PROCRASTINATION-COACHING FOR SUCCESS

‘Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.’ Napoleon Hill

Procrastination is perhaps one of the biggest issues that business owners and professionals experience on a day-to-day basis. In this article, we are going to establish what procrastination is, identify why you do it, and then look at three ways of tackling the issue.

WHAT IS PROCRASTINATION?

Wikipedia Encyclopaedia defines it as follows:

‘Procrastination is a human behavior which is characterised by the deferment of actions or tasks to a later time.’

This definition is an interesting one because procrastination is identified as a behavior and that actions are directly related to that behavior.  Psychology researchers use three criteria to categorize procrastination: for a behavior to be classified as procrastination, it must be counterproductive, needless, and delaying (Schraw, G., Wadkins, T., & Olafson, L. 2007). Those behaviors are based on decisions.

We are decision-making creatures. Decisions are thoughts that are converted into behaviors. Everything we do is based on the decisions we take, including when to eat, drink, sleep, wake up, communicate with each other, planning, taking action, and so on. These are all behaviors. Procrastination, therefore, is a series of decisions we make which are then converted into behaviors.

The question is what causes us to decide to assign a higher priority to tasks that are counterproductive, needless and delaying to those that are important business critical?

WHAT MAKES US PROCRASTINATE

‘If it were not for the last minute, I would not get anything done’. Anon

To answer the question I want to outline a client’s use of procrastinating behavior.

As a senior partner in an accountancy firm Muriel (name changed) was responsible for submitting tenders for work. She had one on the desk that had to be finalised by Friday. It had been on the desk for three days and today was Wednesday. She had not yet started. She set the day aside to complete it. It was nine o’clock. Initial tasks – make the coffee, switch computer on, read the mail, check the email, make a few phone calls, check the newspapers, check the meetings diary, check the TV news, etc, etc, etc. Time – 11am. Next tasks – more coffee, read files on the desk and file, check email, phone the vet, etc, etc. Time 12:30 – time for lunch. Time 13:30 – time for coffee, pick up the tender and read the brief (for the fourth time), more phone calls, etc, etc. By the time 16:00 had arrived, she had still not started the tender.

Sound familiar?

She did everything she could to delay the starting of the tender, which was important to the business, by completing irrelevant and unimportant tasks – why?

We discovered a number of underlying issues, including the following:

• Values and beliefs around being perfect
• Overwhelm – the task was too big
• Fear of failing – not completing on time
• Avoidance of critical feedback – non acceptance of the bid
• Fear of succeeding – having to live up to a high level reputation

Muriel had, over a period of time, developed a decision making process that ensured that she avoided (or minimised) the perceived negative outcomes of her issues. She rarely considered her successes and chose instead to concentrate on the failures. She had developed an ‘avoiding’ decision making process that was presented through procrastinating behaviors.

The task for you is to identify what your procrastination behaviors are which will help you understand your decision-making processes.

Then what do you do?

THREE WAYS TO BE A NON-PROCRASTINATOR

The following three methods will help you identify and then rectify your procrastinating behavior.

1. Take on an apprentice. I want you to imagine you have an apprentice and that you want them to be as good as you are at procrastination. List all the things that you do when you are procrastinating and then, against each entry, describe in detail what you do to be so effective. When you next start procrastinating, check your list and add to it – make sure you add as much detail as you can. Keep revisiting and reviewing until you have a comprehensive process document. Your final task is to identify, against each item, the actual positive outcome you want in each area and then think about what you need to do to get there. Then get on with it.
2. Think elephant. You have possibly heard about the view of how to eat an elephant – break it down into smaller chunks and eat a piece at a time. Sit and think about the task and list all the key elements. Put them into a priority order and then allocate a period of time against each one. Put a name against each one (if you have staff available). Put a start and finish date against each element. Then get on with it!
3. Think three quarters. If you normally sit for hours (without a break or limited breaks) at the desk working on a task, be it a tender, project, paper, book, etc. then use the three quarters/one quarter rule.  Our maximum period of concentration is between 45 – 60 minutes, anything past this mark means that the quality of concentration will be inferior as will be the outcome of your work. Set aside 45 minutes (3/4)  for the task you want to work on and then take a break – this could be for a coffee, or just turning away from the desk and doing something else for a few minutes (15= ¼). Then repeat the process.

