Tel. 01326 374114 info@betterbalance.co.uk

Tim Light, managing director of King Harry Ferry Co Ltd, was facing the all-too-familiar pressures of an ever-expanding workload and diminishing time for himself and his family. “I couldn’t say ‘no’ to work and was losing sight of the bigger picture,” he freely admits. “My life balance was all wrong. I was spending too much time on work, not doing enough delegating and too often putting myself last rather than first.”

Tim has completed a series of eight one-to-one executive coaching sessions with Jeff - each lasting an hour to 90 minutes, some at his Devoran home, others by phone. “Jeff helped me to become more aware of how to make more efficient use of my time for a greater focus on life’s priorities, for the ultimate benefit of all concerned at work and play,” said Tim.

Leadership Tip - Getting it right!

 How is that as sophisticated and intelligent thinkers we can still manage to go through life making some poor decisions? How often do you look back in hindsight and regret a choice you made, an action you took or words you said? Do you ever catch yourself saying “I don’t know why I did that”? or “I wish I had done that differently” or even “I don’t believe I’ve just agreed to that”. Working as a professional coach I’ve noticed how the decisions people most regret are often when they didn’t trust their gut instincts and chose to override their intuition. For some reason when our gut instinct seems to be telling us one thing our logical intelligence may persuade us that it should be something different. We go with what seems logical only to look back in hindsight and wish we had followed our intuition. Do you tend to trust your intuitive gut instincts or do you go another way? Which on balance serves you best? The Happiness tip (The HAPNAV) is now posted on the Free Tips and Information page and offers an excellent tool to help make choices that better honour our values. Here I am offering you a simple decision making strategy that will help you to get a betterbalance between your intuition and your more ‘conscious’ logical thinking.

 To achieve this it can help to take better account of four key factors that are often overlooked in our decision making. These involve the balancing act that takes place between approval and fulfilment combined with risk versus safety.

 Here is a real example to illustrate what this balancing act can be like. Sally (pseudonym) is a talented musician and wants to study music then make this her career. Her parents while supporting Sally completely in her music as a hobby have quite different ideas about what they think she should follow as a career and think she should study Law. Sally is therefore facing a decision that involves the balance between her future fulfilment or keeping the approval of her parents. She knows that choosing music would express her talents and give her fulfilment but as a consequence this choice may cost her the approval and support of her parents which may in turn mean not having financial assistance through college. This is neither an easy nor straightforward career decision which illustrates the difficultly of getting the balance between the two factors. Equally sometimes in relationships we can find our own fulfilment is on collision course with partners. It can appear that being selfish in searching for our own fulfilment is not looking after the interests of people close to us. You might choose to argue that in fact looking after your own fulfilment and happiness is the best possible way of serving others around you and also creating a model for others to follow! I wonder what Sally will do?

 Where do you tend to sit on this decision making line between approval at one end and fulfilment at the other? Do you get the right balance for you? What kind of words come into your head when making decisions?  Do you find yourself saying “I should do this” or “I must do that”, or do you find yourself saying “I want to”?  ‘Shoulds’ and ‘Musts’ are often called pressure words which are frequently associated with feeling the need to gain others approval. Over time we can get into habits that no longer serve us well in the way we make decisions. One way of weighing up your best position on this line is to consider the consequences of making a decision based on placing approval over fulfilment and compare this with the consequences of placing fulfilment over approval. Your intuition will often guide you to take more account of your own fulfilment so notice more what your intuition is telling you and also how it is telling you. The expression ‘gut reaction’ literally comes form the fact that many of us get a feeling in our guts/stomach that lets us know when something is wrong or right for us! What does right or wrong feel like for you?

