How not to get commitment

There's a cartoon in David Hemery's excellent little book, "How to help children find the champion within themselves", where a mother is sitting in a car next to her daughter saying "Don't you agree that what I am suggesting will be the best for you?"

Although I have been earning my living as a coach for more than eight years, I still recognise myself now at times in that well meaning mother.

What the cartoon also shows is the look on the little girl's face, which is either angry, upset or possibly both.

So I guess I still haven't got it all sorted!

In fact, although the words were different, that scenario was extremely similar to a situation I managed poorly last night.

I have delivered workshops to business people in the past, describing the difference between compliance and commitment.

Telling people to do what you think they should do generally creates compliance, but no buy in.

Asking people what they think and using their ideas and solutions creates real commitment and buy in.

I still have plenty of work to do!

The 2 key characteristics for success

It was very dark this morning as I stepped out on the pavement for my morning mile.

On this morning's run I got to thinking about my 40-second introduction I am going to do at my breakfast networking meeting I'm off to shortly.

Then I thought about what I've learned over the past 12 years about how important self-awareness and responsibility are for success in any area, whether it's in Olympic or Paralympic sports, business or whatever challenge you're taking on.

By self-awareness, I mean awareness of your dream, your vision or your goal, awareness of what your strengths are, and awareness of the next step you need to take to get there.

Responsibility is about knowing that you are always at choice in taking the steps to get to your dream, vision or goal. No matter what happens along the way, you get to choose how you react.

That's what responsibility is. You have, and always maintain, the ability and the choice to respond.

What's your goal for today and how will you take the responsibility to get there?

Once upon a time...

Once upon a time there was a man who loved to get up early every morning, run a mile and then come back and write his blog.

One morning on a chilly morning just before the sun came up, he was running and he thought how important stories are to life.

People were always telling stories about what someone said or did that they approved or disapproved of; stories of what happened to them the other day; who they had bumped into that day.

He remembered that also hearing certain songs or smelling certain smells immediately took him to stories of his past.

He thought, "Why, even athletes who use visualisations, to imagine themselves succeeding before they actually get there, are creating stories of a future they are trying to create."

Then he looked around while he was running and thought "I wonder what story today will hold for me?"

He also realised that the choices he made that day, about whether to be worried or excited, annoyed or thankful, stuck in his thoughts or curious about the world and the people around him, could change the story of his day.

Then he wondered...

"what story will you, yes you, create today?"

Bite-sized chunks

It was beautiful this morning for my run, cold but sunny most of the way, with fog in Happy Valley and a hot air balloon peacefully drifting across the blue blue sky.

I also managed to complete almost 5 miles, which was great with my dodgy left knee.

One of the things I thought about on my run was why I'm still so rubbish at doing my physiotherapy exercises for my knee.

I was told to do some stretching exercises and to then ice my knee for ten minutes, four times a day.

What I realised was that I'm fine with the stretching exercises, there are only a couple of them, but my main stumbling block is the ten minutes I have to allocate to lying down with my leg up, with an ice pack on my knee. This also necessitates changing into shorts each time I do it.

I wondered if I cut the ice time down to five minutes, would that make it more manageable? My conclusion was that it would.

Time management advice says that if a project or task seems too daunting, cut it up into bite-sized chunks. I guess that's what I've done.

What do you need to cut up into bite-sized chunks?

What else?

When I read personal development books, which I do fairly often, I always have good intentions to do the exercises in them. However, what usually happens is that I want to read on, so I plan to come back to the exercises and then never do.

Right now I'm reading Michael Bungay Stanier's "Do More Great Work", and I'm religiously working my way through the exercises.

I can highly recommend the book by the way.

Michael uses the most often used coaching question, "What else?" a lot.

"What else?" is a fantastic question for expanding your thinking.

Most of us come up with an idea and then immediately decide to go with that idea.

It is far more useful and powerful to keep exploring other ideas before making a decision.

It gives you more confidence in your decision to know that you have explored a number of options and the one you choose feels like the best of the bunch.

It is also much more powerful to ask "What else?", as opposed to "Is there anything else?"

"Is there anything else?" implies that there could well not be anything more.

"What else?" carries with it an implication that there is something else, and requires an examination to make sure there is nothing more.

What else could you be doing with your life right now?