CONCLUSION

We have found that procrastination is a set of behaviours that have been generated by your  decision-making processes, developed over time. I have given an example of the outcome of those decisions as well as three ways that you can use to combat them.

Remember that:

“If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.”

Now is the time to do it differently – you could of course leave it until later!

Regards.

Peter Mackechnie

emotional intelligence and coaching

The first question is what is Emotional Intelligence? There are a number of different definitions out there but I prefer the one by Reuven Bar-On, Ph.D. who describes emotional intelligence as a non-cognitive ability comprising of:

“An array of emotional, personal and social abilities and skills that influence one’s ability to succeed in coping with environmental demands and pressures.”

An Israeli psychologist, Reuven Bar-on, developed a tool to measure emotional intelligence  which is particularly useful from a coaching perspective.

His tool includes five scales:

1. Intrapersonal – how one deals with emotions in relation to oneself. Incorporates self awareness, coping strategies and motivation. There are five measures to this area-self regard, emotional self awareness, assertivess, independence and self actualisation.
2. Interpersonal – how one deals with others. Incorporates empathy, social responsibility and interpersonal relationships.
3. Adaptability – how one copes with emotions and changes in behaviour given appropriate stimuli. Incorporates reality testing, flexibility and  problem-solving.
4. Stress management – how one copes with challenges and unpleasant events, Incorporates stress tolerance and impulse control.
5. General mood – overall well-being. Incorporates optimism and happiness.

The tool uses a series of questions whose responses are then scored. This does two things 1) gives an idea of their present methodology of managing and 2) provides some ideas of how to manage differently in the future.

From a coaching perspective I believe it gives the individual a unique insight into how he/she manages presently. This self knowledge can come as a bit of a shock sometimes and is always an eye opener. It also gives the client another extremely usful insight-that of how others do ‘it’. If you know what message you want to give it’s always beneficial to be able to to speak the same language as the person you’re trying to give it to, after all the responsibility for the effectiveness of the communication is the sender.

The two sets of information the tests give can help the individual enormously.  I use it with clients who want to know more about ‘why they do what they do’ or how to manage differently and more effectively. From there we develop an effective and well informed coaching programme.

For more information have a look at http://www.associationforcoaching.com/home/book2.htm

And the attached document – http://exmt.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/emotional-intelligence-explanation.pdf

What are habits and can you change them?

“Regrets are a terminal pain, Discipline is a painful fix, Habits are a painless cure”

It doesn’t matter who you talk to, know or meet we all have one thing in common – habits.

What are habits? We all have them, some we like and some we don’t but each and every one of us have them. Habits are really behavioural routines that we run without really realising it. The habits that serve us well are ones we decide to keep whereas there are other habits that we don’t want and, try as we might, find  extremely difficult (or seemingly impossible) to break or change – smoking, over (or under) eating, not exercising are good examples.

Why can’t I change it? The rest of the article is here….Habits and how to coach yourself to change them

Impact of coaching

The ever expanding ‘personal development’ field always seeks to tell us that ‘things work’. One of those ‘things’ is coaching – there is a range of coaching approaches but this blog relates to that of Life Coaching. The impact of life coaching has always been an area that has lacked research, however, in 2003 Anthony Grant of University of Sydney filled part of that gap in a piece of research which he summarised as follows:

“Life coaching has promise as an effective approach to personal development and goal attainment, and may prove to be a useful platform for a positive psychology and the investigation of the psychological mechanisms involved in purposeful change in normal, nonclinical populations.”

One key point for me was that of the need to differentiate between coaching and counselling (see here for an article I wrote in January – http://exmt.co.uk/what-is-coaching/), especially in the coaches assessment of the individual wanting coaching.

In his article (copied here for information http://exmt.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Impact-Life-Coaching-2003.pdf) Anthony Grant covers other research findings and coaching material, all of which has (and is) adding to the necessary assessment of the impact of coaching.

‘Coaching, either by line manager or external practitioners, appears in the top five most effective types of MLD for women but not for men. Coaching by external practitioners is identified by over half of CEOs and senior managers as something they wish they had received earlier in their careers.’

‘Coaching is highly rated at different management levels, but line manager coaching is ranked more highly at more junior levels while coaching by external practitioners is valued more highly by more senior managers.

‘There is also some evidence that women managers particularly value coaching, both by line manager and external practitioners.’

The full report can be downloaded from the CMI website.

http://www.managers.org.uk/business-benefits-management-and-leadership-development

Okay joke over and now down to business.

