Your Changing Direction

“You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.”

(Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher)

I was chatting to another participant at an event recently and the conversation turned to the work of the next speaker. My comment was that, like many books, I had dipped in and out of his book, reading different chapters at different times. 

The look of relief from the other person was enormous – “Oh I‘m so glad you do that too.” She went onto explain that she often did that but felt that the right way to read books was from cover to cover.

I don’t recall that it had ever really occurred to me that there was just one “right way” to read a book, just the one that fitted the reason I was reading. Reading a fiction book, for instance, lends itself to reading it from start to finish. Yet, getting specific information from an encyclopaedia, lends itself to just reading a specific part of that book. I guess I consider what I want to get from reading each piece.

With regards to this particular speaker’s book I knew that I was reading because I was curious about the topic – not because I was going to sit a test on it anytime in the future and needed to recall every single piece contained within each page. This meant I had dipped in and out at various times to the bits I was particular curious about and wanted to find out more about. It had obviously worked as I was there participating in discovering more about his latest work.

Later I was talking to a relatively new client on the phone when he asked me if he was doing a particular technique right. I think he expected me to start questioning him about how he was doing the technique as he sounded surprised when I actually asked “Is what you’re doing working, are you getting the outcome that you want?”

He went on to admit that the way that he was doing this technique was getting much better results then his previous method. We did go onto play with the technique even more but that wasn’t because he was doing it wrong, it was to see if he could make it even stronger for him.

When people describe to me something that they are doing, often one of my first questions is “does it work?” From there we can play with tweaking the current method or doing something totally different.

This week I invite you to play with the following:

1. Pick something that you are not sure if you are doing “the right way”.

For example, maybe you are not sure if you marketing “the right way” or perhaps, you’re not sure if you are using the right way to loose weight.

This is something we are going to play with and some tweaks may work better than your existing methods and some may not. Pick something where you are happy that the results may be inconsistent while you play and find the way that works for you.

There may well be a better way to perform in job interviews but if you already do interviews well you may not want to choose to experiment in one for your dream job!

2. What outcome do you want to create?

 3. Considering that situation, is the method you are using getting the results that you want?

 How can you tweak the existing method so that it is stronger for you?

What other methods could you also use?

(Come up with as many as you possibly can)

 4. If you are not certain if something will work or not, pick a time and place that is safe and appropriate to play and try it to find out how different it is for you.

For example, finding a new way to travel into work is great but you may want to experiment with the route on a day when you haven’t got a vital appointment first thing. You may also not want to see what happens if you literally drive through the lake rather than round it!

Lets imagine that Bob isn’t sure if he is running a team meeting the “right way.”

Answering each of the questions in turn he decides that the outcome he wants is improved communication. He wants to make sure that there is a system in place to ensure everyone knows the latest news, and also find solutions to possible problems.

His current team meetings do provide his team with the latest news but he finds that often the meetings end up being the team sharing problems and no solutions coming from the meeting – they come later.

Bob plays with several ideas and eventually finds that by providing an agenda so his team have already had some time before to start thinking of solutions.

Have a lovely week doing it your way 

Love

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
(Eleanor Roosevelt)

Imagine the following scenario:

You are out in a social setting with a group of friends and acquaintances. As you arrive there is someone you hardly know getting a round of drinks and they ask you what you want. When you reply, they answer, “Oh you won’t like that” and get you something else instead.

There’s a jukebox in the corner and for some reason you end up there choosing the music to be played next – that same person comes up looks at what you are selecting says “Oh you won’t like that” and chooses something else for you.

There’s a similar story when it comes to choosing something to eat – you have selected something from the menu and this same person says what is becoming increasingly familiar “Oh you won’t like that!”

What would your reaction be? Do you take kindly to someone telling you your business and what you’ll like, particularly someone you hardly know?

Granted that person may turn out to be right, when you try the food it may not be to your liking, but their comment is based upon their own experience rather than knowing your tastes.

Yet I come across so many people who don’t give a second thought for making up complete strangers minds for them. You may be reading this and wondering where and with whom I am hanging out to encounter such behaviour and to be fair it’s not that I encounter lots of people when I’m out telling me what I should be eating and drinking etc. I do see and hear it in other contexts though …

Maybe you’ve heard others, perhaps even yourself, say something like:
“If they really knew me they wouldn’t like me”,
“I won’t apply for that job as I already know they won’t say yes”
or “I couldn’t possibly talk to that person, they are far too attractive to actually want to talk to me!”

So often people imagine what another person will say or how they will react based on nothing more than their own opinions rather than letting the other person decide using their own taste. They will choose not to apply for a job because they have decided that they will not be given the role. They will not cross a room to talk to the gorgeous stranger because in their heads they’ve already decided what that stranger likes and its not them.

Now the act of mind reading and predicting what the other person is thinking in itself is not the thing that causes a problem for many people. The problem comes with what they then do with that mind read – first they normally listen to it and treat it as a far more important piece of information than any other thought or piece of information. Then they take action based solely on that thought – which may or may not be true.

This week I invite you to let another person make up their own minds and don’t do it for them.

If at any time you catch yourself doing a spot of mind reading, congratulate yourself for spotting that in the first place. Then tell yourself that yes they may – or they may not.

Have an enjoyable week with less mind-reading

Love

Jen