Senia Maymin, Ph.D. – Brave Job Search
Senior Leaders: Get a new job *before* you get laid off
“Too many rules get in the way of leadership. They just put you in a box . . . . People set rules to keep from making decisions.”
“The truth is that many people set rules to keep from making decisions. Not me. I don’t want to be a manager or a dictator. I want to be a leader—and leadership is ongoing, adjustable, flexible, and dynamic. As such, leaders have to maintain a certain amount of discretion.”
~ Mike Krzyzewski (Coach K)
The “When I feel like it” reason sounds like this:
“I know. I know that’s important. But to call that person – that requires some guts. That requires some pushing of myself. I’m not sure. I know I’ll do it. Maybe tomorrow. I just feel that I have to feel confident before I make that call. I feel like I have to be sure of it.”
Surprise, surprise! Nothing in life in certain. Nothing in life is sure.
What are you going to do later today? And after that? How about even later?
Daniel Gilbert writes in Stumbling on Happiness, “Later! What an astonishing idea. What a powerful concerpt. What a fabulous discovery. How did human beings ever learn to preview in their imaginations chains of events that had not yet come to pass?”
Gilbert says the reason that “the human being is the only animal that thinks about the future” is that we have a well-developed frontal lobe. Alvaro and Caroline write wonderful entries about the interesting aspects of the frontal lobe all the time at SharpBrains (see here, here, and here). Gilbert says, “The frontal lobe – the last part of the human brain to evolve, the slowest to mature, and the first to deteriorate in old age – is a time machine that allows each of us to vacate the present and experience the future before it happens.”
Why do we care about the frontal lobe anyway? It turns out that without the frontal lobe, a person would not be able to plan. The words “today” and “later” would be blank concepts. A patient who suffered frontal lobe damage in a car accident at age 30 was asked to describe what he thinks about when he is asked to describe what he is doing tomorrow or even the concept of the word “tomorrow”: “Blank, I guess … it’s like being asleep … like being in a room with nothing there and having a guy tell you to go find a chair, and there’s nothing there….”
We think about “tomorrow” and “later” because we can – because our well-developed frontal lobes love that kind of activity, says Gilbert.
So, back to the original question: suppose you know that something is important. Suppose you know that you ought to do something. But you want to WAIT until…. until you’re better prepared, until you feel more confident about it, until someone else suggests that you do that action….
Let me tell you something briefly – the only context in which “until” is a beautiful word is in this quote by Jim Rohn:
“How long should you try? Until.â€
If you don’t want to do the task that you know needs to be done… if you want to wait until you’re better prepared, you can blame your frontal lobe for its imagining just how prepared you’ll be tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. It does a great job of imagining – down to the details like the stains on the carpet if you’re imagining giving a speech… BUT… but your imagination can be very-very-super-very wrong, says Gilbert. “Imagination works so quickly, quietly, and effectively that we are insufficiently skeptical of its products.”
The next time you want to wait until –
– the next time any of that happens, just stop yourself, and say, “Why not now?”
Once of the most interesting pieces of advice I ever received was from a former reality-TV-star who I knew from years back, who said, “You know people can’t really tell if you’re having a bad hair day, or if you haven’t shaved… those things that to you seem like a big deal and a big difference relative to how you like to present yourself, are just a SMALL, SMALL PART of what other people see about you. So there’s no point wanting to look perfect before you walk up to someone. Go up to that person the way you are.”
Try this. Avoid the “when I feel like it” reason. This is the what Dave Seah writes about here on waiting until you’re motivated (Hint: this is part of a list Dave comments on; the list is “10 Steps to Guarantee Failure”).
Try avoiding using the “when I feel like it” reason. Try using the “I will do it anyway” reason. Try it – see how you like it!
Image: Waiting for the Muse
WRITE FASTER
Here’s a post by Angela Booth on FAST WRITING (via Anne). Angela recommends creating a checklist for yourself, a process. She suggests a process in which she brainstorms, writes an outline, gets data, writes more of a draft. A key component of her list that I want to point out is “leave it for a day or longer.” Then she returns and completes other editing. Using her system, you would probably re-read the intro paragraph, say oh, five-twenty times. That would mean that you’d have five-twenty opportunities to rewrite something! Maybe writing faster is not about speed, but about easy editing. Like putting on layers of clothing before going outside in the winter, maybe writing faster is about putting on layers of betterment to your writing. And the more layers, the more opportunity to improve.
READ FASTER
Here’s a post by Idea Matt on FAST READING (these specific ideas are from Jason Womack). Jason says “he reads a book four times:
Here’s the twist: Steps 1-3 should only take about 10 minutes.”
