If my goal is to coach, I must do something differently.
Last week, I opened up about my current crossroads. I suspect you have stood here yourself once or twice. At this intersection, I have the following choices:
- I can turn around and return to the safety of HR or project management;
- I can plow straight ahead, anticipating forward momentum by doing more of the same;
- I can veer left and chart an entirely new course;
- I can curve right.
I choose right.
Curve Right
Choosing right means starting with the end in mind.
I want to coach. It’s right because I feel good when I coach – fulfilled, in flow – and I exit sessions eager to do it again.
So, my endpoint is coaching.
Mind the Gap
A gap exists between where I am and where I want to go. I have sought escape, avoided, and talked circles around the gap.
Yet, the gap gets filled with more because that’s the nature of gaps. They get filled. Nature abhors a vacuum and all that. What I’ve neglected to realize is that more isn’t necessarily better. Truth is, I’m good at more. Because I’m self-motivated, it’s easy to fill the gap between coaching sessions.
My productivity, however, isn’t getting me what I want. Instead of hitting the bull’s eye (coaching), I’m hitting the outer rings of my target. If I were coaching myself, I’d ask, “OK, so where do you want to throw your darts?” I’d reply, “I want to throw one dart, repeatedly and accurately.” That dart’s label? You guessed it: coaching.
Productivity as Escapism
Recently, I facilitated a group discussion about The Path to Enough. The podcast explores finding balance in a world over-consumed with, by, and for pleasure. The final question of the night, courtesy of my eldest daughter who listened to the podcast with her brother, was “Why do you think so many of us want to escape from ourselves so badly?”
The replies from the group were thoughtful. We talked about the firehose of information drowning us (Johann Hari examines this topic in Stolen Focus) and the resulting feeling of being overwhelmed which in turn makes us want to escape.
We discussed how the desire for pleasure is innate to human beings. Pleasure isn’t bad ipso facto; it’s a worthy pursuit. Yet too much pleasure isn’t good for us, as the podcast explains. Pleasure produces dopamine which changes our hedonic setpoint when we seek too much of it such that we need more of it to feel good. This led to a conversation about the escapism found in addictive behaviours.
Then the dialogue morphed into our obsession with our cell phones, the ultimate escapism in today’s day and age.
I realized my filling the gap with by being productive is really a form of escapism.
Focal Point
Escapism is the opposite of focus. My lack of focus is both systemic based on how society is structured to reward productivity and pleasure as well as personal because of the ways I’ve tricked myself into not directly going after what I wanted.
Creating one focus will get me through my crossroad by eliminating the extraneous.
Let’s apply this learning to your own life, adding to the Crossroads Method I introduced last week.
- Start with the end in mind.
- Mind the gap – Consider the impact of your habitual patterns on how you usually fill the gap between start and end.
- Focus – What must you eliminate in order to reach your endpoint?
Next week, I’ll share a solution for taking action, the inescapable next step.
Header Photo by Chase Clark on Unsplash