It’s easy to get things done when you enjoy doing them. There are many tasks however that we need to do but procrastinate over. Tasks such as completing your tax return, reviewing a legal document or sorting out a room full of junk aren’t fun for most people and if you’re anything like me, you put the off until the last possible minute.
This is usually not the best approach. One of the problems with this is that by leaving things undone they are always in the back of your mind, popping up into consciousness when you least expect it. These unwelcome or reminders of what we haven’t done can create a burden of stress, an invisible weight on our shoulders.
Last week I was training a group of banking MD’s on how to coach their teams. The culmination of the training was a role play where each participant played coach to a fellow participant. Since we had an odd number of participants, I stepped in to be the client for one of my students.
To do this I had to identify an issue that I wanted to be coached on which was not difficult; time management has been my bugbear for many years. I have a list of important items, such as getting published, that just sit there without any progress, month after month while I procrastinate.
I didn’t expect my student to give me a breakthrough. In the past I’ve worked with professional coaches to discuss my time management challenges and never made any progress, however this time was different. Using GROW model questioning, my student inadvertently helped generate a realisation in me that I believe will be genuinely helpful to me going forward.
The GROW model was developed by Sir John Whitmore, one of the pioneers of the executive coaching industry, and offers a defined questioning structure that takes the coach and client on a journey of understand and hopefully insight. ‘G’ questions are goal oriented; ‘R’ questions analyse the current reality, ‘O’ questions explore options are an important step in removing the blinkers that limit our ability to see alternatives, and finally ‘W’ stands for ‘Will to Action’ and is where a plan is created and an action committed to. Click here for a PDF of sample GROW model questions.
One of the key benefits of coaching as opposed to mentoring, is that any decisions are based on ownership. A coach will never give an opinion (if they are practising pure coaching) while a mentor is expected to give an opinion based on their superior experience or knowledge. A coach believes that his/her client has the answer within them, and their role is to help their client find the answer. While coaching can take much longer that mentoring to arrive at an answer, because that answer is self-generated, there is a greater degree of ownership.
Back to my procrastination and time management; the below Q&A shows a summary of the key R, O and W questions that, when I carefully considered them, gave me a realisation that I was unknowingly carrying the weight of uncompleted tasks on my shoulders, and that I was compounding my procrastination by avoiding thinking about the important tasks I need to do.
REALITY
Q: What is holding you back?
A: Myself and only myself
Q: What is likely to happen in the future?
A: I’m going to continue to fail to achieve what I want if I don’t make change.
OPTIONS
Q: What can you learn from past successes that can be applied to achieve this goal?
A: Every time I complete a task I have procrastinated over, it was never as big a deal as I made it out to be.
WILL TO ACTION:
Q: How attractive is the solution to you and are you ready to play at 100% to achieve it?
A: Very and Yes!
This understanding allowed me to consider the relief I would feel when I had removed these burdens, and that relief is something I believe I can use to drive me to action and remove my procrastination. The benefit of action was reframed in a way that was more appealing than any other solution I’d considered in the past.
Sometimes a relatively simple set of questions when carefully considered can give insights that make a difference. The above example is personal to me and may not work for you however, you can try using the link above to use GROW questions on yourself and better define your goals, understand your current reality, consider options and develop an action plan.
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