Ok, see the similarity to the faster writing? You may be starting to suspect that the above two tips are not only about faster writing and reading, but also about more thorough writing and reading. Why are the above two methods more thorough? Because you review the material again, and again, and again. In the outline, in the TOC, in re-reading the same sections when you edit.
So…. there’s a fun little conclusion we can make from the above two faster tips.
KNOW MORE
You know more when you review material fairly frequently. Here’s an example: I put together a workshop on “Why Optimism Is Good for your Health” last week. I put the workshop together in a week and presented it. Then I think back to it today to review it in my head in preparation for giving the workshop again to a new audience, and – guess what?! – it’s a little hazy. Not a lot hazy. I could probably recreate the slides without looking at them again, but a bit hazy – it would take me time. Why is this? Because I did my presentation writing and rewriting and creating all in one fell swoop. I didn’t really break it up into segments or smaller chunks. I didn’t do the “let it sit for a day or two.”
Here’s a question for you:
If you have a choice of repeating something MORE OFTEN or FOR A LONGER PERIOD OF TIME, which do you think will help you know the information better?
Bing bing bing! You got it. MORE OFTEN. You can see what I wrote here about the immense, powerful benefits of daily action. Remember, musicians often recommend that you practice in two sessions of 15 minutes rather than in one of 30 minutes.
Do whatever is important to you – do that repeatedly, regularly – do it so it’s second nature. :) ENJOY!
Sam Bayer is one of my favorite singer-songwriters. He is one of those rare immediately-caring people that you recognize as soon as he sings a song or talks with you outside the music hall. Sam Bayer writes in his latest newsletter about the roles people play:
Goffman was a brilliant sociologist, and one of his most influential books is The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, which can be summed up, pretty succinctly, by mutilating Shakespeare: not only is all the world a stage, but every situation is a performance, and the roles we assume vary according to which play we happen to be in at the time. I think of Goffman a lot; we’re different people to our friends than we are to our coworkers, or our parents, or our spouses, or our children.
Sam is in particular speaking about how we have different roles as a musician and as a host. The audience learns just a few things about you while you’re on stage. Sam writes:
Some people believe that there’s really no room for more than three basic facts about a solo performer: e.g., you’re tall, you’re a cross-dresser, and you used to be a Marine. The other details are just noise; they detract from the focus of the performance. A while back, I settled on three words: Literate. Resonant. Exuberant. They’re on the top of each page of my Web site. They’re the three things I want people to remember about me, and my performance, when they leave.
If you have a chance to see Sam Bayer perform, DO!
Sam also hosts the definitive lists of Boston “open mikes” on his site.
UPDATE 3-14: Let me summarize the below post in a few words:
Making a deal with yourself involves three main parts:
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Continue reading “Making a Deal with Yourself”
What is harder than rock, or softer than water? Yet soft water hollows out hard rock. Persevere.
~ Ovid
If there is one key to creating what you want in your life, it is daily practice. When you repeat again and again, you learn so much about the habit you’re building and about yourself. There are nuances that you do not learn from a how-to guide. Such as how to persevere.
Why daily? And why action?
But why do it? Why take regular, structured, self-scheduled daily action as opposed to acting whenever you feel like it?
| The Deep Math Example. As my very good friend and a former math professor says,
“It takes a while to get into the problem. You need to sit with it at your desk for several hours at a time just to start to focus deeply enough to be able to create any new conclusions.” It takes time to get deep enough into a subject that you are no longer skirting the surface. |
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| The Ballroom Dancing Teacher Example. Have you found that some people who are excellent at what they do returrn to the basics from time to time? Like a yoga teacher taking a basic refresher course. Or an author going back to the structure of his characters? I know dance teachers who regularly take beginner classes. Why? |  |
| The Twyla Tharp Creativity Example. You make space for yourself – in your head and in your heart when you practice something regularly. You make space for yourself to be creative, to focus, to live in the moment. So much of life ends up being planning and rushing that unless you make the Creative Habit as Twyla Tharp says in her book, then you don’t ever create the discipline of creativity, the space for allowing yourself to do. That space is often only possible within the constraints of time allowed for that activity. |  |
| The Alaska Hiking Example. It is through action that you create a habit, and through habits that you create the life you want to live. According to Ann Graybiel, neural pathways – i.e. the pathways that create a new habit or new behavior pattern – form when you go over them again and again. Again and again. Like a hiking trail in Alaska worn by all the footsteps repeating over the ground again and again, so a new mental pathway forms when you repeat an activity. Best results are daily. |  |
| The Guitar Example. My guitar teacher years ago said, “The most important thing in learning guitar is daily practice. Even if you play 15 or 30 minutes a day, do just that. And if you have the choice to play once for 30 minutes or twice for 15 minutes, play twice for 15 minutes.” According to him and many other musicians, the mind learns when it starts a-new – when it comes to a project a-new. So scheduling that “new” regularly allows a habit to make that deep Alaskan hiking trail pathway. |  |
And then, once you have taken the daily actions, keep track of them. Put a star on your wall calendar. Post about it on your blog. Write yourself an email accounting for that day. Track your progress. Roy Baumeister of Florida State University says (23-min interview) that one of the keys to creating a new habit is writing down those times when you have acted on that habit.
