Fantastic Fridays-#321 November 17th The Strong Within Daily Affirmation Podcast

I Simplify The Process

I was working with a life coaching student of mine and we were focusing on organization within her home. Our sessions can vary from week to week, but we usually focus on a few topics in our sessions together… one being creative, another being better life and daily habits, and the last being organization. It could be said that all those topics really fall into organization in one manner or another because if we don’t have form of order than we cannot achieve what we want to…at least not in the capacity that we wish to.

For her to be more creative in her life, we’ve had to find ways to organize her materials better so they are easily accessible, so they can be found, and so they don’t take over an area and then that hinders her creativity. For her when she can’t find materials she has to go buy new ones and thus the clutter thumbprint upon her house becomes bigger.

We decided to look over the things in her house to help her get a better handle on her game plan for the holidays ahead. She wanted her house to be in order for the company that would be coming, and she needed another eye to help her see things from a different angle. And she needed someone to help her formulate the dialogue that was in the back of her mind that she couldn’t fully get out with her organizational stumbling blocks. As we walked around, I asked questions to help me get a handle on what the purpose of the room is meant to be. I said what my first impressions were on what I saw in each room she wanted to focus on; and then I formulated questions on things such as what’s holding you back, how do you want this room to feel, what’s missing, or anything I could think of…to get her thinking differently about where she was stuck.

It’s not that we always need someone to answer the riddle for us, but that we need someone to poke us out of our confusion or stumbling blocks to see things another way…and to get a different energy to get movement. I’ve known her for a while, and so I know how she thinks and processes things, so I wanted to simplify her organization efforts that worked with her strengths. She was overwhelmed, which I understood. And when you feel overwhelmed it’s easy to be busy, but not really be productive in the manner we wish to be. Thus never fully reaching the goals we set, and sweeping things under the rug, as we never get real traction on the problem we want to solve.

I said to her, “we need to simplify this process. Let’s break it down into three steps to manage all of this organization more easily.” So we talked and came up with 3 phases towards movement. Each phase might have multiple steps or processes under it…but we knew we needed to compartmentalize the efforts to make it more manageable for her.

So for each room she wanted to focus on for her holiday goals we came up with the 3 phases of

• Clear Out
• Livable
• Cleanable

The first process was to clear out and semi organize things into a cluster that could be moved into a more proper place. We’ve worked on the utilizing the key phrase of “everything has a home” which means that everything has a proper place and should always go with its likened things We wanted to make sure she could clear out the things that didn’t belong, so we could get working on the next phase.

The next phase was to make it livable. She wanted people to be comfortable and for people to be able to sit and enjoy whatever was going on in that room instead of having things that cluttered up or blocked people from being able to really sit down or relax in that room.

And the last phase was to make it cleanable. Which meant that it was in great organizational order where it only needed maintenance to keep it in this state. It was the final stage that was just about the normal upkeep of cleaning each week or month that kept it in the livable and comfortable order that she wished it to be.

So by simplifying the process of organizing, she was able to feel hopeful about the deadline of getting things ready for Thanksgiving and it not having to be perfect. We get overwhelmed with the whole process of what we want. We see the end goal of what we wish and we freeze because we say that we could never get there…at least in the time we want. It overwhelms our mind and thus our brain will bookmark the feeling of getting stuck every time we think about or try to do that activity. It literally will freeze us every time we try to work on the thing that’s holding us up.

When I used to work in sales, they called it the 10,000-pound phone. What they meant, was it was so hard to pick up that phone to start your sales calls. And that’s because when I would think about the calls, I would focus on all the people who were going to say no, how would I ever get them from uninterested to wanting to buy, or that no matter how many calls I would make I’d spend hours calling businesses getting the run around trying to get the decision maker on the phone. I literally came up with hundreds of reasons why it would be so hard to make those calls. And so I dreaded the calls, instead of looking at it in a better way.

Maybe I could have simplified the process of focusing on getting a certain number of calls a day no matter what, and then working on trying to get a certain number of decision makers on the phone that day, and then working on bettering my communication skills on showing people how I could make their life better by providing them with what I was selling.

I spent so much time thinking sales was about convincing people to do what I wanted them to do. And I dreaded sales, because I felt I was forcing people to do things they didn’t want to do. But when I look at sales differently and look at it as a communication process on showing people how I can help them…it changes the whole equation. It’s not about forcing anymore but about helping people. I spent so much time focusing on the end result and trying to get people to do things…instead of showing people that there was a better way and I could be the solution. And by thinking that way, I’m sure I would get better at my craft and be more enthusiastic to talk with and help people.

Everything we do in life is a process. Things that we’ve been doing our whole life may seem like it’s one process, but it’s taken years to refine that habit. So the main question shouldn’t be how much faster can I get a process done…but is it working to the capacity that I wish it to be? Am I achieving the main goal I want as effectively as possible. If not, maybe it’s time to look at how you can better your processes.

Today’s Personal Commitment:
How can you simplify a stumbling block in your life into 3 phases that make sense for you? If you want to have more phases that fine…but the more you can simplify the process the easier it will be to manage the bigger goal ahead. And once you get those phases locked, begin listing the steps to help you get to that end goal. So brainstorm, and write down, how you could simplify a stumbling block in your life into 3 phrases. And then write down the steps that you would take to make that phases successful. By doing this, I can guarantee it will help you see a goal in a new light and also make it manageable to finish it out. My mentor used to say don’t be like Nike…Don’t just do it… Just get it done.

I Simplify The Process

 

 

Thanks for listening.  I'm sending great energy your way as we become Strong Within together,
Personal Development Life Coach-
Chris O'Hearn

Contact info- email: [email protected]  phone:865-219-3247

 

 

Music by:
- Zest by basematic (c) copyright 2011 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
- I Have Often Told You Stories (guitar instrumental) by Ivan Chew (c) copyright 2013 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.
Location: Knoxville, Tennessee USA but available worldwide