Skeleton didn’t realise that he was the most important aspect of the physiology of coaching.

The body is a wonderful thing and is made up of a range of components; skin, muscle, fat, blood, organs, etc. but what’s the foundation of Skeleton’s success in life? He has structure. That structure supports muscle, which reciprocates by helping the bones stay together. Bones enable fat to accumulate around various parts of the body; excess that can be trimmed (with some work!). Skeleton forgot that he used to have skin – something that holds everything inside itself – but without bones the whole body would be in a messy blob on the floor.

What’s the point? Without structure things could get messy. It’s the same with coaching – no structure – equals -  big mess. What skeletal structure should coaches use? There are a number of models available but the one I want to share is TGROW (commonly attributed to Sir John Whitmore).

At the head of the body is the skull that contains the brain. The organ that sets the scene for the next event, the part that checks initial understanding of situations just as TOPIC does for a coaching session. The rest of the material here – the physiology of coaching

 Each of these representational types, or modalities, has key words and phrases associated with them. E.g. ‘I see’ and ‘the big picture’ are clues that the person’s way preferred way of thinking is a visually. Each type has a range of key words and phrases associated with them and once you listen out for them you can quickly begin to ‘tune’ in to their way of thinking. (A comprehensive list of key words and phrases per type is included in the assessment document attached.) Be careful though, as these are only indicators-some cues to their language may vary slightly as situations demand.

To find out your preferred style or that of others you can use the assessment I’ve uploaded – REPRESENTATIONAL STYLES-MODALITIES It’s a powerful but simple, nlp based, tool that you can use in a variety of ways-coaching, mentoring, managerial assessment, leadership assessment, etc. (this is one of a number available across the web)It includes key descriptions per type, key phrases and words as well as the assessment sheet and scoring sheet. If you use it let me know how it goes.

 Regards.

 Peter

beliefs are the cogs of our personality

There is no way around it – you are what you believe and what you believe dictates your behaviour. Language is a part of that behaviour and will reflect those beliefs. Some of you may already think that this is ‘wishy washy’ stuff and doesn’t apply to you but it’s what drives you – it’s personally important and in business it’s absolutely critical.

I believe that the outcomes you experience are a result of the decisions and actions you have taken. The responsibility and accountability is with you. To maximise your effectiveness be clear about where you want to get to, and where you are now.

All those decisions and actions you have taken are based on the beliefs you have and we all have them, positive and negative. We have gathered them from a number of places and people, sometimes without knowing it, other times accepting them gladly. The process started as soon as you were born and has continued ever since. Remember the time someone told you that you couldn’t do ‘something’ and after being told so often you came to ‘accept’ their view as actual fact? Or perhaps you have always been told from an early age how well you have done something and continue to be good at it without doubt. These are ‘given’ beliefs and ones, which you didn’t realise at the time, you chose to accept. Even now we hold onto some of these beliefs for no other reason than we ‘just’ have them and believe we ‘can’t’ do anything about them. Why does this happen?

It is human nature to notice anything that acts as evidence to support our beliefs (negative and/or positive) and to ‘screen out’ anything that may contradict them. Consequently, once a set of beliefs have been accepted and embedded, the process of evidence gathering concentrates purely on supporting those beliefs. Part of the reason for this is that humans are selection and deletion creatures. We don’t have the capacity to take in every single piece of information that is available to us in any given second. Therefore, we accept the pieces we want and delete those we think are irrelevant.

This selection/deletion process allows us to take decisions and make choices. However, those choices and decisions are based on the selection/deletion criteria we have set, criteria set on our beliefs.

Let’s look at the effect of a negative belief. You’re given the opportunity to do a presentation to a group of fellow business people – what’s your first reaction? It depends on your previous experience and how often you’ve done them before. However, you may be someone who has the fear of speaking in public as the number one fear of all fears (Book of Lists, Irving Wallace). The fear of dying is number seven and over 41% of people have some fear or anxiety about speaking in front of groups.

There maybe a number of reasons for this. Someone once told you were rubbish at reading out loud in class – another pupil, a teacher perhaps? After the shock of being told this at the time you then had to do it again later, what happened?