Is it really possible to achieve anything in life?
Let me ask that another way: what is harder than rock, or softer than water?
Lesson and Take-Away: 1) Take daily action and 2) write down your daily actions!
Images: math, dance, Twyla Tharp, hiking path, guitar.
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Senia Maymin, MBA, MAPP is an Executive Coach, and presents workshops to corporations about Positive Psychology. Senia is the Editor of Positive Psychology News Daily, and posts her latest ideas about positive psychology, business, and coaching at Senia.com. Senia’s bio. |
Here’s the entire Little Book of Self-Discipline:
Page 1:
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Little mouse Jonathan wakes up and wants to play, play, play. He wants to find his friends, and just play. |
Page 2:
He goes to play with his fun mouse friends Sally and Joe and Melanie and Siobhan and Markus. They run around and they chase balls of yarn, and they play hide-and-seek around tree trunks!
Page 3:
Then Sally says, “I’m going home to help my sister do the laundry.”
Joe says, “I’ll be back. I’m going to help my mom make lunch.”
Melanie says, “I promised my brother that I would help him with arithmetic.”
Siobhan says, “I told myself that I would finish twenty more pages of my great book.”
Markus whispers, “Oh, my whiskers, my whiskers! I want to keep them nice and short!”
Page 4:
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All of Jonathan’s mouse friends run off to do the things they needed to do. So Jonathan lies on his back and he thinks. Then he gets a little bored. So he walks and he walks and he walks. Then he thinks, “I can go help my sister with the laundry! I can help my mom make lunch! I can learn arithmetic and help my little sister later! I can finish more of the super book I read at night. I can go cut my whiskers!” |
Page 5:
Little mouse Jonathan runs home to help his mother, his sister, and to do some things for himself.
Page 6:
| In the evening, when little mouse Jonathan goes to bed, he is very very very happy. |  |
Little story book POP-QUIZ: Why is Jonathan mouse content and happy when he goes to bed?
Hint.
Today is Story Tuesday. Enjoy!
Think of any Entrepreneur. Think of any business person, doctor, writer, actor. You’re likely thinking of a successful business person, doctor, writer, actor. That person that you’re thinking of got there partly – maybe mainly! – because of self-regulation.
“Self-regu-what?” you might be asking. I know – long word, simple meaning. Self-regulation. Self-regulation is the personality process to exert control over your thoughts, feelings, and actions. In short, self-regulation is you restraining yourself, putting good constraints on yourself.
Self-regulation is:
Self-regulation is what anyone who’s ever gotten anywhere in the long run uses.
Think of that person who is successful. That person self-regulates in a major way. The one who self-regulates wins!
Hello, welcome to Question Friday!
What are some of your recent, newest GOOD Constraints?
* What are you doing that’s great for yourself?
* Are you keeping to an exercise schedule?
* Are you keeping to a sleep schedule? (The single most important thing to a healthy life, IMHO)
* Have you set a new rule for yourself recently?
Q: What are some of your recent, newest GOOD Constraints?
My answers are in the comments. Look forward to reading yours also!
Technorati keywords: habit, goals, new year’s resolutions, resolutions.
“[S]atisfaction can arise only by the conscious decision to do something.”
Greogory Berns, Satisfaction
Excerpt from fuller sentence, “While you might find pleasure by happenstance–winning the lottery, possessing the genes for a sunny temperament, or having the luck not to live in poverty–satisfaction can arise only by the conscious decision to do something. And this makes all the difference in the world, because it is only your own actions for which you may take responsibility and credit,” as quoted in this Scientific American article (March 2007).
Furthermore, Gregory Burns says, “satisfaction comes less from the attainment of a goal and more in what you must do to get there.” (From Publishers Review quoted here.)
Gregory Berns’ attitude speaks to me a lot about expertise being trainable and about goals.
