“There is no passion to be found in playing small – in settling for a life that is less than what you are capable of living.”
~Nelson Mandela
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in ones favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way.” ~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
I think of failure as both a choice and process. I don’t think it happens suddenly. If fear of failure is stopping you from taking the first step, you’re already failing – and yet, there is still the possibility you will succeed. It all depends on what you decide to do next. Failing in truth requires a series of decisions to not try.
Why do we step back from trying? Why do we procrastinate, get busy with other things, find reasons it won’t work? At the heart of this I believe is a fear that we’ll embarrass ourselves, set ourselves up for ridicule and disdain, jeopardise our credibility. And the reason all of this is a problem is because as human beings we all want the respect and love of our friends, family and peers. Risking respect and love can be pretty scary, especially the love and respect you have for yourself.
Now here’s your task: Compare in your mind what people would be saying if they a)saw you trying and making only incremental progress, or b)saw you making excuses for why you haven’t tried yet. And what about you? Compare how you’d be feeling and what you’d be saying to yourself if a)you were trying, or b)you were making excuses. Which approach garners more love and respect?
Personal accountability starts with conscious awareness of choices and the motivation behind them.
It’s been said that 95% of our focus is unconscious, and based on internalized values and beliefs. Does that mean that 95% of our choices are unconscious? Is it possible that the 5% of my focus that is conscious would say “Yes, of course I want to do that 100km walk for charity” – and the other 95% of my focus would sabotage this in some way? When someone doesn’t do what they say they want to do, it usually indicates that their conscious intentions are not aligned with their unconscious mind.
How do we raise awareness about this? One way is to pay attention to red flag language (or images, sounds and feelings that represent this language). For example:
- “I don’t want to spend that much time.” or “I’m not fit enough.” 0r “Noone will want to be on my team.” or “I wouldn’t want to let my team members down.” – This type of language provides negative reasons focused on what you don’t want. It’s hard to focus on what you want with this in the background.
- “I have to do this 100km walk to earn the respect of my friends.” or “Nothing else is motivating me to get fit, so maybe this will.” or “I promised to do it.” – This is the language of necessity. It implies what you want, but it’s energy is more about desperation than inspiration. It’s not very motivating stuff to have in the background.
- “Once I do the 100km walk, I won’t feel guilty about not trying.” or “If I do it, I won’t have to make excuses about why I didn’t.” – This language shows what your unconscious mind is trying to move away from. Again, it’s focused on what you don’t want, rather than what you want.
We see and hear this all the time, don’t we. People say they’re going to do one thing, and then do another. They can either make excuses for this, or become aware of why they made this choice and own up to it. Maybe 80% of my unconscious mind simple doesn’t want to do a 100km walk – and I should just say that. Maybe I have other responsibilities/activities that are more important to me – and I should just say that.
This is where personal accountability begins … what’s next?
“Whether you think you can, or you think you can’t – you’re right.”
- Henry Ford
Development agencies are always talking about accountability. The debate is held at some very high levels. As usual, I’m thinking about how it looks at the individual level – and then what we might learn for group and organisational accountability.
Just the other day, I met someone who held me fully accountable. I believe I said something to the effect of: “I don’t have time for this project.” My friend, immediately sensing the red flag, just looked at me. So naturally I launched into a full justification of why I didn’t have time. And there I was spending a fair bit of time and energy arguing for what I didn’t want, rather than focusing on what I wanted. My friend didn’t have that much patience with me. He interrupted with: “That sounds like a limiting decision.” [A limiting decision is otherwise known as an excuse disguised as reason.] Because I’d been through this drill before, that was all the prompting I needed to acknowledge that actually, I didn’t want to do the project. So with one oberservation, my friend made me aware of the excuse I was making and made me take responsibility for my choices.
So how would it be if I had someone to do this for me all the time? What if my workplace fostered this type of awareness raising?
Chris Howard has said that “the structure of overwhelm is: chunking too high”. Translation: we feel overwhelmed when we try to keep too many things in mind at once, while also trying to act. Oh yeah, I’m really good at overwhelm. And like others, I feel a bit dizzy and disorganised when I’m doing it. And yet, I seem to get by – so why change?
I just finished facilitating a forum for supervisors entitled “How to manage workloads and priorities”. It was the kind of session where we all came with our ideas and experience to learn from eachother. We had a great sharing discussion about strategies; and then we looked at the traditional planning tools you might expect, before going into individual reflection time to apply those tools to our own situation.
Here were the main points:
- Put together a big picture calendar for the coming year (a GANTT chart works well), plot the big activities that you know about or can anticipate (budget cycles, performance appraisals, your birthday/your partner’s birthday, holidays, project deadlines, etc.).
- Set your desired outcomes for the year, and map any significant activities or milestones for these into your annual calendar. [feeling overwhelmed yet?] You should be feeling some tension here. Each of the things on your list probably represents a lot of work.
- Look at the overall visual map of your annual calendar – are there any timing changes you need to make to balance the workload over the year? Any activities that should be done first to support those that come later?
- Now focus on the next three months – what specifically needs to be planned and prioritised for the next 12 weeks.
- And now, focus only on what you must do this week.
There is no doubt that getting a clear bigger picture is important – to know where you’re heading. And then you really need to chunk down to just what you can do today. Make sure you consistently hit your daily targets. Maybe 3 times per year, check to see you’re heading in the right direction.
Let me know what you think of this : )
I’ve just read today’s blog post from Duncan Green, entitled “Building women’s leadership – what works”. Here’s the link: http://www.oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/?p=262#comments .
What I hear Mr. Green saying is that successful development of women’s leadership roles in a public sphere happens when the women act within their circles of influence.
Mr. Green cites examples of women speaking up on issues that fall inside their traditional roles – areas for which they are responsible in society. In doing so, they can minimize resistance to what they have to say, increase their participation in public debate, and gradually increase their influence in ways that would not be possible if they tried to start with issues relating to male roles.
As I think about this, I can’t help but feel compassion for each and every person (male or female) who has the courage to do something different in response to an undesirable situation. When effective development occurs, it is because key individuals have set aside habitual ways of thinking, being and doing that are no longer getting the desired results. And it’s because they’ve been able to discern how they can effectively influence the situation through what is in their power to do, be and say. Beyond discerning correct action, they’ve actually done it – that’s courage.
“Vision without action is a daydream; action without vision is a nightmare.”
– Japanese proverb
“Opportunities don’t knock, they whisper. So shut up and listen.” — Thomas Leonard
