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More or Less
"The world is too big for us...There is too much dying, too many crimes, casualties, violence and excitement. Try as you will, you get behind the race in spite of yourself. It is an excessent strain to keep pace and we still lose ground. Science empties its discoveries on you so fast that you stagger beneath them in hopeless bewilderment. The political worlds witness new scenes so rapidly that you are out of breath trying to keep up with them. Everything is high pressure; Human nature just cannot endure much more." From The Atlantic Monthly, 1837.
Feeling a little out of control? Has the giant in-box of your work and life become your Master. Apparently, this sense of overwhelm has been going on for a while. Fast forward to the present; few of us can escape a day that is chocked full of overwhelming input, rapid change, and infinite options. According to David Allen, efficiency expert and best-selling author, in the last three days you have probably received more change-producing, project creating, and priority shifting input than your parents received in 3 months. Meditate on that!
We are living in a near constant state of receiving, interpreting, evaluating, deciding, and reacting to the "stuff" entering our lives. "Stuff" includes everything from e-mail, voice mail, snail mail, meeting notes, physical stuff, our never ending ever loving to do lists, and those dreadful piles that form and multiply in our workplaces and homes. And let's not forget the constant introduction of new technology which promises to improve our quality of life by increasing our efficiency somehow. And, the expectation of an immediate response to everything, what with e-mailing, texting, twittering, tweeting, the ever present cell phone, and the myriad of other ways we have of "communicating."
It's no wonder that huge numbers of people are increasingly experiencing greater amounts of stress, a sense of loss of control, and an inability to focus.
In coaching high performing professionals, this is a constant theme. How to focus themselves and how to focus their organizations? A simple question, like "how was your week-end" can often draw a blank look, and a "what week-end?" followed by "Oh, I just wanted to catch up."
Ahhhhh, the myth of catching up. Have you ever heard anyone claim to actually "be caught up?" It happens so rarely, that I wonder if there is not some huge, unspoken risk associated with "being caught up."
So, what is the answer? It's indeed a conundrum. As coaches, we are better at asking questions. We believe that any answers we may offer to this "pace of life spinning out of control" conundrum would only work for us. Unless we take time to question the "way things are" around this issue, we will continue to pay the price of unrelenting demands for our attention.
We are not calling for the overthrow of technology. We love technology! We are, however, asking questions such as:
Are you using technology or are you being used by it?
Imagine what it would be like to practice Sabbath each week, a day away from all the Stuff.
Will becoming even more efficient, cramming more into each minute, each hour, each day really lead to Your Best Decade Yet? How much is enough?
What's your plan for seriously improving the quality of your life, and not just the quantity of stuff in your life?
These questions are Your Coaching Challenge for the week, should you choose to accept it. Life is Complicated. Simplify.
We'll see you on-line next Monday! Wishing you Your Best Week Yet!
Cheers! Coach Jeanne
The Quality Coach!®, Celebrating over 20 Years of Coaching Great Leaders & Teams.
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