Have you ever noticed those people that constantly say, “Oh, I’m so busy. I’m doing this, and I’m doing that.” Etc.
Now take a deeper look into their lives.
Look for effectiveness.
Many times the people that talk about how busy they are are actually the least effective.
Look at the truly effective people in your community. They very rarely talk about being busy. They talk about what they have accomplished or maybe what they are working on. They talk about going on trips, child-related “adventures”, and business challenges or accomplishments.
The work/life balance issues plaguing the American people (both men and women) today may be less about busy-ness and more about effectiveness. If you are truly being effective, then you will definitely have more satisfaction both personally and professionally.
I know this issue personally because I too have been caught in the Im so busy mind-trap. Everyone falls into it from time to time. If you hear yourself talking like a busy person and not an effective one, then it is time to make some changes. Here are some ways to be more effective and less busy:
Don’t Put Yourself In Situations You Cant Deliver On: Helen, a business coach in Los Angeles, should be quite effective since that is what she teaches people to be, and her clients pay her good money for her advice. However, she is so busy talking about herself and her business that when it came to fulfilling a recent commitment she made to a charitable cause, she fell really short.
Helen volunteered to raise money for a charitable cause, and promised to bring in $100,000. Because she boasted a mega-powerful client base, and was the effectiveness business coach, the organization put their trust in her.
Once the going got tough, her own interests superseded her commitment. She started blaming the charity for having a bad program. She started telling them that she didn’t see the good in their program, although she was all raves about it two months prior. Then she started saying things like, I cant pay my staff to do your work. In essence, she committed, and after she found out she wasn’t as effective as she thought she was, she blamed the organization.
One of the key components of effectiveness is to not over-promise. Humility is a wonderful virtue that lends itself to this kind of good behavior, and often leads to under-promising and over-delivering. Thats where you want to be.
Busy-ness, as in Helen’s case, is a direct result of an over-inflated ego; however, in other circumstances it can just be over zealousness and passion for the cause. After all, if you are so passionate about something, why wouldn’t everyone in the world be? That question leads us to our next key component of effectiveness.
Be Realistic. I’ll be honest. There are many times I’m not a big fan of reality. Especially when it slaps me in the face. Ouch!
Oftentimes people feel that being realistic is being negative. Its quite the contrary.
Being realistic about your talents, your interests, your available time, your connections, and your motivation can save you and the others around you a lot of wasted time, anger, and money.
Lets get back to Helen. Many people, who know Helen, know that she is motivated by recognition. This should have been a Reality Check red flag to the charity. They all knew before she committed that she is always motivated by Whats in it for Helen? They should have had a back-up plan.
In the defense of any organization though, people want to believe in other people, and they will ignore red-flag alerts going off inside their heads because they want to believe in the best in people.
The best thing you can do for others as well as yourself is to be a realistic as possible about who you are, what you like and what you are willing to commit to. They want to believe in you and will believe a lot of what you say, so make sure what you say is real.
Prioritize. We’ve all heard prioritize, prioritize, prioritize in time-management classes, articles, and just about everywhere.
We need to be a nation of priority-conscious individuals.
Why? Because when our inner belief priorities don’t match our outer commitment priorities, we just float in a sea of busy, do-nothing frustration. Prioritizing is about being honest with yourself and others.
Make a list of your inner-beliefs. Prioritize whats most to whats least important to you. Next make a list of your outside commitments. Do they match?
This is what is meant by being out of integrity – when what you are doing in the outside world does not reflect your personal philosophy.
For example, if family is more important to you than money, are you honoring that with a job that offers flextime, or are you working 80-hour weeks and spending loads of cash on unnecessary expenditures to feed your guilt?
Helen fell short of her commitment to the charity because once she found out that her commitment was not feeding her ego or public profile, which was her real agenda, she decided to quit and leave the charity with a $100,000 loss, but the greater loss was the loss of her reputation in the community.
The steps to living an effective existence may be simple, but that doesn’t mean they are easy because many of us are pleasers, and we simply get in over our heads.
Before you begin your effectiveness training, start seeing yourself for who you truly are whether you like it or not, whether its politically or socially acceptable or not. You are who you are, so work with it – not against it.
The sad tale of Helen is that she blamed everyone else for her lack of effectiveness instead of owning up to it. For the most part she really is effective when the project is important to her advancement, but unfortunately, the price of her choices and lack of effectiveness (no matter how well intentioned at first) was a loss of friends, a loss of potential clients, and a loss of her reputation in the community.
Thats a hefty price to pay, and I’d hate to see you pay it too.
No related posts.
