Postponing Is Not an Option When You Decide to Shed Your Skin
The famous creator of the automobile brand Ford, Henry Ford, in order that the company might become more productive, decided to divide the assembly line into 84 distinct steps and each worker was trained to do one of these steps. Everyone did a single task, which they could not trade for another that they liked more, left with no chance to postpone those that they found to be less pleasant.
But this method led to workers leaving the company, for they were falling into a routine and becoming bored. Effectively, they couldn’t bear to be unable to put off those activities that they didn’t enjoy.
We postpone the things we have to do for many reasons: laziness, fear of stepping outside our comfort zones, stress stemming from routine. But when we have decided to change our lives, to shed our skin, we cannot leave anything for tomorrow; we cannot allow ourselves to postpone our happiness.
“There is not past, no future; everything flows in an eternal present.”
-James Joyce-
Postponing tasks implies a behavior that can create anxiety about all the things we stop doing. The reason why we postpone certain activities is that we associate the task with something uncomfortable, with a change or a challenge. So then we judge that task as boring, difficult, impossible, or simply uncomfortable, which gives us the perfect excuse to avoid the responsibility.
Stepping outside your comfort zone means not postponing
Coaching techniques are an excellent way to help ourselves step outside our comfort zones. They require us not to postpone anything, they require following steps to achieve a goal and that each step be achieved, because in the end, what is at stake is making a dream, a life or professional goal a reality.
In coaching, the comfort zone refers to a set of limits that each one of us imposes upon ourselves and which we confuse with the frame of our existence. We get comfortable in a certain way of life, refusing to take our own initiatives to regain control over our existence. Throughout a coaching process, which tends to be short, sweet, and to the point, a coach can help us to step outside that comfort zone with a series of techniques.
Our comfort zone is often defined by the things that we like and that we do not like, which is why one of the first exercises to define that comfort zone and avoid delaying our actions is to make a list with the things that we do not like and that we have to go through in some way.
“There is a driving force more powerful than steam, electricity, and nuclear power: the will.”
-Albert Einstein-
For example, if you do not like to speak in public, maybe it is good for you to do a little test and speak in front of a few people. Maybe this will not bring you any direct benefit, but it will be an important step towards getting out of your comfort zone. It is a matter of trying little things that make us feel a certain discomfort, because that discomfort is a clear sign that we are stepping outside our comfort zone.
Therefore, if we set a life or professional goal, it is necessary for us to have the courage to overcome that discomfort, not to postpone things. For this, the support of a coach is of great help because he will guide us on our way and will strengthen us the moment we pass the threshold of our comfort zone.
Why do we postpone?
Since we were small, we have been taught that we have to work hard, make sacrifices, and accept our destiny. This is how a comfort zone is created, which has the side effect of generating fear towards certain situations or aspects that are outside the norms we were taught as children. Fear is one of the reasons why we postpone all of the things we supposedly “do not like” and why we have to go through them to realize our dreams.
“Never let doubt paralyze your action. Always make the decisions you need to make, even when you are not sure or don’t know for certain that you are deciding correctly.”
-Paulo Coelho-
Achieving a dream implies starting to dream, setting a deadline to accomplish certain steps, and working to achieve it. This is exactly what coaching teaches us. It is about establishing a concrete and defined goal.
It is a matter of tackling it, little by little and with appropriate breaks, in such a away that we can rest, but we can also take advantage of the motivation of pursuing our goals. The fact that we procrastinate or postpone tasks is exactly what puts a halt to that motivation or inertia, which we cannot allow in most cases.