 Next is an example that puts safety versus risk into the equation to explore a further dimension of decision making. Pete is considering asking his boss for promotion but concerned about how that might be perceived by his employer. He thinks that the safest thing to do is ‘not rock the boat’ although the consequences probably mean staying in the same position and not progressing his career or earnings. Pete thinks the riskier option is asking for promotion because his boss may label him as a nuisance who is acting above his station. On the other hand if he doesn’t take the risk he may never get what he wants without asking.  Where do you tend to sit on this line, do you play too safe, take too many risks or get it about right?

 In the two examples there are neither easy answers nor predictable outcomes and life is often like that. What you can do in these situations is to explore the four factors fully then trust your intuition to make the best possible decision for you at the time. Here is a Six Step way to do this:

 Step One. Take the issue in question and write down the possible decisions or options. For sake of example lets say there are three possible decisions.

 Step Two. Draw one line and write the word approval at one end and fulfilment at the other.  Draw a second line and write the word safety at one end and risk at the other.

 Step Three. Consider your three possible decisions/options and make a mark where each one fits on each line.  For example in Sally’s case the possible decision to study music full time would be marked close to the fulfilment end of her line and the decision to study Law close to the approval end. Pete would probably mark the possible decision of not asking for promotion closer to the safety end of his line.

 Step Four. With the three possible decisions/options marked off on both lines next notice some of the consequences that may come into play for each of the choices. For example if Sally chose not to study music a positive consequence would be that her parents may support her financially through college for Law and she wouldn’t get in debt. Equally a negative consequence may be that she was unhappy.

 Step Five. Ask yourself some searching questions such as “What does seeking approval gain for me?”  “What does playing safe get for me?”  “What may happen if I go for more?” “Do I take enough risks or do I take too many?” “What will my future be like with out fulfilment?” “How can I still go for more and also minimise the risk?” “If my fulfilment appears to be on collision course with others how can I resolve this?”

 Step Six.  Finally looking at the whole picture notice which of the possible decisions/options you are most drawn to? What decision would feel right and have the best balance? You could also sleep on it and let your subconscious do the rest.

 The above six steps are more appropriate for bigger decisions, for more day to day decisions requiring more instant answers you can simply ask yourself the following two questions then go with what feels right.

 Question One. “Am I doing this to get approval or for my own fulfilment?” 

Question Two. “Am I playing too safe or could I go for more of what I want?”

 Gaining a deeper understanding of how these four decision making factors come into play in your life will help you to express your intuitive side more often and ultimately trust your gut instincts to get a better balance between approval and fulfilment and risk versus safety – getting it right more often for YOU!  In organisations notice where the ‘culture’ fits with these four factors. I have seen successful businesses stifled in their decision making by managers jostling for approval and other businesses not reaching their potential because they have got into the habit of playing safe!

 Tip for optimism

GOOD DAYS or BAD DAYS

Whether we have a good day or bad day is often more about how we think about things rather than about what is actually happening. The meaning we choose to make of one event can set us up for the rest of the day in either a positive or negative frame of mind. We do have a choice, and as you read on this is important information that many of the people who I coach have already found to be extremely valuable and have used with excellent results. Please feel free to pass this on to others. People can sign up now for the monthly tips and quarterly Coaching Tips and Topics by going to www.betterbalance.co.uk

As you go on now to read this tip it will probably take you two minutes and your time well spent will be worthwhile. So here is your tip about optimism … We are what our thoughts make us! There is now overwhelming evidence that shows that optimism is healthier than pessimism. (Kobassa, Bandura and Seligman et al) Not only is a positive outlook healthier it also helps you to be more successful, have greater resilience to stress, be better able to cope under pressure, be more inspiring to others and generally a more pleasant person to be around!

Optimism and pessimism can be considered as chains of thought that relate to the future and structure our thinking about what we predict may happen in response to some event in our lives. When I am discussing optimism and pessimism with people the question of realism often arises. It is interesting that pessimists when challenged about their negativity often reply by saying they are simply being realistic. Likewise the optimist when challenged about being overly positive also says they are just being realistic! So who is right? Well the fact is that we cannot predict the future anyway so neither is right - as yet! However our thoughts about the future can become self-fulfilling prophesies. So on balance if you think the worst not only is this draining your energy but you are kind of programming yourself to make the worst more likely to happen, think more positively about future outcomes then you are making them more likely to become reality.

