Perspective is a great business tool, and better than having to eat a frog. POLLYANNA LENKIC
By Pollyanna Lenkic
As a business coach, I ask business owners and clients where they are getting stuck and bogged down.
One of my clients, I’ll call him Henry, told me recently that the place where he wastes most time and energy is when he feels he is Henry the CEO and not Henry the Entrepreneur.
What happens when there is a disconnection between how you see yourself and the role that you are currently required to do?
If they align, great – if not, then it may be time to re-evaluate.
As your business grows it is important to grow in your role, and how you operate in your business – nothing new right? And often we don’t take the time to check in with this.
Back to Henry; what has worked for him when he gets stuck in, for him, the negative place of Henry the CEO?
Reframing
It’s as simple as changing the sentence.
The example Henry gave was those times when you are desperate for some time to yourself, you have had a busy day and just want to flop.
Your child wants to play football outside – your perspective is “leave me alone I just need time to xxx”. The new sentence – “I will go outside, play for 20 minutes, be the best dad and exhaust Johnny and then relax.”
Changing your sentence, changes your perspective and how you view the world and your situation. This is incredibly powerful when it comes to motivating yourself to get on with what’s needed.
It also helps to find a compelling reason to act, what will you get for completing this task quickly? What’s the payback? And very importantly, how will you reward yourself when it is done?
Like brushing your teeth, there are day-to-day activities that need to be done; do it quickly so that you are free to spend the rest of your day using your energy on the things you like to do, the things that you feel good about doing, rather than expending energy dreading the task you are avoiding.
Think of your biggest, most important task, the one you are most likely to procrastinate on if you don’t do something about it, as a frog to be eaten.
The first rule of frog eating is this: If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first. The second rule of frog eating is: If you have to eat a live frog at all, it doesn’t pay to sit and look at it for very long.
Adapted from Eat that Frog, 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and get More Done in Less Time by Brian Tracy.
Pollyanna Lenkic is the founder of Perspectives Coaching, an Australian based coaching and training company. She is an experienced facilitator, certified coach and a certified practitioner of NLP. In 1990 she co-founded a specialist IT recruitment consultancy in London, which grew to employ 18 people and turnover £11 million ($27 million). This blog is about the mistakes she made and the lessons she learned building a business the first time round and how to do it better second time round. For more information go to www.perspectivescoaching.com.au
For more Second Time Around, click here.
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