Tuesday 2 August 2011

Values are King

This piece is a thank you to one of my own coaches Kevin Hall of APCTC.
He doesn't know this yet but our last chat gave me an incredible insight into one of my values when he said to me "so saving time means a lot to you". I immediately agreed as I have always known this but then when I reflected on this more, as only verbalising something can make you do, I realised that it has more of an influence on my daily life than I had firSt thought.
As the week went by I suddenly took notice of all the behaviours I had surrounding this great value of "not wasting time".
I have to admit that the dark side of this is impatience and it manifested itself in several ways.
The first instance was when I realised that saving time was more important than money and that I will use my car, not out of laziness, but so that I can fit in more social media or housework or anything that needs doing.
I noticed that my thought processes are always trying to come up with compromises, on behalf of everyone, without taking the time to share my thoughts with all involved so that the decision making is shared. The result may be the same but at least then I am not seen to be in my "impatient" mode.

The story does not end there - It came up again when I was in Norwich on Friday to be with the fabulous Topher Morrison, to hone and tone my speaking skills.
The first thing that struck me was how I do not tell a story in ENOUGH detail! Where others give you every small part of the picture to try and show you the story into your minds, I was giving little more than the headlines.
This is because I didn't want to waste THEIR time! I had a belief that the audience would rather I just got to the point. Topher showed me how I could make my story so much more compelling and it was a real aha moment.
Though so simple this has changed my whole way of thinking and it was the 2 sessions together that made me see the light.
I pride myself in my good time management but sometimes the value of taking your time to express yourself, or to go for a walk to the shops instead of taking the car, or to communicate what you need out loud, can be much more beneficial than "saving time".
However much we understand ourselves, there is always more to know.
So thanks Kevin and thanks Topher!

1 comment:

  1. It's just wonderful what comes out of conversations isn't it? While writing this I realise that we didn't try - it just happened and that just happens when we are asking the 'right' questions at a conscious level that our unconscious mind is always looking for the answer. The quality of our results is determined by the quality of the questions that we ask. Sadly most people ask themselves poor quality questions and repeat the same question(s) over and over. So for you to get that enlightment means that you are asking a quality question about how you can improve. I do not know what the exact question is but to get that result you must absolutley be asking yourself a great quality question. And to ask a great quality question you first ask 'How' and the second part of the question is towards motivated asked in the positive.

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