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When we work on a big project we are often being too self-critical, too discouraging and possibly giving up far too early on ourselves. Today I want to show you how we are doing ourselves a disservice by doing this and how we can turn this around and be more effective at working towards a big project.
I want to start with an analogy and the analogy is with a baby learning to walk. The baby starts to pull up against the wall and try to make the first step, but falls on their bum. So what do we do? Do we sigh, say “What a bummer”, pick up the phone and tell our parents: “You know what? I think this baby will never learn to walk!” Do we ever do this?
No, we do the complete opposite. We cheer for the baby’s first attempt: “Yay! Go, go, go!” We have the trust that the baby will learn to walk, it just needs to take these baby steps towards it. We provide encouragement and support, give them a hand and walk around with them. And the baby has this amazing persistence in learning to walk.
Now take this analogy, transfer and apply it to that big project you are working on. Have trust. Provide encouragement and support to yourself.
But often our reality is that we are self-critical. When we take few steps and something does not work, we start to have those thoughts: “Oh, maybe I am not good enough” or “This is not going to work”. These thoughts slow us down in our progress. When we make a couple of further steps and something does not work, we may even give up on it. And this is giving up on ourselves far too early.
One of my private clients shared with me that she started this one big project (learning a new type of analysis to compare with other stuff she has done previously, and this involves reading, understanding, looking into a new programming code etc) which did sounds quite big and complicated. And by the end of first week she was angry and frustrated with herself for the slow progress she had.
But after we talk we realised that she did 4 steps towards her goal just within this first week that contributed to the preparation phase of this project. And she did them well, they actually worked. There were many other things that did not work, but why would you try to do more than the four steps within the first week?
I told my client: “You did well, but you were asking far too much of yourself and being too critical, which is too discouraging”. After I provided this support, she was able to look back and see “Yes, I accomplished those 4 things, they worked well”. When she acknowledged it, this provided a motivation for the next week to just get on with that and take further baby steps.
When we had a call a week later she was much more positive and shared with me that she has now a much better understanding about her project and she felt like she can make further progress.
How can YOU do this? 1) Take you big project and define manageable tasks. 2) Break them down into baby steps you can take – baby steps that will take you 15-30 min to accomplish. 3) Give yourself time, especially if it is a big project with no deadline. 4) Also give yourself room for things coming up. For example if you want to meet someone for their expertise and they are away – give yourself time for this kind of things coming up. Tell yourself: “That’s ok, they are away, and I will now do other things that I planned.” 5) Create a timeline for your project: this will help you monitor your progress. Seeing these little things being accomplished provides you with motivation, with the internal encouragement and support. 6) And the last thing: have trust that by making these baby steps you are nearing your goal.
This was the first part of my today’s advice. The second part is to look for an external support and encouragement: these may be one of your parents, a senior academic or a research staff. I always provide strong support and encouragement for my clients, because I see what positive effect it is making on them when they are being discouraging and far too critical on themselves. This external support provides an amazing motivation for you to move further.
Here is your Productivity Assignment for this week:
1) Take your project, define manageable tasks and break it down into baby steps. Give yourself time, create a time line. Have the trust that if you take these baby steps, you will approach your end goal.
2) Look around for an external support, in addition to the internal support and trust you now going to hopefully have when you remember the analogy I shared with you today!
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