I'll Do It When I'm Fresh

I have 9 hours of online training to complete for my coach recertification, and I want to take it.

But I haven't started.

The reason I give myself is that I want to be “fresh” for it. Nine hours of dense material takes full attention.

This week is slower because a lot of folks are on vacation, and I still haven't opened it.

Instead, I wrote this! :-)

Writing is something I can cross off my list. Nine hours of training just feels daunting.

That's when I noticed what "fresh" was doing for me.

It’s become an excuse. I had attached a condition to starting, and it gave me a legitimate reason not to begin.

My client Marcus does the same thing with a different word.

He's a division president who wants a CEO job. He needs to think through his positioning as a candidate. Marcus is not a procrastinator. He can motor through just about anything, but this one stops him.

When we got on Zoom, he wanted to talk about resume format. Where should this section sit, and does this belong under strategy or operations.

I told him the format was fine. The focus was the content.

Format was his version of “fresh.” A real question, and also the thing keeping him from the harder one.

Three questions I asked him, and what I’m asking of myself this week.

1.     What am I supposed to be doing?

2.     What am I doing instead?

3.     What am I trying to not feel or decide right now?

For Marcus, finishing meant saying out loud that he was ready to be CEO without cringing at sounding “brag-a-docious.”

I don’t want to start something I can’t finish and cross off my checklist.

When you're slammed, avoidance and a packed week look the same on a calendar. A slow week takes that cover away.

So if something has been circling you all summer, the useful question isn't why you didn't have time. It's what starting it would have required you to feel or decide.