What Works: When in Doubt, Do Something
Submitted by editor on Mon, 09/26/2016 - 10:26am
Have you ever felt stuck? Tires in the mud of life stuck? Where is my life going stuck? Being stuck can be an important part of the change process. Yet, if you let it get to you, it can trigger deeper levels of stuck. Through inaction, you could perpetuate your own negative outcome.
Story time: My mom used to teach me how to check if spaghetti was ready to eat by throwing strands up on the wall. We’d wait a little bit and then we would pick a noodle up and throw it. In retrospect, I appreciate her for how often she cleaned those walls. Little did I know she wasn’t just teaching me about cooking. She was teaching me about the business of living.
If you have the pot of water boiling, you’ve taken the first step into getting things cooking. Think about this. What happens if you don’t dip the ladle in and take some action to check the progress of your pasta? You might dump the water too soon. That would result in icky, undercooked, pasta. Or, if you don’t check the pasta, you might overcook it into mush.
Change is the boiling pot. It could be anything. You could face a lay offs. You could see prices increasing in your supply chain. You could start a new business or expand your product line. Change is disruptive, it interrupts things. This disruption doesn't have to be negative. It could be disruptive in a positive way. You could get a new client, get married, have a baby, or experience any event which shakes up the status quo.
To manage change, assess your level of discomfort, find your motivation, create a process, and overcome resistance. If you do this, you will get the change you are seeking. But it all starts with action.
Action should be in the direction of your goal and incremental in nature. That means you don’t pick up the entire pot of boiling water and throw it at the wall. You won't just make a mess. You might burn yourself! Make small adjustments and give those adjustments some time to stick.
Some adjustments will be immediately unworkable. The noodle will fall off the wall. But there are some that will stick for a bit. That change will keep boiling and as long as you take action, you will see when that boiling pot has done its job.
Ha ha… who’s hungry now?
This week: Look at an area of your life that is changing and take a small action toward stabilization. Use the pasta pot method to pause and observe the effect of your action. Then, if the situation warrants, take another action. Comment below about what you experienced.
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Diane Dye Hansen is the Chief Inspiration Officer of What Works Coaching, a business coaching and marketing services firm based in Carson City. She has 20 years of experience working with top corporations, growing businesses, motivated entrepreneurs, and individuals hungry for a fresh start. Diane holds a Bachelor’s in Business Administration and Marketing from Cal State San Bernardino. She is also a candidate for a Master’s degree in Communications Management from the University of Southern California. Her column appears every Monday, and sometimes Tuesday, in Carson Now.
