Lately, I run into many people who constantly have the same refrain:
“I’m so busy!” or “It's crazy here!” or “I never have the time.” Or my favorite, “I’m so stressed!”
I hate to be critical (as a coach, it’s my job) - but it tells me a lot about you, your personality, and your work habits:
1. You don’t have control of your time or schedule.
People who run around like a chicken without its head tend not to instill confidence with their superiors, peers, team, or customers. What you are telegraphing is that you don’t have control of your schedule and activities. That tells me you’re spending disproportionate blocks of time on the wrong items (not urgent or important) and rushing through areas that are urgent and important.
2. You like to complain and invite people to your pity party.
I hate people like you. Like old people who complain constantly about their maladies, I (and all the people around you) really don’t care about your simple-to-solve issues. Stop using these excuses to complain about things that are happening TO you. Start taking responsibility and change your life by paying more attention to your schedule and priorititizing your activities.
3. You have bad work habits and don’t know how to streamline, delegate or retire duities.
And you’re never going to get a promotion. Too often, when my staff kept complaining about their duties, it told me that they aren’t frequently looking at their workload and streamlining tasks, delegating to their staff (or using technology), or the easiest, stop doing unimportant or lower-echelon activities.
Normally, I have tips after each area to help you stop doing bad things and start doing good things. This week I have one piece of advice: “Stop it.”
That’s it. Try to control you bad behaviors — stop complaining, start focusing on the urgent and important, and start streamlining/delegating/retiring secondary duties.
IF YOU WANT TO LEARN MORE — sign up for a free coaching session with Rich.