PCA supports individuals and organisations on their journey from where they are to where they want to be

Could it be that you are just too close to the problem? Is your nose actually touching the grindstone? Often we spend a huge proportion of our time fire-fighting and don’t get the opportunity to take a step back and look at the bigger picture or as one of my clients says “get bogged down in the busyness of business”.

You need to give yourself the space to look more strategically at YOUR business! Another perspective may provide you with a whole new set of options to move things forward.

There are two problems here.  The first is that our natural response to failing to meet our goals is to get more involved, once really heavily involved in delivery it is a natural to believe that to disengage risks further loss of control that performance will suffer as a result. A cycle of observation/belief/consequences/action that is really hard to break.

The solution here is to learn a different response and to change our emotional state from one based on fear to one of curious optimism supported by the view that failure is a necessary step to success.  Easy to say very difficult to do.

The second problem is that even if we have the courage to take a step back, what about our view of the business will have fundamentally changed because at the end of the day it will still be our view.

The way we observe situations is hard wired into our personalities.  Past experience both positive and negative  and observational techniques learned from managers, teachers, mentors, role models, trainers and other people we respect shape the way we see things.  To change this point of view we need to be strongly challenged in both the way we think and the scope of our vision to open our minds to new possibilities.

Business owners or managers who find themselves caught in this cycle can certainly try to break out of it by reading one of the numerous management books on the subject.  Many books contain quite simple exercises which can alter perspectives and change behaviours.  If you have already tried this approach and find that it does not work or the changes cannot be sustained, you probably need an external and independent individual to challenge you when you backslide to a narrow view of the situation, someone to coach you through the change and hold you accountable for perserverence.

Most coaches want to spend regular time with you on a one to one basis and that in itself means that you have to book time in your diary to have those vital interactions that will provide you with the opportunity to explore many more of the choices that are actually open to you.

Working with a coach will also help you gain improved commitment towards the actions you know you need to take to move you towards your goal and coupled with this they will hold you accountable for taking those actions.

Not taking the time to explore the possibilities, in any situation, can perpetuate the self-defeating behaviour that many of us experience when we are “too busy to think”. This concept is covered admirably in the book Get Out of Your Own Way: Overcoming Self-Defeating Behavior by Mark Goulston MD and Philip Goldberg in which they provide a practical guide to help deal with the self-sabotage that stands in the way of career advancement and personal satisfaction.

So how do you feel about taking it to the next level now? Do you want to make the time to look at those issues in a different, non judgemental light? Do you need some help to do that?

Call one of our coaches for a FREE, NO OBLIGATION consultation to explore the best and most relevant way that will take your business to the next level.