Too Much Time on My Hands or What Am I Avoiding?
A coach colleague of mine, Kris Knopp of Deliberate Life Coaching, is working on a new wellness program. She created a one-page flyer announcing this new program “Get Your Assets Movin.’” She asked the members of our mastermind group to review the flyer and offer suggestions for improvements.
Her first draft was good. But as a writer and a student of marketing, I thought there were ways it could be punched up. For instance, she had a long sentence stating the intention of the program. I thought it would be better if it was broken in to two stronger statements.
So anyway… she sent the draft in a PDF format which makes it read-only. I asked if she had it in a Word document so I could make my changes to her copy and send it back. She didn’t.
I still wanted to share my ideas, but I didn’t want to type everything out in a plain e-mail note so I created a new Word document of her flyer with my suggestions in place.
It didn’t occur to me until I was finished (it took me about 30-45 minutes because I got fussy about the layout! GEESH! It didn’t have to be perfect!) that I spent a great deal of time working on this flyer for Kris when I should have used that time for my own project-in-progress.
Now I’m not suggesting that we can’t help each other. I think it is really important that people help and support each other. But what I did was give up time I had designated for my own projects to help someone else. That isn’t good. Especially if you make a habit of it (which I do).
So… I had to face what I was avoiding in my own work because it was so easy to put it off to work on Kris’ new and exciting project.
My answer? I found that I didn’t have a solid feel for my new project. I still had questions that needed to be answered. I wasn’t ready to take action yet–and I was in an action taking frame of mind. Working on Kris’ project allowed me take action.
So I am going to try to reevaluate my definition of “taking action.” I’m going to appreciate and respect that the thought process, mind-mapping activities, and doodling on paper while thoughts roll around inside my head can all be classified as taking action.
How about you? Do you find yourself avoiding your own projects and dreams to help others? If you think about it, would you realize you are avoiding something within yourself or about your project? What can you do to move past this avoidance stage? What are you going to do about it? I’d love to know! Share your thoughts by posting a comment now.
