I am human - just like you. I make my share of personal and professional mistakes - sometimes it feels like I make several each day. Like many people, I beat myself up afterwards. I made a substantial professional mistake last week and am still replaying it in my mind. It distracts me. It clouds my focus. It affects my productivity. More importantly, rehashing this mistake consumes my thoughts and tarnishes the precious time that I get to spend with my family at night or on the weekend.
Have you made a recent personal or professional decision that you regret? Are you beating yourself up about it? Has it been more than a few hours since you did it?
As a Peak Performance coach to the elite, I teach the importance of holding people accountable (see Principle #8 in 8 Ways to Great: Peak Performance On the Job and In Your Life) so I decided, I need to practice what I preach and hold myself accountable as well. This blog is my testimonial and game plan to get myself out of my funk. Hopefully, you'll find something here to help you if you find yourself in that place as well.
Dr. Doug's Self-Coaching Process
I am thinking back through the details of the situation to figure out what activated the proverbial trigger inside me. My mistake was to react and speak before I reflected objectively about the situation. Why did I jump the gun and explode? The easy answer is that I am human and my buttons got pushed. But that still doesn't resolve the situation. Yes, it is the truth but greatness is about learning, maintaining focus and high levels of self-awareness. Just having this knowledge will alert me next time when I'm about to do something I'll later regret. Because I've felt like this before, I clearly know what this trigger is like and here are the symptoms I need to pay attention to:
-It's starts when I get in a frame of mind where I feel I have to do things very quickly and urgently.
-I feel overwhelmed and try to do too much, too fast.
-I get a tight feeling in my chest and my shoulders start to shrug.
-While I end up getting to all of the things on my to-do list, I am not as careful about my decisions while making them.
Maybe you've felt this same way before during a departmental meeting or during a one-on-one with your boss. Or maybe you've felt like this while working at your desk or while walking through a clients office during a long road trip. For each of us, it's different.
For me, the perceived benefits of doing everything - of doing all the work, making all the phone calls, and answering all the emails - are outweighed by the damage I do by getting emotional or losing control of the process.
So what's that trigger like for you? I encourage you to hold yourself accountable like I have just done. I've put it in this blog, thus exposing myself to the criticism and the feedback of all who read it. If you want to be held accountable, feel free to email me your triggers. As I point out in Principle #2 of 8 Ways To Great, self-awareness is the key to achieving greatness.
Now that we have awareness, it is time to put a plan in place to modify the behavior. Here is my plan.
Make a Plan and Take Action: Solutions for Dr. Doug
I'm tired of repeating my same mistake and will modify my behavior so that I can take my game to the next level. Here's what I plan to do:
-The next time I feel this overwhelmed or emotional, I am going to force myself to take a 5 - 10 minute break and take a walk outside.
-If, when I get back, I still feel this sense of urgency, I will reach out to a trusted person to discuss the situation with, my thoughts about it, and my potential actions.
-I will then describe the situation in my self-improvement log. Specifically, I will note what the situation was, what I did right, what I did wrong, and what I am going to do differently next time.
Thank you all for holding me accountable.
Dr. Doug Hirschhorn
