maintained the relationship because she continued hoping for both payment and for “big money” clients this partially paying client promised. My client was overwhelmed, uncomfortable, not aligned with her values, and unable to focus on her prompt, fully paying clients. When I asked her to describe how the word hope was working for her from the purely physical aspects, she said, “My shoulders and neck hurt, my throat feels tight, I have a heavy weight on my back. I am walking in mud.”

If you hope to get clients, a job, sell a product or that things will work out, you are wasting your time. Check out what physically happens when you hope. What shape is your body in? Are your head, neck, and shoulders aligned? How does your throat feel when you speak the word hope out loud? How solid do your feet feel touching the floor? What energy vibrations do you sense when you use hope as a business strategy?

Hope is definitely a word that works in settings other than business and sometimes is the best and only strategy.

While hope may be a campaign strategy that helps win an election, hope does not win the vote of clients, customers or employers. As a business strategy, hope is a word that does not work. In business, replace hope with expect to get positive results.

Okay, I put writing this off for long enough and was
inspired to start dancing on the keyboard as the Ides of April tax day approaches.
What about procrastination is appealing? What benefits does procrastination
offer?

I have a love-dislike relationship as the calendar enters
April. I love savoring spring and celebrating my birthday. I dislike interrupting
the savoring of new blossoms and birthday celebrations to attend to taxes. Truth
telling: I organize and compute as much of my tax data as I can by the end of
January, yet somehow I don’t file until the week before April 15. I release
control over the filing date to my CPA.

I was raised according to the getting things done, being
efficient, perfectionist and clearing spaces model. My youngest brother chafed
at these behaviors, which led to conversations about procrastination. Now I have
fun musing about procrastination and on occasion engage in the act.

Oh how my body aches to continue procrastinating to finish
this post and my body is literally aching. Well, not groaning out loud aching.
Yet, here I sit straining to keep my fingers dancing on the keyboard.
Procrastination is a dance. The dance of procrastination involves taking steps
forward and backward, twisting to the side, moving arms, and twirling. Perhaps
not the most elegant of dances, procrastination involves power movements that
take you nowhere.

Procrastination’s appeal may lie in the opportunity to
engage in more pleasurable activities than the ones being avoided.
Procrastination’s benefit is that by putting something off long enough the need to complete the task may disappear.

Other than the obvious signs of procrastination such as avoiding talking with colleagues or family about tasks with due dates or frequently moving items on your desk from one pile to another, notice if
you or your clients, colleagues, staff or family are tired. If so, the cause may be procrastination. Procrastination
is exhausting.