Because you believed what you had been told you started to worry about it. You developed sweaty palms, felt an accelerated heart rate, suffered memory loss and even experienced difficulty in breathing all of which meant that your next performance was either the same as, or even worse than the last time. Even though no one ‘really’ said anything about how poor it was, you ‘knew’ it was rubbish. You collected evidence from the looks on other people’s faces, the reaction from the teacher, your own view

(exaggerated by your body’s reaction) as well as anything else you could find. You had gathered all the evidence you needed to support your new belief that you were rubbish at reading out loud. You deleted any ‘good’ feedback from those around you, a smile perhaps, a nodding head, all designed to be supportive were either ignored by you or misinterpreted by you just to prove you right. Since then you have done absolutely everything possible to get out of presenting in public. The times you have had to do such a presentation you experienced all the symptoms you had before. At each stage your selection criteria was working overtime.

What you have is a really nice and well established ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’. What better way to create a damaged level of confidence. The thing is you believe that you CAN’T do anything about it (you can replace the above example with your own – it’s still meaningful). If you have this type of belief and you also believe that your business depends on you ‘selling’ by presentation I can predict that you’re stressed a lot of the time, although you may not really know why. The reason is simple – you have a significant conflict between some of your beliefs.

What can you do about solving a beliefs conflict? One area to begin to consider is language. If you have a negative set of external words it can imply that you have a set of internally negative beliefs. Certain words are destructive and undermining whilst others are empowering and motivating. Some imply you have no control over your life whilst others make it clear that you always have choice. The negative words identify a level of internalised pain whereas the more positive words identified a level of power.

In her book ‘Feel the Fear and Do it Anyway’, Susan Jeffers suggests that by changing your language, you can move from Pain to Power. Here are some examples:

I can’t                                    I won’t

I should                                 I can and I will

It’s not my fault                   I’m totally responsible

It’s a problem                      It’s an opportunity

I’m never satisfied                         I want to learn and grow

Life’s a struggle                   Life’s an adventure

I hope                                    I know

If only                                    Next time

What will I do?                    I know I can handle it

It’s terrible                           It’s a learning experience

It’s a learning experience

For me there are others, the word TRY for example. TRY says ‘try in vain’, ‘attempt and fail’ and ‘not bothered’. Saying what you will do rather than what you will try to do is a more positive way of conditioning your thoughts to create the reality that you want to achieve. It gives a sense of Self-pity which gets you nowhere. You cannot rewrite history. Take the view “Today I learnt… so next time I will………” This builds a more positive belief at the expense of the negative. “Can’t” is an unassertive word. “Can’t” is a self-doubt word implying you have no control over your life. It assumes you have no choices. Either you can and you will, or you choose not to. The more times you say “Can’t” the lower your self-esteem goes.

Other words to eliminate: IF, BUT, PERHAPS, NEVER, ALWAYS If it’s one thing I want you to remember is:

“TRY NOT. DO OR DO NOT, THERE IS NO TRY.” Master Yoda

Here is another aspect to think about. Somebody says to you “don’t look now, but….” What happens? Can you feel your head starting to turn, to do exactly the thing you have just been asked not to do? Our subconscious brain doesn’t recognise negative words like ‘don’t’. What happens when I say ‘don’t think of a blue monkey’ – what happens? You thought of the blue monkey. What happens if you use it in some advertising, i.e. ‘Don’t drink and drive’. How effective is that?

You will have recognised some of the words you use and I can guarantee that other people you talk to will also have noticed, albeit, subconsciously. This is what forms part of the ‘first impression’ response. So what impression is it you want to give?

What course of action do you now take? Identify what BELIEFS are getting in your way and DECIDE to CHANGE them NOW. We can, or more specifically YOU can CHOOSE right now to keep, amend or delete any belief you have which you find is unhelpful to you. How? DECIDE to change it now and do something about it!

To summarise – beliefs are the things that drive you. We can see what they are because they form the basis of our behaviour which everyone can see. A key part of that behaviour is language. The words we use can show what our beliefs are which form part of the impression people have of us – what do you want that impression to be?

Regards.

Peter

“If you don’t know where you are going, you will probably end up somewhere else”.  Laurence J. Peter

The 2010 report answers critical questions:

• • What is executive coaching?
• • Who gets a coach?
• • How are services delivered?
• • Who becomes a coach?
• • How do coaches get their training?
• • Do coaches follow a published process?

The Sherpa Executive Coaching Survey is in its fifth year. Based on an ever-increasing body of knowledge, the 2010 survey accurately identifies changes and trends in industry practices. Each year, questions are refined and questions are added, allowing for more precise isolation of trends and their root causes.

Enjoy.

Peter