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What’s a progress killer? You know, those often self-sabotaging cycles we find ourselves in where our forward progress doesn’t seem to be moving forward, yet you can’t quite put your finger on why.
How do you push past progress killers? By recognizing them, committing to do something about them and persevering past them. Perfectionism Have you ever worked on a project that you were passionate about, and you just want to get every aspect of that project correct and in its rightful place before you share it with the public or your customers? That’s perfectionism. The problem is you end up making changes and updates continuously that you never can feel finished with whatever your pouring over. The result is that no one benefits from your hard work and passion. Set deadlines. Set a date, and work on the project as much as you want, but when that deadline date arrives you have to be done with the project. This can help to push past the never-ending perfectionism loop of constantly tweaking things to the point that they’re never done or ready for a larger audience than yourself. Analysis Paralysis This is when you gather research and information to build understanding and possibly a plan of attack. This happens with a lot of creative professionals who are interested in taking their passion and craft and turning it into a product or service to sell. Those individuals then become entrepreneurs. Often, they’ll research all about business models and marketing and pricing structures, but never take the leap to actually offer their product or service to anyone who might potentially be interested in buying it. They get stuck in the research or information gathering stage that they don’t ever get to the action stage where the rubber actually hits the road. Again, a helpful technique here is to use deadlines. Set a timeframe in which you plan to research and gather information. By the time your deadline arrives you should be working toward some sort of conclusion or summary of your findings. To take this further, what you could do is: as you reach your designated deadline you plan an action step as the next phase beyond your research, but based on the information you found. In other words, create a deadline for gathering your information, then commit to an action that applies the information you just gathered. Procrastination Procrastination likely needs no introduction. Essentially, this is putting off what needs to be done, usually because it’s something you don’t like to do, or have little interest in. The problem is you still need to compile and pay your taxes every April 15th, so waiting until that last minute to scramble and get things done leaves one very anxious and invites error in oversight due to one’s haste. For procrastination, the best solution I’ve been able to come up with is to outsource what you don’t like to do or have little interest in to ensure that stuff gets done at a professional quality level and in a timely fashion. For example, I hire an accountant to do my taxes each year. I could do it myself and I have, but I really don’t like it, so I outsource it and feel more at ease because I don’t have to do it, and I know they’re getting done by someone who does this for a living – meaning the work is of a higher professional level than I could ever offer. Posted by: Nick Ventuerlla Comments are closed.
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