IT'S TIME TO MOVE FORWARD FASTER

What can we do to move forwards, with purpose, with ease with confidence?

Sounds like it should be simple, but many struggle with coming up with a game plan. That’s where I come in. I’ve laid out a recipe for ensuring you keep moving forward.

Keep momentum

Ever noticed that once you start something, it's much easier to keep moving forwards. But when we stop, it's oh so hard to get moving again? Whether it's the job hunt hitting a patch of time where you just stop speaking to recruiters or interview or bringing up promotion opportunities with your boss. Let alone mowing the lawn (yes that's my one-stop for a week and suddenly getting going again is hellish!).?

The key is to not stop. Get going, then keep going.?

But how to do this. Obviously, I'm dodging the hardest issue here, which is to start - that's a whole podcast episode in its own right. And once you are moving forwards, how do you keep moving forwards. Because all too often we stop without realising we've stopped.

1. Realise WHAT you are moving forwards in. I encourage my clients to have a maximum of 3 main goals at any one time. A personal goal, a personal professional development goal, and a work goal for the team. Ideally, all three of these align in some way. But figure out WHAT you are moving forwards on is paramount.?

2. Remind yourself of the WHAT every single day. I ALWAYS have my “what” written on the wall behind my computer, so where I look every day when I’m at my desk I see my top 3 goals. Sometimes it's only one, but whatever is my current focus, goes up there. I also write them out in my journal. I try and journal every day, though I'll admit I don't always! But when I do they get written out. I've also taken to telling myself my goals out loud in the shower every morning.?

3. Try something to remind you. ALSO if it's the team's goal REMIND them. I've spoken about the importance of repeating the team priorities to your team extensively before. So do it. And make sure you're doing it for yourself too.

4. The final step is to make sure you know the tiny BABY step to take next.?

Keeping momentum is as much about breaking down what you want to achieve into tiny bite-size chunks as it is about actions. If your to-do list says 'fire off 20 job applications' and nothing else, you'll look at that on the weekend, when you've finally got 10 minutes away from the family and think erugghhhhh where to start. Instead, start with 'review my opening paragraph on my resume and add in quantifiable wins'. Suddenly, that's less daunting.?

Once you have those four steps in place, the next key change is to: Move forwards faster.

A lot of the time I work with people who have found themselves stalled and dispirited because they aren't moving forwards fast enough.?

Pace and speed aren't always good things. But sometimes we need it to help with momentum. If you are regular in your actions, i.e. you have constant momentum, BUT those actions are so far apart, it feels to you that you are moving at snail’s pace, or that every time you get to the thing you care about that you are starting from scratch, you might strictly speaking HAVE momentum, but it doesn't feel like it.?

See, momentum isn't enough, we need significant progress so that we stay engaged. This also applies as a leadership trait. Your TEAM needs to see forward progress, but also to avoid burnout if they are to stay engaged and motivated. We know this as leaders, and it's a tactic we need to apply with ourselves.?

So how do we move forwards faster?

Well think about how you would do that with your team. A lot of team negativity comes from when the team doesn't focus on what's needed and therefore doesn't move forwards. If you were struggling with a team in this way you'd look at what really needs to be done, and remove superfluous fake work from their workloads. You'd be reminding them every day of the shared vision and required forward direction AND you'd hold them accountable. And that is exactly what you need to do with yourself.?

Remove the work that isn't contributing to the goals you have in place.?

Remind yourself of the big picture, the vision, and the purpose behind the hard work you are putting in.

Get held accountable. Now a lot of the work I do is around self-accountability. It's actually one of the reasons I don't like a lot of traditional coaching methodologies - I believe we can, with training, hold ourselves accountable, and when we do, truly extraordinary things happen. BUT that takes time to learn. It's taken me years, but thankfully I have a small but mighty business today as a result because of it. And I know most people don't have that without development and working with the right kind of coach. Side note, if your coach is primarily holding YOU accountable, know that that is a temporary solution and ask them to help you learn self accountability. BUT in the meantime, get yourself, someone, to hold you accountable. That can be a friend, partner, mentor, or coach. Anyone who's going to say 'what are you doing next' and 'when should I check in with you on your progress on that', AND will then actually check-in.?

Choose to shift perspective: This isn't happening to you, it's happening for you. Perspective determines our worldview.?

