A quick message from an executive coach on shaking the burden of obligations and picking up the power of choice.
TRANSCRIPT:
Hello, I’m Tony Mayo, the business owners executive coach.
A wise man once said that it is impossible to be satisfied with something we’re stuck with. Luckily, in today’s world, most of us have many many more choices than we often recognize. So much of what we do is really our choice. We may feel stuck with it but we’re actually not.
One client was, well, complaining to me about his long To Do list. Dozens and dozens of items. Some of them that have been there for weeks or months. Maybe this has happened to you. I know it’s happened to me. He got to the point where just thinking about his to do list, much less looking at it, was depressing and upsetting. So I asked him, who put things on this To Do list? He said, “Well, I do.” I said, “Well, who can take them off?” He said, “Well, I can.” So, what puts something on there and keeps it there? He says, “Well, it’s something I want to get done.” I said, “So, you have a list of things you’d really like to do, results you want to have, that you have chosen, but you’re _dominated_ by it? Who’s in charge here?
What he did, the assignment he took on for himself, was to go back and look at every item on that list and say, “Is this something I choose?” And, he went and surprised himself by choosing every one and was so energized by this new freedom which existed only in his head, in the language he was using that he found he got very productive and moved through that list rather than resisting it. Choice is available, much more often than we realize. Even in some cases where you’re certain it isn’t.
I was speaking to a client one day when she said she had to cut the call short because she had to go pick up her son at school. I said, you _have_ to, that’s pretty rare that you _have_ to do anything. She said, no really, I _have_ to. He’s sick. I said, you _don’t_ have to, and, of course, she reacted the way you probably are. I’m his mother, he’s sick, I have to go. But I said to her, you know you don’t have to. There are mothers who don’t pick up their sick children at school because they can’t or they won’t. You’ve made a choice to pick him up, why is that? She paused for a moment and said, because I care about my son and he’s more important than any of the client meetings or other projects I had going today. And, as soon as she saw that she chose to take care of her son that day, all of the angst and upset went away. The action was clear. Go get your son, you chose him as the most important thing. Not everybody would. And not every time will you. But this time she felt freedom and the energy to act where before it was only upset and obligation.
I hope you find this video useful, enjoyable, and worth sharing.
Recent Comments