#askTracy: I will tell you everything.
#askTracy comes alive!
Give it to me!
Hey there, all! This week’s #askTracy comes from a dear client and community member who does less of the ‘storytelling’ or ‘situational’ approach to #askTracy we’ve seen previously, but instead sticks us with three pithy and powerful inquiries offered in a series of questions I will dive into in depth. Thank you, dear person, you are super and all the rest of you - please remember you can do so, too! You can ask a me a thing or many and right here you’ll get all (more) than you bargained for by way of thoughts and helpful whatnot - yay! You can query me about:
● Love,
● Sales,
● Time management,
● Pet care,
● Friendships,
● Wine recommendations … all the best and most important shit in life!
Bring ‘em HERE!
OK! Onto this week’s #askTracy!
What is something that you strive to do to increase your productivity/effectiveness?
This is such an aptly timed question! Just today I was discussing with a client our feelings of the lack of those two things - productivity/effectiveness. The client was speaking of something I very much relate to in general and now, in the time that I am typing this reply - during the Summer to Autumn transition where the dark comes and temperatures cool on both my vigor and impact.
Think - as this client and I were specifically discussing, the “knowing” that we are to “put ourselves out there” and “complete things” but feeling like all we wish to do is turn inside. How can I ask anyone to hire me when I am on the brink of wondering if I am worth anything I am capable of at all or, if you do dare hire me, I likely won’t do anything well, or at all…
I feel this a lot and that is curious, no? I ‘present’ as hella completist - but I tell you, that is not a lie as much as a hard-won practice of doing whatever I am doing from a deeply strong feeling of ineptitude and worthlessness, and complete inability to stand as a person beyond what I ‘do’.
That is a result of emotional abuse - for sure! - but also from a pretty exacerbated anxiety disorder. Anxiety can be a ‘go’ or ‘freeze’ thing in many respects. For me it is all go. A lot of go - too much go. So very much fear and nervousness tossing me forward to prevent the thing scarier than burnout - feeling. On paper that looks groovy - I mean, Hell, I get ‘things’ done. But, and I say this from a fully packed resume of being congratulated as I worked myself to threads and fell (more than a few times) into a hole of physical lethargy and interior static, that the fact that the larger society (a/k/a capitalism, people!) blesses such behavior and encourages the excessive damage the practice incurs. Not to say avoidance or paralysis by way of to-dos is admirable - but rather that in addressing this little tiny question of what I might do, or actually do, to increase productivity or (paramount here!) effectiveness - I say this:
Stop thinking the following - “I have to ….”
When we think of a “us” thing, that we are the only bucket where things land, and they must be dumped and cleaned and cleared from the bucket by us alone, there are immediately two ways for things to suss out - pass/fail.
And that is BEFORE the day starts, right? When we make the dreaded list and decide what needs to be done. Not knowing what might come our way to get in the way and then end the day by ‘blaming’ our very sweet selves for not doing the things we decided to in a partial vacuum of the early mornings or evenings before.
This makes me wonder if that is about control? Like some hope that we can control what might come? Barricade ourselves against the hellish unknown. Yeah, good luck with that!
Yet, there are things that need to be completed to keep things going, I deny this not! But what I propose, in returning to the advice to drop the “I” in the have to - and think instead of “it is needed” “it is important” “it would be helpful” “there is a commitment to”... completing the whatnot.
It might seem simple or even stupid, but I swear to goodness it matters. We can look at the ‘things’ apart from ourselves and actually see the activities and aims, and the needs they might meet/commitments they fulfill vs the doer. The doer - us - has a character and emotions and chooses, with their (our/your) elegant autonomy to take on tasks. But they may be or not be the correct or most necessary tasks BUT we won’t know unless we can look at them apart from our personalities and desires to achieve. To be clear, uou will and need to achieve them, but doing so is not hinged on completing them, it is hinged on assessment and choice.
And so - we move to effectiveness. Effectiveness is all answered by answering this question - whom do you want to help? Once we know that, we can know how to best understand and affect and impact them. How do we get to know the folx we care about: our clients, friends, and colleagues, so that instead of feeling voiceless and unseen they feel validated by the very skills we will use to serve them? We will get to know them by naming them. Thus, ending the shouting and selling and feeling as if the internet or networking mixer, interview or application is hitting outer space vs home.
Also, that information shall too influence what I spoke on above - how to do the things comes from knowing for whom we are seeking to do them. Touch. Untangle. Tickle. What do they need? Where do they gather? And where are they needy?
Dear reader and question writer - you tell me - how does that home hit? Well - hard - soft - limp? Tell me more, ask more questions, and keep listening – always, always listen.
Xo
Tracy
