Tag: WordPress

Comfort zones

Posted on by philipdodson

The path of least resistance is where we often naturally gravitate to, especially, if we are not motivated in life. Honestly, writing our daily to do lists and we start off with heaps of enthusiasm of all the great things that we are going to achieve that day.

Then you start, often though, you will pick an easy task on the list, avoiding the one you deep down know that you should be doing, but it’s hard and often requires you to step out of our comfort zones.

Comfort zones are an interesting thing and it is often talked about by coaches and guru’s. ‘You got to get out of your comfort zone’. That implies that you need to step in to somewhere which is going to make you feel uncomfortable.

I’m not sure that is the best sales pitch that I’ve heard, to be honest, to get you to do something, especially something that you are already putting off, as you think it will be hard.

Imagine if DFS advertised ‘ditch your comfortable sofa and grab one of our range of uncomfortable couches’ or ‘feel the pain of our latest armchairs’. Not sure that would be a real winner of a campaign to be honest.

There is almost this ‘macho’ tag attached to doing things, you have to be ‘tough’ to run a business, you need ‘big balls’ and so on.

I think that this kind of thinking actually has a negative effect on doing stuff and often puts people off stepping out of their ‘comfort zones’.

I actually think that the ‘zone’ of doing the same old, same old and just floating along through life doing the familiar is actually mis-named to be honest.

As the reality is, most of the people in this supposed ‘comfort zone’, aren’t these happy contented people living a familiar and ‘comfy’ life of inertia. They are in fact living a life full of worries, anxiety, stress, fears, feelings of being trapped, inadequacy and in fact they are very uncomfortable.

The phrase should be free yourself from your discomfort zone and step into a new life.

Actually, this whole notion of ‘comfortable’ sounds fairly mediocre to be honest too. Who wants to be settling for comfort, we actually want to be happy.

So, perhaps it could be free yourself from your discomfort zone and create a life of happiness.

Now that sounds a better sales pitch to be honest.

Life for a good deal of people is that discomfort zone and it is because they fear that breaking free from their mis-named ‘comfort zone’, it is this giant leap, as you’ve ‘GOT TO GET OUT OF IT’. But by leaving what they have, that’s described as ‘comfort’ implies that they are going to somewhere less comfortable.

Negative and fear based messages are often how we ‘drive’ people to do things. This is wrong and it can easily be changed too.

We could encourage people to be more open, encourage people that it is OK to talk about how we really feel. We can start to make progress on getting people to see change as thing that will bring them a happier life.

Not to have to frighten them to go into this ‘discomfort zone’ to get them to change.

The ‘F’ button has helped me become an albatross

Posted on by philipdodson

OK this is it, the big one, the big 30.

I have been building up to this one and I am aiming to do it in record time too. So excuse the fcuking seplling mistkaes!!

So when I have written about another 710 words and the magic green square pops up to say I’ve completed my 750 words today, then I will be awarded my albatross badge.

Yessssss!!!

Now all I’ve got to do is come up with another 670 words. This sometimes just flows nicely and now I am under the pressure of writing fast and well, to hit a target, the brain is ceasing up, the words aren’t coming……arghhhh!!!

Well isn’t the weather nice for September.

OK, enough fooling around, time to write properly and seriously, whatever that is???

Shame adding endless question marks doesn’t add to the word tally. So I am flying now in terms of speed and the typos aren’t too bad, yet!

I have been asked to write a few articles recently for various people and previously I might have said I would do them initially, then panicked about the work load and gone back to them rather sheepishly saying ‘sorry but no time’. Now having done this for 30 days in a row, I am more confident that I can write decent stuff (OK a bit of an exaggeration) and do it at speed.

I am really getting the writing bug now and that is something I have always wanted to do, however,I told myself the usual excuse of ‘never enough time’. Well, as a book entitled ‘Get off your arse’ by my mate Brad Burton will tell you, there is always enough time. You have just got to stop ‘dicking about’ as Brad puts it.

What he means is, if you are really determined to get something done, then look at what you’ve been doing over the last 10-15 minutes write it down and keep doing that, until you actually realise just how much time we do waste in our day-to-day lives.

I have realised that. It is sooooooo easy to lose focus, as we are all constantly distracted by vibrations. I don’t mean the sort that come from some mystic cult or from earthquakes, I mean the alerts that come on our phones. An new tweet, a Facebook Like, a RT, email, text and so on.

This is the challenge for all of us, as we realise the value of staying connected and making new connections. I do talks about the Connected Generation, how it is all now about the shared experience and how vital this is for the future of our businesses.

However, when you’ve really got to get something done, then you need to switch that stuff off. When I am doing my 750 words, I always try to find somewhere quiet to do the writing, however, if I can’t, then I just put my headphones on and shut out the world around me by playing music.

So I have now decided to write down an action list of all the things that I absolutely need to get done that day and I make that a short/achievable list. So this isn’t my much longer list of things that are to do. This action list is what I start with each day and I have learnt from reading ‘Eat That Frog’, that you pick the biggest/ugliest frog to eat first and you eat it bite by bite until it’s all gone.

However, sticking to that, is easier said than done if you allow the distractions to come in and then the dicking about will start up again.

So I have created an ‘F’ button, you heard it here first by the way, and this is an imaginary button that sits on the dashboard in my brain. The ‘F’ stands for focus. So the minute I start to feel that I am going off track………..press ‘F’ and then back on to it.

This might sound a little weird and might not work for everyone, but since I have been using it, my focus, productivity and results have all improved.

So I am into the home stretch now, just 50 words to go to get my albatross badge. I am imagining them opening the envelope on stage at the ‘750 Words all time greatest writers award’ ceremony. They are calling out the names of the contenders and then yes, they call me to the stage to get my award. There it is an albatross.

photo (8)

That’s it done, sadly though, 1 minute over my fastest writing time of 19 minutes.