Life is like canoeing!!

To be successful at canoeing, you need to use both blades of your oar equally.?And, to have a wonderfully successful life you also need to use both oar blades equally.

Here’s the thing, most people don’t use both oar blades equally and they put all of their efforts into one thing at a time, neglecting the other areas of their lives and what is going to happen then…………………?

Because you are using the one oar blade, you will end up going around in circles and NOT progressing with every area of your life.

Let’s be honest, most people need to do that at times in their lives as sometimes it is ‘all hands to the pump’ but NOT all of the time.?

Some people jump from one crisis to another ALL OF THE TIME and wonder why they are not progressing in their lives.

They may well focus on their professional lives – business/work and neglect their partners (not intentionally in most cases) and wonder why their relationship has become distant??Or visa versa.

Then focus all their efforts on their relationship and then realising their professional life is suffering.?So starting the vicious circle jumping from one ‘crisis’ to another!

This also happens in a business way too often as well, when it is from one firestorm to other neglecting parts of the business that also need nurturing and feeding!

When you are using your oar blades equally, that is when you are progressing and moving forward in the most efficient way.

I was working with a Board of Directors not too long ago (for obvious reasons I am not going to name the company) chatting with the group, and hearing about their successes. Which were really impressive I hasten to add, they were really focussed on where they wanted to go.

Their turnover and profit growth in the previous 2 years was massive and having eaten up most of their smaller competitors because of the quality of service and products, they were on a high – understandably so.

So I asked about infrastructure.

Stoney silence!

Here’s the thing, they were noticing certain things internally weren’t going as well as they should have been and to cut a long story short I said, “the business has been riding on a crest of a wave with its growth and turnover which is brilliant, but you have forgotten to take the foundations with you.?They are on that life raft that you have left behind.?In fact, if you look hard enough over in that direction, you can see it bobbing in the distance!”

It was one of those “OMG” moments for the board.

Now, I am not saying this because I am any guru or anything, it is just that they had been paddling with the one oar blade without even realising it. Sometimes, we all get so fixated on certain things we forget others.

Outcome:

They started to use both proverbial oar blades and now business has continued to grow breaking all their previous records but their infrastructure has grown too so that infrastructure is now strong enough to support the growth in the business.

So paddle away using both oar blades equally to make the progress you want and have the quality life you want both professionally and personally.

#davewilliamscoaching #leadership #managementdevelopment #success #results