So how can you consistently maintain optimistic and positive thoughts (have more good days!) particularly when under pressure or when things are more difficult? The answer lies partly in understanding the structures behind your thinking and knowing how to adjust these to hold more of the kind of thoughts that you want – the ones that empower you to succeed and are good for your health! In coaching I often use the idea of thought chains to help people explore their thinking and discover their own ways of adjusting their less useful patterns of thought. Thought chains work in the following way and I am going to illustrate this with an experience from a coaching client who is happy to share this.

It begins with a real event, to this event our minds can then make up future possible scenarios that are linked together like a chain. These chains of imagined future possibilities can follow a more optimistic direction or a more pessimistic direction depending on our general de-fault way of thinking and also depending on just how we are feeling at the time. (and by the way the more we practice a particular way of thinking the better we get at it!)

Here is the real experience to illustrate. Fred (pseudonym) arrives to deliver a presentation to a management meeting, he is first there and has plenty of time to set up his PowerPoint presentation equipment. He tested everything at home the night before so he knows it works however this morning once everything is set up he gives it a quick run to check and to his horror it doesn’t work ( I am sure you can relate to similar experiences in your own life, in fact I have had an identical experience!)

Fred feels his stomach churning and heart pounding, he quickly tries all the things he knows but to no avail and there is no one else to help. He realises that he will have to go ahead with his presentation without his prepared PowerPoint although he did have the foresight to have some key points on a flip chart and everything copied onto handouts. As he sits there pondering the rest of the morning his thoughts begin to wander and unfortunately on this occasion they take a pessimistic direction. This is exactly what happened that day for Fred. In response to the equipment failure (real event, sh..t happens!) Fred now links together in his mind a series of imagined pessimistic possibilities – hence a thought chain. Here are Fred’s thoughts from that morning which as you will see go from bad to worse – it was easy for Fred to see this in hindsight, but our thoughts ‘in the moment’ are often less rational than we think:

1. Equipment fails – real event because it did happen

2. The management team looking very bored from the outset – imagined

3. Fred pictures his MD tapping his fingers on the table in annoyance - imagined

4. Sees himself drying up and lost for words – imagined

5. Nobody contributes or asks questions – imagined

6. The meeting finishes early, nobody thanks him or says goodbye – imagined

7. The MD asks to seem him later and questions his competence – imagined

8. He is bypassed for promotion, then his job is on the line, then he is out of work, has no money, loses his house, becomes unemployable and so on …..

Apart from the initial very real equipment failure all the rest of the events are imagined, Fred has done a great job of setting himself up to fail, he feels anxious, negative and his body language is a window to his thoughts.

So what could Fred have done and how could you use this information to either assist yourself or others. The first step is to recognise what your brain is doing, be aware of your thought chains and how they are working either for you or against you. The aim once aware is to create another possible thought chain, a more optimistic one, to run in parallel with the pessimistic one and ultimately for this new chain to become the more dominant pathway. Begin to do this by questioning the meaning you are making of events and challenging the links (loosening the connections) in the following way:

In this example the equipment failure (real) has been linked to managers being bored (imagined).

1. Ask yourself “How does this lead to that, is that the only possible outcome, will that always be the case?” Consider other angles, for example one could say that many people now find PowerPoint as boring as the older OHP’s and therefore not having PowerPoint could be a positive advantage!

2. Ask yourself “So what could be another possibility?” One possible alternative could be that with a less formal presentation managers may ask more questions without feeling they are interrupting.

3. Continue to challenge other links further on in the chain, for example “How does messing up one presentation mean that I will lose my job?” “ This could mean that I get a ticking off but may also mean I could use the opportunity of meeting with the MD to talk about my recent success in improving so and so”.

