Desperation is the seed of bad decisions
A good friend of mine shared this thought with me last week. We were discussing some of the major challenges and opportunities that had arisen in our respective businesses over the past months, and he was highlighting the battle to remove desperation from any decision we make, outlining the power this can put in our hands.
As a coach it is fascinating seeing the affect a bad decision can have on a business. A single moment can be the unraveling of weeks, months or years of hard work. We can all associate with these situations, either as an observer or the decision maker, but a very simple addition to our thought process can help us avoid many future bad decisions. Just press pause.
The pace at which many of us lead our lives tends to fuel snap decisions. They may not be the wrong decisions, but taking little or no time to think before making them can lead to a faster disaster.
“Your calm mind is the ultimate weapon against your challenges. So relax.” — Bryant McGill
The strategy of stopping can be a one of the toughest to introduce. My challenge to you is to find one element of your life where the addition of a pause might be valuable and focus on this first.
It might be as simple as letting others speak first in the next meeting you have, to re-read the next major email you write before hitting send, or just to step outside the office for five minutes before making important decisions.
Making an effort to think about the act of pausing is the first step of training yourself to pause. You will notice that the usually unnecessary urgency that dominates your daily decision making will start to disappear. Slowly equipping yourself to react in a more proactive manner.
My personal search for this skill led me to take up yoga as a means of pause for my whole life. It is time spent switched off and focused on resetting and strengthening the body and mind. It also has the added benefit of teaching strategies that you can implement across your day to help you remain calm and focused.
Everyone will identify a need for pause in their lives differently, and subsequently find many different methods of introducing it. The beauty of acknowledging the need is that you can start to address it one step at a time and begin to reap the benefits across all that you do.
If you have any personal methods that have helped you find the power of pause I would love to hear about them.
Photo with thanks to Dan Carlson