We often don't get the opportunity to change what people do to us or for us, though of course, the art of influence does give us control (c.f. episode 58). BUT we do get to choose how we interpret what happens to us.?

A large part of my coaching is pointing out to a client the myriad number of ways that a situation can be interpreted, to help them realise that they will never actually know what the intention of another human being was because the only brain they know is there own. And more important than that, spending crucial emotional energy and effort being upset and angry, about one interpretation doesn't move anything forward. Totally easier said than done. Right?

Just a few weeks ago I had a client telling me about a situation with her boss shutting down a line of spending for her team, and not offering clarity or explanations for why. This truly sucked. And yes, could have been handled better by her boss. But my client was convinced this was a reflection of her boss' lack of trust in my client's abilities. The lack of explanation in particular was providing a combo of anger, frustration, and low confidence to pile up in my client and was threatening to overwhelm. Immediately I could see 10 reasons for why her boss may be doing this and not informing her, all to do with the politics of the situation, not wanting to play favourites, and realigning priorities for the broader organisation that I could see make sense. Until my client and I had this conversation though, all she could experience was the pain and anger, and low confidence, and damage to her self esteem. And before you find yourself thinking 'I wouldn't do that' - believe me WE ALL DO THAT. Jumping to a conclusion that makes sense to us in the moment is something that we all have inside us. We all jump to conclusions about everything. It's human nature.?

What we can learn to do is learn the reframing muscle. The perspective muscle.?

Perspective is about looking at your situation from an outside view, taking that 30,000ft view or a mile high. The difference between being in the middle of the street and up the top of the mountain looking down on the entire town.?

When you find yourself challenged by situations and circumstances, here's a recipe to help you reframe:

1. PAUSE. Take deep breaths. I actually love to do a 30-second breathing meditation where you literally focus on breathing in and breathing out, and pulling yourself back to this each time your thoughts wander off. This is hugely grounding.?

2. NEXT. Notice your surroundings. Yes, even if that has nothing to do with the situation that you need to reframe. Reading something on your phone, or hearing something on a video conference, means you can take the time to look around and realise not all is bad. Even in an office, look out a window, focus on the wooden desk in front of you, feel the carpet under your shoes. Again, this is about grounding yourself, alongside those breathing techniques.?

Now at this point, you're probably a lot calmer already, that's the point of steps 1 and 2. And we need some level of calm in order to allow ourselves to consider alternatives.?

So next

3. ZOOM OUT. It's time to step up the mountain away from the street. This is the hardest step of all especially if we are hurting in some way (which typically we are because those are usually the situations that need a reframe). Try and look for broader context. What other situations, people, groups are going on that could be creating or informing the situation that just unfolded? Much like my client, you want to actively think about people and things other than you and your work. This helps you understand and gain that perspective.?

4. If in doubt, ask a trusted friend, mentor, or coach. I advise NOT asking a colleague because all too often these situations, especially as managers are delicate. And typically, if they are impacting you in this way, your closest allies at work aren't going to be too happy either, and you just end self-reinforcing. Instead, reach out to someone outside of your organisation - a coach is a great resource here because this is part of what they are trained to do and comes with built-in confidentiality. BUT friends and mentors are also good alternatives, just be cognisant of how much you CAN share.?

5. Deliberately focus on the perspective that is completely opposite from the one you were initially drawn to. How can you convince your brain that is as legit as the initial interpretation you had. This is the fastest way to convince your brain that you are never going to know and honestly, that therefore this doesn't matter.

6. Finally, remind yourself now that you know there is no one way to interpret this situation, that the only thing that matters, is what you now do. The only thing/person and action you have true control over is you and your thoughts, beliefs, and actions. So choose.?

That final choice is so hard, but if you go through steps 1-5 it becomes easier believe me.?

And this perspective-taking applies at EVERY LEVEL and to everything. When a job interview goes bad, when your boss turns you down for a promotion, heck when your business unit gets wound up. It all hurts and it all sucks, but perspective will allow you to move forwards faster and keep momentum, instead of spending valuable time and energy focusing on what should have or could have been or being angry.?

So, there you have it - three ways to move forwards more purposefully, with more ease, more confidence and generating results instead of stagnating.?

1. Keep momentum

2. Move forwards faster.

3. Get and keep perspective.?

Dive into more in Episode 60 of the Leading Women in Tech Podcast: https://tonicollis.com/episode60