4. As you begin to loosen the links and create other possible outcomes (remember none of this is real anyway so you may as well make up something useful) you can start to build an alternative chain of possibilities that is more optimistic and positive. At least now there is some better balance to the thought structures. To develop this further you can now start asking questions like “What would I like this to mean that would be more useful and would support me?” This is often called reframing. Some time ago the very same thing happened to me I turned it into a great opportunity to explore some different ways of presenting and expanding my flexibility.

The above example is about giving a presentation and is simply there to illustrate how thought chains work. It could apply to anything and you can easily adapt this to fit any kind of event that is relevant for you or for others. I recently heard a great example of powerful reframing on a TV documentary. A man with a promising career had been hit by a car and was now unable to work and in some ways disabled. He reframed the meaning of this experience for himself by saying that before in his job he had been working long hours and spent little time with his family but now he could spend lots of quality time with his family. He could find the positive in the negative. If you have any examples or similar stories you want to share then please feel free to email me at info@betterbalance.co.uk

For those of you wondering what actually happened to the remainder of Fred’s morning here is the rest of the story. Not surprisingly with that kind of thought chain running Fred struggled from the start, however a colleague recognising what was going on very quickly came to his rescue by saying that they really liked the first point Fred had made and began some constructive debate to take the spotlight off Fred for a while. Fred’s morning didn’t turn out perfectly but on balance was not so bad and nothing resembling the chain of disasters in Fred’s pessimistic thought chain. Strangely I have often noticed this to be the case!

If you have questions about this tip or would like to feedback any of your thoughts then please feel free right now to email me at info@betterbalance.co.uk

The next quarterly issue of Coaching Tips and Topics comes out in August. Remember back copies can be sent you on request by emailing me at info@betterbalance.co.uk and the 5000th person who adds their name to the circulation list by going to www.betterbalance.co.uk will receive a valuable free gift worth over £500.

Best wishes and choose to have more good days!

Procrastination can be good!!

How well you manage your time is an important aspect of self- leadership, it determines your effectiveness, your ability to manage others, your levels of stress and the impression you create. Time management is often about the kind of choices you make and then accepting the consequences that go with those choices. In today’s world we can be under pressure to do more, be more efficient, move faster, do three things at once and squeeze more into our already jam packed day - life can take on the quality of an emergency ward in hospital. We can end up saying ‘Yes’ too often and ‘No’ not enough, as a consequence we take on too much and feel out of control. Becoming overloaded can be stressful, damage relationships and limit what you achieve. In addition it can decrease fulfilment as you miss out on the things that really matter to you and ultimately this can shape the kind of life you look back on!

When someone makes a request of your time it can be easy to fall into the trap of offering them the soonest available space in your diary. Often these spaces were the time you had available to plan, think, get on with your own work or do stuff for yourself. Do you give these up too cheaply? This is the Sooner rather than Later principle that is often more about gaining approval from others rather than looking after your own fulfilment and well being. Before you know it you are rushing from one thing to the next, completing jobs second rate (or not at all), having to find extra time to do your own work and not having enough thinking space or time for yourself.

What might it be like if you turned this round to become the Later rather than Sooner principle (or in some cases never)? Imagine offering later time slots to people making requests of your time and saving the earlier slots to work on your own important projects, have time for yourself or just to enjoy some breathing space. Would the world come to an end? Probably not, however making the choice to put someone or something off will have some consequences although these are often less significant than you fear and are frequently outweighed by the gains of creating better quality time for yourself.

Many people come to me for coaching to assist them with how they manage their time and heavy workloads. Recently a client told me that they had been saying ‘No’ more often and had stopped taking on so much. As a result she had noticed with some surprise that she was now achieving more and actually being more productive by taking on less!

Jeff Gill Certified Executive and Life Coach.