The importance list — where are you?
I’ve also shared this article to my @Medium account so if you don’t like reading you can listen – alas it’s not my voice but a great way to process the strategies and ideas I share.
like to share secrets with you. The strategies that most won’t tell you until you’ve spent some money, that’s not my style. I believe the right clients will always find me and I want to be accessible for all — no matter what your budget.
Often when I’m working with clients, I hear worrying statements that set off alarm bells on what is stopping them from achieving what they want and often suffering, that tell me that person puts everyone else first and themselves last.
Here I share with you a quick and easy exercise to ask yourself where you see yourself in the importance list, why it’s important and the strategies to fix it.
Why you need to put yourself on the importance list.
- I may be coaching a team or an individual but regardless I test where people place themselves in their world.
- Do you walk in the door after a long day and start dealing with the whole family’s needs?
- Do you stop what you are doing and instantly crack on with whatever task your teammates, staff or boss throw at you?
- Do you change your plans at a moments notice to keep the peace and do what others want instead?
These are pretty obvious ones, but many are so adaptable (which can be great to be agile and ready for anything) that they bend to everyone’s beck and call and that’s when you can have serious issues.
These include (not exclusive list);
- Not completing your to do list.
- Feeling stressed.
- Working long hours.
- Feeling frustrated with staff/boss/colleagues.
- Feeling undervalued.
- Hating your job/life/partner.
- Feeling unappreciated.
- Feeling burnout and unwell — physically and mentally.
In the work place I see this impact on;
- Productivity.
- Staff relations.
- Stress management.
- Task completion.
- Compliance.
- Management style.
- Leaders’ sanity!
- Communication.
- Respect.
- Grape vine chatter.
This quick and easy exercise is great to understand how you see yourself in the world both personally and professionally and how others see themselves.
It can be a real revelation as people realise, they’d not valued themselves as much as they should.
This can play a massive part in why people put up with poor work environments, don’t speak up about issues, concerns or ideas and even damage the organisation.
Utilise this exercise and learn from it and you can see;
- Improved communication.
- Time management.
- Stress management.
- Resilience.
- Achieving new challenging goals.
- Overcoming adversity.
- Building confidence.
- Dealing with change adversity.
And so much more that impacts on performance, success and happiness.
With your team you can use this exercise to understand how they value themselves, assess their level of self-belief and check their confidence levels — on confidence a note of caution — if your confidence goes up and down you are likely to be suffering from external confidence instead of internal confidence — this link will fix that. https://mandiie-holgate-business-life-coach.teachable.com/p/how-to-rocket-your-confidence
So, this is it…
Imagine a pile of clean washing. At the top you’ve got the clothes you and your household wear the most — they go through the washing process most weeks.
Then further down there’s that outfit you wore at that posh do and haven’t got around to putting away yet.
Then at the bottom there’s the things that haven’t seen the light of day in years. In fact, there’s a good chance that the last time you saw that garment you had a 90’s perm and would scream if you met George Michael, Kylie or Jon Bon Jovi!
At the bottom where that grey broken bra lives, those pants that have nearly lost their elasticity and risk an embarrassing moment.
So, picture it. At the top where the fast processed items are, is your ten out of 10 and down in the gregs of your wash basket, with your youth and grey pants is 0 out of 10. Where do you sit?
When I do this exercise with audience and teams, we quickly see how people see themselves. It tells me a lot about their confidence levels, self-belief, ability to communicate powerfully and even get their to do list done.
Straight away some will shout out “10!” So, we know they’ve confidence to put themselves first when it matters.
Then there are those that fold their arms and say, “Well realistically it should be a 5, right?” which means they are asking me what they should think and gives me some warning signs that their importance in the world, family, work is not all it could be.
(Remember this is not about putting yourself all others and forgetting they exist. This is about the internal gauge that tells you that your needs matter as much as anyone else’s. There are so many feel good motivational quotes about this, but rarely do people appreciate the true damage of putting yourself down there with the old grey bra and pants!
And then there are those who say nothing. I often see a sneak tear. They often don’t want to say anything. If it is a team coaching, they know they are safe to say anything so they will tell me they’ve not even a one. These people get that real eureka moment that you can’t change the world if you don’t exist.
For one manager they realised their door was always open, they were well respected and much loved, but they often worked until 10pm, then often found themselves doing everything at home and feeling emotionally and physically exhausted. After this quick exercise we put some strategies in place and they rarely finish work after 6pm, they receive a lot higher respect at work and at home and their 17-year-old now volunteers to tidy the kitchen and cook dinner! So where are you on the importance list?
Monitor it and don’t accept anything less than a seven!
Struggling?
Message me and I will let you know whether to start with my mastermind group, confidence course, or something else. And as always if you would like me to write something especially for you, just say.