Procrastinate much?

“Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases, and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.” — Wayne Dyer

What is it that’s looming over your head tonight? That thing that you should do, need to do, thought about doing, want to do, or meant to do, but just haven’t started on?

There are countless hurdles every day that we THINK block us from pursuing the important next steps in our lives; the steps that will carry us, little by little, to where we dream of being. Something about starting that journey scares us sometimes. And it’s true that the first step is usually the hardest.

Be reminded that you and I are the sum of our small steps. When the grand task feels overwhelming, or even impossible, conquer procrastination and practice reframing the situation with this simple truth:

From one moment to the next, all I ever have to do is the NEXT thing. Not the whole thing; Just the NEXT thing.

You don’t have to complete that marketing presentation by tonight. (Even if you do.) All you have to do is the NEXT thing; So you can start by scribbling out a few bullet points. (The first step is the hardest.)

You don’t have to find a new job by next week or else. All you have to do is the NEXT thing, which means you can just log onto a job board and see what’s available. (It will suddenly seem like much less of a chore.)

You don’t have to go to the gym and complete your 60 minute workout after a long and taxing day at work when you’d rather go home and hit the couch. All you have to do right now is the NEXT thing; Which means you’re just getting your gym shoes on. Watch and see what happens when that step is complete, and all you then have to do is the NEXT thing again. I’m willing to bet that you’ll be a no-show to that date with your couch. (It’s ok. The conversation would have been very one-sided.)

Get my point? Your results will be the sum of your SMALL steps; so when the big picture feels too overwhelming, taxing, exhausting, or intimidating, try this mind-tweak- and make a promise with yourself that you’ll never have to work miracles. All you ever have to do is the NEXT thing- and watch the miracles take care of themselves.

Posted: Thoughts to Thrive By...

How Coaching Changed Her Life

Following is an excerpt from an interesting article published a few years back.

When I Say Work, I Mean Work! A good life coach can make many minutes of your day harder–and your entire existence easier.

By Betsy Streisand
January 1, 2004
cnnmoney.com(Business 2.0) – When the phone rang, she answered it. When e-mail arrived, she opened it. Anytime a client needed Karen Duester’s attention, she gave it. For nearly 10 years, Duester spent her days in rapid-response mode and her nights and weekends doing the rest of her job–analyzing food and creating nutritional labels. Her business, Food Consulting Co., grew steadily, and over time she got just about everything she wanted. Except a life.

So in early 2002, Duester got herself a life coach. Now she has a life too, thanks to someone she’s never met face-to-face but calls regularly, talking for 45 minutes at a stretch. “I’m running my business,” says Duester, 43, “instead of it running me.”

Once reserved for stressed-out C-level executives at Fortune 500 companies, life coaches are increasingly joining financial advisers, personal trainers, and psychotherapists as part of everyday business-people’s private support staffs. The International Coach Federation in Washington, D.C., the industry’s main credentialing organization, claims that more than 20,000 coaches currently practice worldwide, with about three-quarters of them in the United States. The ICF’s membership is considerably smaller–6,000–but it has quadrupled since the beginning of the recession three years ago. In a precarious economy, apparently, more and more jobholders are willing to pay $500 to $1,000 a month for weekly sessions with someone who’s equal parts nag, business strategist, and career counselor. “A life coach goes straight to the who, the what, and the how,” says Sandy Vilas, CEO of Coach U, which has trained 10,000 coaches in 51 countries. “Who are you? What do you really want? How are you going to get it?”

Duester, for example, wanted to get her work done during normal business hours. But she couldn’t escape the entrepreneur’s trap of attempting to grow a business and service current customers at the same time. “I never concentrated long enough during the day to get anything finished,” she says.

Duester’s coach, Judy Feld, who also happens to be president of the ICF, challenged her client to eliminate the chief sources of distraction. “Judy asked me what would happen if I simply stopped picking up the phone and answering my e-mail during working hours,” Duester recalls. “I thought, that’s a great idea. Now how am I going to pull it off?”

At first, Duester could stomach the silence for only a day before falling back on old habits. After three months of experimentation and encouragement from Feld, however, she arrived at a system to manage communication–and clients–that has made her far more productive.

Now, when the phone rings, Duester doesn’t answer it. Her assistant retrieves her phone messages and e-mail and submits a list to Duester twice daily. Her clients know they will, without fail, get a response by the next business day.

Revenues are up 60 percent since Feld started providing advice, and Duester is considerably less harried. “Karen needed to filter what gets in,” says Feld, whose initial assessments of Duester revealed her to be a chronic overachiever. In the process of learning to set boundaries, Duester has also weeded out difficult clients who take more time than they’re worth.

The ideal coach is an expert listener and strategist who draws your goals out of you and then holds you to them. A worthy coach won’t help you cope with an Oedipus complex or improve your relationship with a teenage daughter. Nor is a coach a management consultant. “We are concerned with questions, not answers,” says Vijay Govindarajan, a professor of international business at Dartmouth’s Tuck School and an executive coach who’s worked with brass at IBM, Pitney Bowes, and Hewlett-Packard. “There are no white papers delivered at the end of the day.”

Some clients check in with their coaches daily, if only via a three-word e-mail or a brief phone message. Duester, who speaks to Feld three times a month, likes knowing that someone is regularly analyzing her work habits without constantly looking over her shoulder. “I needed a sounding board, and someone to remind me that this was my business,” she says. “I needed to be in control.”

In the wake of her new policies, Duester hasn’t lost a single account. Just as important, she’s also consistently out of the office by dinnertime, takes most weekends off, and enjoys quarterly vacations with her husband–without her laptop and cell phone. She’s even learned to respond to Feld’s advice without getting whiplash. “Now, instead of being shocked at my suggestions, she’s just as likely to be the one to say, hey, let’s take a look at that,” Feld says. “That’s a big shift.”

Posted: Thoughts to Thrive By...